What is Thelton Henderson?
{{complex|date=September 2023}} {{Infobox Judge | name = Thelton Eugene Henderson | image = Thelton Henderson Senior District Judge.jpg | imagesize = 175px | caption = | office = Judge of the [[United States District Court for the Northern District of California]] | termstart = June 30, 1980 | termend = November 28, 1998 | appointer = [[Jimmy Carter]] | predecessor = [[Cecil F. Poole]] | successor = [[William Haskell Alsup]] | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1933|11|28}} | birth_place = [[Shreveport, Louisiana]] | death_date = | death_place = | alma_mater = [[University of California, Berkeley]] <small>([[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]])</small><br/>[[University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law]] <small>([[Juris Doctor|J.D.]])</small> }} '''Thelton Eugene Henderson''' (born November 28, 1933,<ref name=recorder_20050809>Chorney, Jeff. [http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?hubtype=&id=900005434491&Judicial_Profile_Thelton_Henderson Judicial Profile: Thelton Henderson] ''The Recorder'', August 9, 2005. Retrieved January 16, 2011.</ref> [[Shreveport, Louisiana]]) is a [[federal judge]] in the [[United States District Court for the Northern District of California|Northern District of California]]. He has played an important role in civil rights as a lawyer, educator, and jurist. ==Career== Henderson received his undergraduate and law degrees from [[University of California, Berkeley]]. In 1962, he became the [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s first [[African-American]] lawyer in the [[United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division|Civil Rights Division]]. He was sent to the South to monitor local law enforcement for any civil rights abuses, a role that included investigating the 1963 [[16th Street Baptist Church bombing]] which killed four girls. In this capacity, he met [[Martin Luther King]] and other leaders of the [[Civil Rights Movement]], after winning over their initial skepticism of bei