U. W. Clemon

U. W. Clemon (born April 9, 1943) is an Alabama attorney in private practice and a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. He was among the first ten African-American lawyers admitted to the Alabama bar. In 1974 he was one of the first two African Americans elected to the Alabama Senate since Reconstruction. Education and career Born in Fairfield, Alabama, to sharecropper parents, Clemon received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the historically black Miles College in 1965. Unable to attend the still segregated University of Alabama, he received a payment from the State of Alabama to attend Columbia University in New York. He received a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in 1968. He worked in the New York office of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 1968 to 1969 and was in private practice of law in Birmingham, Alabama from 1969 to 1980. He was a member of the Alabama Senate from 1975 to 1980 as a Democrat. Notable service Clemon practiced civil rights law for twelve years. For example, he handled school desegregation cases throughout North Alabama. In Singleton vs. Jackson School District, a Federal Appeals Court approved, for the first time, a desegregation order that set out numeric ratios for black and white children in schools and required school officials to regularly report to the court their progress toward integration. That case set a precedent and standard for school desegregation cases nationally. In 1969, Clemon sued coach Paul "Bear" Bryant in order to desegregate the University of Alabama's football team. He brought employment discrimination cases against some of the largest employers in Alabama.