Jack Greenberg

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Jack Greenberg (December 22, 1924 – October 12, 2016) was an American lawyer and scholar who led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) from 1961 to 1984, taking over after Thurgood Marshall. He argued 40 civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and won most of them. One of his most notable efforts was as co-counsel with Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which ended racial segregation in public schools. He also helped advance other landmark cases, including Meredith v. Fair (1962), which supported the integration of the University of Mississippi, Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education (1969) to end segregation in schools “at once,” Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) addressing discriminatory employment tests, and Furman v. Georgia (1972) concerning the death penalty. Greenberg was a founding member of both MALDEF and Human Rights Watch.

Born in New York City to a Jewish family, Greenberg was the brother of science journalist Daniel S. Greenberg. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, fighting at Okinawa and Iwo Jima, where he witnessed discrimination firsthand and stood up for a mistreated Black crewman. He earned a B.A. from Columbia College in 1945 and an LL.B. from Columbia Law School in 1948, later receiving an honorary LL.D. in 1984. He became the only white attorney at LDF in 1949 and led the organization for over two decades.

Greenberg recalled his first Supreme Court arguments as a powerful, almost religious experience. After leaving LDF in 1984, he joined Columbia Law School as a professor and Vice Dean, and he served as Dean of Columbia College from 1989 to 1993. His teaching covered constitutional and civil rights law, human rights, civil procedure, and other topics. He held various visiting professorships around the world and wrote on law and civil rights, including a cookbook co-authored with Harvard’s James Vorenberg and work editing Franz Kafka: The Office Writings. He was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for his lifelong civil rights work. Greenberg died in New York City at the age of 91.