On June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court Historical Society and the Historical Society for the District of Columbia Circuit co-sponsored a Juneteenth program about the remarkable life and legacy of Judge William Benson Bryant. The full recording of the webinar is now available on the Supreme Court Historical Society’s YouTube channel. It and includes sixty minutes full of stories and observations about this remarkable man. This article only touches the surface. Check out the full webinar here.
Among Judge Bryant’s many career accomplishments, in the early 1950s he was the first black Assistant United States Attorney to practice in the federal court. In 1965 he was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, just the fifth black judge ever to receive such a federal court appointment and the second black judge on the D.C. District Court. Judge Bryant served as Chief Judge of the District Court from 1977 to 1981, and remained on the Court until his death in 2005.
James Duff, Executive Director of the Supreme Court Historical Society, introduced the program, noting that it was prompted by the excellent new biography, Soul of the Court: The Trailblazing Life of Judge William Benson Bryant Sr., commissioned by the Historical Society for the District of Columbia Circuit and written by Tonya Bolden. The panel discussion, conducted over Zoom, was led by Roger A. Fairfax, Dean of Judge Bryant’s alma mater, Howard University School of Law. Dean Fairfax was joined by William B. Schultz, partner at Zuckerman Spaeder who both clerked for Judge Bryant and took his oral history, and by Michelle Coles, a Howard Law School graduate, former Department of Justice attorney, and award-winning black history novelist.
Dean Fairfax asked the panelists to begin with insights on Judge Bryant’s upbringing and education. Michelle Coles observed that, overall, Judge Bryant’s lifetime, spanning ninety-five years from 1911 to 2005, cover the full expanse of the Twentieth Century experience of blacks in America, from the Jim Crow era through the passage of the Civil Rights Acts, and beyond. Bill Schultz noted that the Bryant family first came to the District of Columbia when Judge Bryant’s maternal grandfather disguised himself and fled a lynching mob in Alabama after the grandfather shooed several white boys from his store who had been harassing his daughters. The family followed, including eleven-month-old Bill Bryant and his mother. Judge Bryant was educated in the segregated public schools of the District of Columbia through the 1920s. That segregation had the unintended benefit of offering him outstanding, accomplished black high school teachers, who lacked other opportunities for themselves. Through his early education, Bill Bryant set his own ambition to attend law school. A legal career, however, was not a path his family supported. Opportunities for black lawyers to earn a living from paying clients was not seen as realistic. But Bill Bryant followed his own instincts, and after completing college at Howard University, he went on to enroll at its law school.
The concerns of Judge Bryant’s family were not unfounded. It was more than twelve years after graduating at the top of the Class of 1936 before Bill Bryant was able to start the active practice of law. He took odd jobs at first. Then an opportunity arose, not to practice law, but to do research with Ralph Bunche, a prominent Howard University professor, that was eventually was included in the 1944 Myrdal study, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. But after service in the Army during World War II, and another position thereafter as a researcher on civil rights issues, in 1948, Bill Bryant opened his own law practice. Within a few years, he was hired by the United States Attorney’s Office where the few black lawyers who had preceded him were limited to trying cases in the local D.C. courts. But, Bill Bryant proved to be a brilliant trial lawyer, and his skill at cross-examination was particularly noteworthy. His talent and his tenacity led to his trailblazing accomplishment, noted above, as the first black Assistant United States Attorney to try cases in the federal court. Bill Bryant returned to private practice as a criminal defense lawyer after leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office, skilled at both trial and appellate work. Court appointments also led to an active pro bono practice, including the landmark case of Mallory v. United States, which he litigated from trial to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Mallory the Supreme Court overturned the conviction by a vote of 9-0 on the ground that the defendant’s confession was obtained unlawfully. The recording of the oral argument is available on Oyez. In listening to it, Bill Schultz shared, he was struck by the understated confidence and command of the facts exhibited by Judge Bryant in what was his first Supreme Court argument. Michelle Coles emphasized that Judge Bryant’s argument in Mallory has been included in a list of the most influential arguments before the Supreme Court.
With respect to Judge Bryant’s time on the bench, the panelists offered their observations on Judge Bryant’s commitment to justice and his personal integrity. As Dean Fairfax noted at the outset, the Juneteenth program offered a fitting opportunity to amplify and celebrate the remarkable life and career of Judge Bryant.
The recording of the webinar is available now on the Historical Society for the District of Columbia Circuit’s YouTube Channel.