Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, or simply the Lawyers' Committee, is a civil rights organization founded in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy. When the Lawyers' Committee was created, its existence was a major change in how the bar and how local and state judiciaries were able to help oppressed racial minorities during the civil rights movement. The organization called on the private bar to bring its resources to bear on the major civil rights problems beleaguering the nation; some of its earliest leaders included Bernard G. Segal, Harrison Tweed, Lloyd Cutler, Cecil Burney, Berl Bernhard, and John Doyle. During a historic June 21, 1963 meeting at the White House, 244 lawyers filled the East Room of the White House. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to the lawyers about the discrimination he witnessed first-hand in the South and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy argued that lawyers had a unique role to play advancing civil rights for African Americans because of the oath that lawyers swore to uphold the constitution. At the end of the meeting, Bernard Segal and Harrison Tweed volunteered to lead the committee of lawyers, starting with those assembled at the