Robert L. Carter was born on March 11, 1917 in Careyville, Florida. His parents moved to New Jersey with his seven sisters and brothers when Robert was a baby, and Carter’s father died soon after. His mother worked as a maid to put her children through school. Carter grew up far from the segregated South and was an exceptional student at his school in East Orange, New Jersey—he skipped two grades to graduate early. Nevertheless, he was barred from his school’s all-white boys’ swim team.
At the age of 16, Carter landed a scholarship to Lincoln University. He graduated magna cum laude with a political science degree in 1937. Three years later he earned a law degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C. He finished his studies with a master’s in law from Columbia University in 1941.
In 1944 Carter joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund as a legal assistant to Thurgood Marshall. Many civil rights historians point out that Carter was as vital to the Brown case as Marshall, yet never received due credit. Carter shrugged those claims off, telling the New York Times, “I’m not one of those people to toot my horn well.”
He also pointed out the positive working relationship they buy viagra ghana shared. “Thurgood always wanted me to go for the outer edges of the law,” Carter told the Boston Herald. “He kept me out of politics. But he let me have my say. He wouldn’t let anyone shut me off. So if I stood up and argued, he would back me up.” Carter was also proud to receive the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.
Carter served with the NAACP from 1944 until 1968. During that time he tried cases in every state of the former southern Confederacy. He won 21 of the 22 cases he presented before the U.S. Supreme Court. He helped defeat racism in colleges, labor unions, voting laws, housing, and hiring.
FEDERAL JUDGE
Carter left the NAACP in 1968 for a try at teaching and practicing labor law with a private firm, but in 1972 he re-entered public service when President Richard Nixon appointed him a federal judge in New York City. He continued his pioneering—often controversial—work in interpreting the rights of individuals.
For instance, in 1986 he made headlines when he cited all 350 of the country’s Roman Catholic bishops for contempt of court, fining them $100,000 per day until they complied with a court order demanding documentation of their anti-abortion political activities.