At Purdue University in the 1940s, the school housed A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. and its other Black students in an unheated attic, apart from their classmates. He later described those conditions when explaining why he left for Antioch College, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1949. He completed Yale Law School in 1952.
Philadelphia's major law firms would not hire him. He instead clerked for Judge Curtis Bok of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas in 1952 and 1953, then served as an assistant district attorney. In 1954, he helped establish Norris, Schmidt, Green, Harris & Higginbotham, a Black law firm at a time when white-owned firms rarely hired Black attorneys. He also served as a special deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania.
In 1962, he became the first Black commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. Federal judicial service followed, though the appointment took more than one attempt. President John F. Kennedy nominated him to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in September 1963, but the Senate never voted on that nomination. President Lyndon Johnson gave him a recess appointment in January 1964, followed by nomination and Senate confirmation that March.
President Jimmy Carter nominated Higginbotham to the Third Circuit in 1977. He received his commission that October and later served as chief judge from 1990 to 1991. He assumed senior status in January 1991 and retired from the federal bench in March 1993.
His scholarship examined the relationship between racial oppression and legal institutions. *In the Matter of Color*, published in 1978, investigated slavery and law in colonial America. *Shades of Freedom*, published in 1996, extended his examination of the legal treatment of African Americans. At the University of Pennsylvania, he served as a trustee and adjunct professor; after leaving the bench, his work included teaching at Harvard and private practice.
Higginbotham also advised on South Africa's transition toward a new constitutional order and mentored younger lawyers. He died in Boston in December 1998. The opinions he wrote and the histories he published trace how American law both enforced and eventually helped dismantle racial exclusion.
