TO THE CHAPTER INVISIBLE
John Kenneth Lee, Jr. 1923–2018 Law School Trailblazer, Civil Rights Attorney, Past Province Polemarch
By Aaron Williams
ted in June 1951 after a lengthy lawsuit and appeal against (UNC). They also were the first African American gradu- ates from UNC when they received their J.D. degrees in 1952. Lee and his fellow plaintiffs were represented by future associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall who was the director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund at the time of the suit. During his 38-year legal career, Lee participated in over 1,700 civil rights lawsuits including the historic sit-ins at Woolworth's in the early 1960s. He was founder, president, and chairman of American Federal Savings & Loan, the second African American-owned thrift in North Carolina. Lee served on the Barber Scotia College Board of Trustees and as a member of the North Carolina Banking Commission, the Minority Business Enterprise Advisory Board, the Commission on Human Relations (Greensboro, N.C.), and the National Bar Association Hall of Fame, among other public service and honorary posi- tions. He was a founding member of the Southeastern Lawyers’ Association. He was a founding member of the North Carolina A&T Alumni Association. He also served as vice-chair of the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. In 1985, he was honored as the first Afri- can American inducted into the Greens- boro Business Leaders Hall of Fame. He is preceded in death by his parents, his wife, Nancy (nee Young) Lee and son Michael. He is survived by granddaugh- ter, Michele Bonds. The International Civil Rights Museum and Center in Greensboro archives papers and items of Brother Lee. The Southern Historical Collection at UNC contain papers related to Lee’s lawsuit to attend the university’s law school. A portrait of Lee and his four classmates resides at the UNC-Chapel Hill Law School.
cated near the South Carolina state line. He graduated from a small school with four grades that met in a Baptist church in Hamlet. He graduated as the class valedic- torian of Hamlet’s Richmond County Colored School. He attended historic North Carolina Agri- cultural and Technical (A&T) College (now University) located in Greensboro, NC. While at A&T, Lee joined the fraternity as a 1942 initiate of
A participant in one of the the state of North Carolina, J. Kenneth Lee, Jr., entered the Chapter Invisible in late July 2018 at the age of 94. “Lee is one of the law school’s great citizens of the 20 th century,” said Martin Brinkley, dean of the UNC School of Law. “His strength and commitment to justice paved the way for students, not only at the law school but at the university. His tireless work arguing civil rights cases across North Carolina created positive changes that are still felt today and will continue to be felt for years to come.” In 1963, the 17 th Grand Polemarch Richard B. Millspaugh, Esq. appointed Brother Lee as the ninth Polemarch of the Middle Eastern Province, which he led until 1964. watershed moments of the Civil Rights Movement and a key figure in the history of The 13 th of 14 children, John Kenneth Lee was born in Charlotte, NC on November 1, 1923, to Henry Franklin Lee and Sara Bell Lowdner Lee. When he was six years old, the Lee family moved to Hamlet, a small town, lo-
the at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (A&T) University Chapter, the Alpha Nu of Kappa Alpha Psi ® . He attended college year-round, howev- er left school for World War II six weeks prior to graduation. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1944 and served in the Pacific Theater as a second mate electrician on the U.S.S. Dade. He was honorably dis- charged in 1946, returned to NC A&T, and earned a B.S. degree in electrical engineering later that year. Post-gradu- ation, Lee pursued employment in the engineering field, however, he could not find a job as electrical engineer in the segregated South. He subsequently joined the faculty at this alma mater as professor of engineering prior to chang- ing direction leaving teaching engineer- ing and pursuing a law degree. Lee entered the only state law school for African-Americans at North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University) in Durham in 1949. Lee became one of the first two African Americans to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) when he and Harvey Beech were admit-
Publishing achievement for 105 years
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