Legal Legends of Color Honored at Annual Meeting

August 16, 2023

The North Carolina Bar Association honored the 2023 Legal Legends of Color (LLOC) on Thursday, June 22, at the Embassy Suites in downtown Wilmington. The eighth LLOC Awards Celebration was a featured event of the NCBA Annual Meeting.

Presented by the Legal Legends of Color Subcommittee of the NCBA Minorities in the Profession Committee, the LLOC Awards “honor attorneys and other legal professionals of color whose legacies represent ceilings broken for all attorneys who follow in their footsteps and whose impacts on the legal profession are undeniable.”

This year’s honorees were Annie Brown-Kennedy (posthumous), Pamela B. Cashwell, Brenda Ford Harding, Judge Addie Rawls and Judge Joe Webster. Abbreviated biographies of this year’s honorees follow along with portions of their acceptance remarks.

Expanded biographies and a complete listing of previous honorees are available.

Annie Brown Kennedy

A native of Atlanta, Annie Brown Kennedy was a graduate of Spelman College (1945) and Howard University School of Law (1951). She moved to Winston-Salem in 1953 to practice law with her husband, the late Harold L. Kennedy Jr., and they were later joined by their twin sons, Harold L. Kennedy III and Harvey L. Kennedy, in the firm of Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy and Kennedy, LLP.

In 1979 she became the first Black woman to serve in the General Assembly. She received numerous honors and awards, including the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, which is the highest award given to a female lawyer in the United States by the ABA. Annie Brown Kennedy died on January 17, prompting Gov. Cooper to order that all U.S. and N.C. flags in North Carolina be lowered in her honor.

Her sons accepted the award.

“I can think of about three stories I want to tell you about my mother and the impact she had on North Carolina and on so many people in this state,” Harold Kennedy said, beginning with the case of Simkins v. City of Greensboro in 1957.

“This is the very beginning of the civil rights movement. She’d only been practicing law for three years, so for the young lawyers in this room, I want to say to you that you can make a real difference in this state as a young lawyer.”

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.

“And I still can’t believe to this day that she ever won that case at the federal district court level, because this was a very segregated state in 1957. But she did win. There were, I think, about 10 African American golfers who were prohibited from playing golf on the city golf courses of Greensboro. She won the case, but the City of Greensboro appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of my mother’s clients – the golfers.”

The second case he referenced was Hogan v. Forsyth Country Club Company.

“It’s a landmark decision of the North Carolina Court of Appeals,” Harold Kennedy recalled. “The Court of Appeals allowed women to file sexual harassment cases in state court under the tort theory of intentional infliction of emotional distress. We filed a lawsuit in 1983, and the Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that women had the right to bring these cases.

“I think the court said that no woman should be treated like the plaintiff in that case without legal recourse. After that case, we actually came back and tried it in 1986 and the jury came back with a verdict of $900,000, which was the largest jury verdict in the history of Forsyth County for a tort action at the time.”

The third case Harold Kennedy referenced was Brown v. Burlington Industries, Inc.

“This was a case where we represented a woman who was the only African American female supervisor at Burlington Industries in Rockingham County, and she was sexually harassed on her job. She was married. She had two children. The plant manager demanded that she have sex with him.”

The lawsuit, he continued, was brought in Superior Court in Rockingham County.

“My mother was always very perceptive in the court room,” Harold Kennedy said. “I remember her telling me there was only one African American man on the jury, and he wore bib overalls every day to court. But he came in the last day that the jury had to go out and make the decision, and I remember my mother saying, ‘You see that man over there? He’s got a suit on today, and he’s come here to do justice today.’ And that’s what the jury did. They ruled in favor of the plaintiff in that case.

“But what I want to say about that case is my mother gave a closing argument that I will never forget because she was able to touch what women felt in terms of being sexually harassed on the job. I remember when she finished her closing argument, the women on the jury were crying. She really knew how to get the people in her closing argument.”

Opportunities for African Americans and women, Harvey Kennedy added, were very limited during Annie Brown Kennedy’s formative years.

“But from the time my mother was a young girl,” Harvey Kennedy said, “she was interested in becoming a lawyer. Her inspiration was the superintendent of her Sunday school at her church, a woman by the name of Mrs. Herndon – Rachel Elizabeth Pruden-Herndon, who was the only African American female attorney in the state of Georgia in the 1930s and ‘40s.

“My mother really looked up to Mrs. Herndon, and Mrs. Herndon became a lawyer by reading law. That was something you could do back in the old days. She worked for a lawyer for several years and then read law and passed the Georgia bar and became a lawyer in Atlanta. That was the real inspiration to my mother at a young age to become a lawyer.”

While attending Spelman College, however, the director of the career placement program dissuaded her from doing so.

“The woman told her that was not a good idea,” Harvey Kennedy said, “that there was no room in the legal profession for women, and that she should lower her goal to become a teacher. Fortunately, my mother didn’t listen to her.”

“Another person who had a big influence on her life,” Harvey Kennedy continued, “was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. My mother grew up in the same neighborhood with Martin Luther King. They lived in the old Hogue Street neighborhood in Atlanta, and they went to high school together, and my grandfather was the Rev. Mancy Brown who was an assistant pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

“Of course, the head minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church was Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., and Martin Luther King Jr. became a prominent minister at the church as well. When I would go as a kid to that church, I would see my grandfather pray and read the scripture, and Martin Luther King Sr. would preside. But the real treat was when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would preach. I’ve never seen a more effective or a greater preacher than Martin Luther King Jr. He was just tremendous, and really was just very moving. But my mother remained a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. until he died.”

Thurgood Marshall also made a lasting impression on Annie Brown Kennedy.

“There were only four women in my mother’s law school class at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., and back in that time it was very, very difficult to get into Howard Law School because you had a lot of men coming back from World War II, so the competition was very fierce to get into that law school.

“But my mother would tell me about Thurgood Marshall. When he would argue a major case at the U.S. Supreme Court, he would come to Howard Law School for mock argument and the entire law school would turn out to hear him. Of course, he was a tremendous orator and a tremendous appellate advocate. The law professors at Howard Law School would act as the Supreme Court justices, and they would ask very tough questions. Thurgood Marshall used to say that after going through the difficult questions and just being in the presence at Howard Law School of those law professors and students, that he always felt so prepared when he went to the U.S. Supreme Court to make those arguments.”

While she was in law school, Annie Brown Kennedy also had the good fortune of meeting Mary McLeod Bethune.

“She was the founder and president of Bethune-Cookman College,” Harvey Kennedy said. “She was a senior advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt, and held all the prominent positions. But my mother was fortunate when she was a student at Howard Law School to have lunch with Mary McLeod Bethune once every month.

“The woman that my mother lived in a home with, a woman who would take in one law student each year, was a very close friend of Mary McLeod Bethune. So my mother had an opportunity to really not only meet or get to know her, but to have lunch with her once a month during the entirety of her law school experience.”

Pamela B. Cashwell

Pamela Brewington Cashwell has served as Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Administration since April 2021. She hails from the Coharie and Lumbee tribes of North Carolina and is the first American Indian woman to lead a cabinet department in the state’s history.

Cashwell previously served as Senior Policy Advisor and Chief Deputy Secretary for Professional Standards, Policy and Planning at the N.C. Department of Public Safety and as Assistant Director of the N.C. State Ethics Commission. She holds a B.A. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a J.D. from the UNC School of Law. Cashwell lives in Wake County with her husband, David, and two sons, Samuel and Benjamin.

“I’m not going to paint my resume because you just heard about my career,” Secretary Cashwell said following her introduction, “but I want to take just a few minutes to thank a few folks who have helped me get to this place and time. First, the Legal Legends of Color Subcommittee, thank you all very much. I’m grateful that you deemed me worthy of this.

“And the other honorees – oh my goodness, I am so honored to be recognized with you. You’re amazing, and I feel humbled to be recognized with you.”

Cashwell said that she stands on the shoulders of those who have come before her, native and non-native American alike, including previous LLOC honorees Arlinda Locklear and Julian Pierce, and many women who have shattered countless “glass ceilings” along the way.

“I’m humbled to receive this,” Cashwell said. “I’m incredibly grateful to Governor Cooper for his leadership in this state and for seeing in me a leader who could be a part of his administration. I’m incredibly honored to be a part of his cabinet. It requires intentionality, and I respect him so much for being intentional about having a cabinet that reflects the people of North Carolina.

“It’s so important, and it’s one of the things that I am most proud of – just being a voice at the table. I know so many people in this room sit on many boards and commissions and various ways in which you serve your communities and being a voice for women and people of color and people who may not have your same lived experience is so important. It is why we are where we are today, so I thank Governor Cooper.

Cashwell closed by thanking her family.

“I wouldn’t be here without my amazing parents who pushed me to be more,” Cashwell said. “(They) told me that I could do anything that I wanted to do and how to work really hard. And I have worked hard. I’ve worked very hard because I always felt like I had to prove that I was worthy of being in every role that I’ve been in. So I am grateful to them.

“And, finally, my husband is amazing. My sons are amazing. They support me and lift me and give me the space to do what I do, which is often work really long hours and be away from home a lot. And I could not do that without their support.”

Brenda Ford Harding

Attorney Brenda Ford Harding is a native of Durham who earned her B.S. degree in Biology in 1976 from Boston University and her J.D. degree in 1979 from UNC School of Law, where she earned the national Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship for Community Lawyers. After working with East Carolina Legal Services in Wilson, Harding returned to Durham to serve as Executive Director of the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers Land Loss Prevention Project and as Acting Director of the Civil Litigation Project and an Adjunct Professor at NCCU School of Law.

After serving as Executive Director of North State Legal Services in Hillsborough, she moved to Washington, D.C., to become Deputy Director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and later served as Executive Director of Neighborhood Legal Services. Harding returned to Durham in 2012 and came out of retirement in 2018 at the request of incoming Durham Country District Attorney Satana DeBerry to serve as the Deputy Chief for Legal and Community Affairs. Harding resides in Durham with her husband, Robert Harding, and is the mother of three children and the grandmother of four granddaughters.

“I got to this point because a lot of people helped me through this,” Brenda Ford Harding said in accepting her award. “I was always smart, but I needed a village. I had a quick temper. I had to fight for a lot of stuff.”

Harding recognized family, friends, sorority sisters and colleagues who were in attendance for the event, including daughter Jasmine McGhee, who serves as Senior Deputy Attorney General and Director of the Consumer Protection Division at the North Carolina Department of Justice.

“I can think of so many things to say tonight,” Harding said, “but one of my greatest joys is my daughter ‘Jazz.’”

Harding also paid special tribute to her grandmother, Neomiea Roberts, whom she described as “a person who couldn’t read or write, but she made sure all of us got an education. My siblings were quieter than I was. My oldest sister, who I think is an angel, was always taking the things that I should take because I was always slipping out of the house and talking too much, and keeping on being a lawyer before I was a lawyer.”

Her father’s side of the family, Harding added, “gave me the spirit to fight” and to “fight for justice,” and her mother’s side of the family gave her “the spirit to become educated.”

“And I continue to fight for justice! I am just so full tonight. Thank you for this award.”

Judge Addie Rawls

Judge Addie Rawls hails from Washington, N.C., where she attained the highest grade point average in her high school graduation class and proceeded to Wake Forest University as a George Foster Hankins Scholar. Rawls earned her law degree from North Carolina Central University School of Law, where she was a Board of Governors Scholar and graduated cum laude. She began her legal career as a law clerk at the N.C. Court of Appeals and in 1991 began working in the Eleventh Prosecutorial District (Harnett, Johnston and Lee counties) as its first African American Assistant District Attorney.

Rawls served in that position for over 10 years prior to her appointment as a District Court judge in 2002. The first elected African American judge for the Eleventh Judicial District, she served five terms prior to her retirement in January 2022 following 20 years on the bench and more than 32 years of combined service to the State of North Carolina. Rawls, who holds a master’s degree in Theological Studies from Lexington Theological Seminary, serves as senior pastor at New Generation Christian Church.

“So many memories flood at this moment of time as I think about, here I am now, 32 years later, and I have been recognized,” Judge Rawls stated in accepting her award. She thanked her husband, daughters, colleagues and church members for joining in this celebration of her remarkable career.

“When I think about attending law school,” Rawls said, “and realizing that the first book I’ve got to write needs to reflect upon the fact the free lunch ain’t really free, I started taking notes on that. We have so much to give and to give back. We’re never comfortable just sitting back. I continue to serve as an emergency judge and spend a lot of time in Wake County, and I continue to share within our communities.

“My passion has been our young people – to change them, to challenge them, to reflect that they don’t just need to see the end product, but they need to know the story that’s behind what we think is the glory. I take the time to tell them that. And we’ve heard that consistent with all our honorees, that we simply could say if it had not been for the Lord on our side, we would not be where we are today.”

The journey, she added, is far from complete.

“So many doors have been opened for us, each of us, I believe, feels an obligation to continue to hold that door open for someone else. This past week we had our judges’ conference, and while I was there, one of the young ladies stood up when we were having lunch together as the judges of color and said, ‘We need to be mindful of our obligation to mentor and to help others,’ and I understand that.

“I was mentored by great people throughout my career, and I feel the same obligation to continue to mentor others to be the best person that they can truly be as we walk and maneuver in life. Things have changed, things are different, but we’ve come a long way, and we’ve gone a long way backwards.”

It is important, Rawls added, for those who embrace the law to be champions of justice, fairness and equality.

“One judge – a new judge – said to us, ‘I’m unapologetically me,’ and that’s important. Even when we say we have these positions, when I say ‘I’m the first of this and first of that,’ that we understand that who we are and whose we are and we continue to move forward in doing the things we need to do.”

Rawls closed by thanking the Minorities in the Profession Committee for honoring the Legal Legends of Color.

“Thank you for taking the time to appreciate what we have done,” Rawls said. “But it simply says there is more for us to do. I tell you like this: I’ve been running a long time, but I’m not tired yet, so we need to go forward.

“Thank you so very much.”

Judge Joe Webster

Judge Joe Webster grew up in and around Madison and graduated from high school there in 1972. He is a 1976 graduate of Howard University (magna cum laude) and 1979 graduate of Howard University School of Law. Webster also earned the Master of Laws degree in Judicial Studies from Duke University School of Law in 2016. Following law school, Webster was selected as a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow and joined Legal Services of Southern Piedmont in Charlotte. A year later he became the first African American attorney to practice law in Madison and remained in general practice there for 25 years.

Webster was appointed as an administrative law judge in the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings in 2006 and in 2012 became the first African American U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Middle District of North Carolina, where he continues to serve.

An early chair of the NCBA Minorities in the Profession Committee, Webster currently serves on the NCBA Board of Governors and NCBF Board of Directors and was the second recipient of the NCBA Pro Bono Service Award in 1985. He is also an author, whose “The Making and Measure of a Judge: Biography of The Honorable Sammie Chess Jr.” chronicles the life and career of the late Legal Legends of Color honoree, and an ordained minister who serves as an Associate Minister at Oberlin Baptist Church in Raleigh. He and his wife of 43 years, Diane, have three children and seven grandchildren.

“I’m so honored to be here this evening to accept this award,” Judge Webster said. “I want to say first that I’m thankful and grateful for the one that woke me up this morning, because without him, I would be nothing. I would be like a ‘ship without a sail.’ I thank my wife and family members, friends and legal colleagues who have traveled from afar.

“I thank them not only for their sacrifices in traveling from distant places, but also for their love, forgiveness and patience with me as I sought to make a difference in my dual callings of law and ministry.”

Webster shared a poignant memory from 1985, when he and his wife were invited to the NCBA Annual Meeting in Asheville.

“It was to receive the Pro Bono Service Award, and Diane, you may remember differently, but I’m not even sure I saw any other Black folks there. So, as I look out into the audience and see how times have changed, that’s such a great, great blessing.”

Webster geared a portion of his remarks to the young lawyers in attendance.

“As I have tried to do in my career,” Webster said, “you need to stand on the shoulders of those legends like the late Honorable Sammy Chess Jr., the late Julius Chambers, the late Annie Brown Kennedy, Henry Frye, and others who have received this award. Three of these named legends have passed on, but you still need to study their history and learn from them. You will learn that it takes courage to be an attorney.

“It takes courage to be a judge and one who is deeply respected in their communities, not because they drove nice automobiles or lived in big houses, but because of the content of their character. Their moral compasses were untainted. They stood for truth, compassion for those less fortunate, and sought at all costs equal justice under law, and what is so important today, adherence to the rule of law. There is a need more than ever for you to stand up for the rule of law.”

And lead.

“I’m begging our young lawyers, and really all of you present this evening, to do all you can to promote peace, harmony and tolerance among the races, different cultures, genders, and other communities that feel marginalized and wounded by the actions of our state, nation, organizations and others.

“It is only through getting to know and understand one another that the objective of reconciliation can be achieved. I warn both young and old lawyers that you need to work while it’s day, because when night comes, your steps will be shorter, your eyesight not as clear, your mind not as sharp, and your energy level not as strong. But if you do this, then others will know by your actions that you love them, and that you see them as equals.”

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Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.

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