Oscar William Adams Jr. (February 7, 1925 – February 15, 1997) was the first African-American Alabama Supreme Court justice and the first African American elected to statewide office in Alabama (including the Reconstruction era ).
5-807: Oscar William Adams Sr. (October 24, 1882 – May 14, 1946) was a journalist and publisher in the United States. He published the Birmingham Reporter . His son Oscar William Adams Jr. became an Alabama Supreme Court Justice. He was from Gulfcrest, Alabama . Adams and his brother Frank were members of the Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia . He graduated from Normal A&M College in Normal, Alabama. The Birmingham Reporter newspaper in Birmingham, Alabama served
10-745: The 1960s and 1970s. Adams was appointed to the Alabama Supreme Court on October 10, 1980, by Governor Fob James . He won re-election in 1982 and 1988. He taught classes in appellate and trial advocacy at Samford University 's Cumberland School of Law . He retired from the bench on October 31, 1993, in order to spend time writing a memoir. Governor Folsom appointed Ralph Cook to finish his term. Adams married Willa Ingersoll in 1949, with whom he fathered three children (Gail, Oscar III and Frank). Willa died in 1982 of breast cancer, and Adams later remarried. Adams died from an infection related to cancer at Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham at age 72. He
15-580: The African American community. It was the official newspaper of various fraternal organizations. Oscar W. Adams was its editor. This biography of an American publisher is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Oscar William Adams Jr. Adams was born in Birmingham, Alabama to Oscar William Adams Sr. (editor of the Birmingham Reporter ) and Ella Virginia Eaton. Adams
20-592: Was a 1940 graduate of A. H. Parker High School . He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in philosophy at Talladega College in 1944, and a Juris Doctor degree at Howard University in Washington D. C. in 1947. He was admitted to the Alabama Bar that year and launched a private practice, specializing in civil rights cases, often on behalf of Fred Shuttlesworth 's Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights based in Birmingham. During 1963's Birmingham Campaign , Adams
25-578: Was a member of the Central Committee that met at the A. G. Gaston Motel to plan demonstrations. In 1966, Adams was the first African American to join the Birmingham Bar Association. In 1967, he partnered with white attorney Harvey Burg to form the state's first integrated legal practice. The firm he later founded with James Baker and U. W. Clemon (Adams, Baker and Clemon) was one of the foremost law firms to litigate Civil Rights cases in
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