ABOUT THE CONFERENCE There are certain people in the world who
leave an indelible mark upon the hearts and minds of a nation.
The Honorable A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. was one of those people.
Leon Higginbotham was born Feb. 25, 1928, in Trenton, N.J. He
received a bachelor's degree from Antioch College and a law
degree at Yale Law School in 1952, and eventually became that
school's first black trustee. John F. Kennedy appointed him to
the Federal Trade Commission in 1962, making him the first black
person on the panel. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson appointed
him to the commission that investigated the urban riots of the
Sixties. The resulting Kerner Report blamed the violence on a
growing polarization between blacks was first appointed to the
federal bench in 1961. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter elevated
him to the 3rd Circuit, which handles cases from Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands. When he retired in
1993, Higginbotham was Chief Judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals i