Judge L. Clifford Davis, the civil rights lawyer who fought to desegregate North Texas school districts before becoming the first Black judge in Tarrant County, died Saturday at age 100.
He was born in Wilton, Arkansas, but in his adult life, Davis would make his mark on North Texas history.
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WATCH HEREDavis was admitted into the University of Arkansas Law School in 1947, but on the condition that he could not go into any room where white students were present. He received his law degree in 1949 from Howard University in Washington, D.C. and returned to Arkansas to practice law.
A few years later, he took the Texas Bar and in 1954 he became one of only two African American attorneys in Fort Worth. In 1956, Davis filed a federal lawsuit which would eventually result in the integration of Mansfield public schools. It was a victory on paper, but because so many white students threatened violence, the integration didn’t happen immediately.
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Davis is also credited for working with the late Justice Thurgood Marshall on “Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas.” It was a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court making racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
Then, in 1959, he won another lawsuit, forcing the integration of Fort Worth schools.
He has been credited with forming the Fort Worth Black Bar Association in 1977.
Davis was the first Black judge to be elected in Tarrant County.
He was awarded the highest honor given by the Tarrant County Bar Association, the Blackstone Award. He was also named to the National Bar Association Hall of Fame.
Ironically, in 2017, he received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Arkansas, the same school that put stipulations on his attendance.
Tarrant County Commissioner Roderick Miles, Jr. issues a statement on Davis' passing that read in part:
"Today, our community, our state, and our nation have lost a giant in the struggle for justice. Judge Clifford Davis did not merely practice law, he wielded it as a tool to bend the arc of history toward righteousness. With unshakable courage and conviction, he stood in the face of segregation, inequality, and injustice, ensuring that the words 'life, liberty, and justice for all' were not just ideals, but realities for generations to come."
An elementary school on Campus Drive in Fort Worth bears his name.
Bobbie Edmonds, an attorney and North Texas author, penned a children's book about Davis entitled, "I Want To Be Like Him: The Life And Accomplishments Of A Remarkable Man: Award-Winning Retired Senior Judge L. Clifford Davis."
