Harvard Law School reports that Charles Ogletree, a professor and civil rights lawyer who mentored the Obamas and defended clients like Anita Hill, Tupac Shakur, and the victims of the 1921 Tulsa race riots, passed away on Friday.
He was 70. The school said that Alzheimer’s disease was the reason of death.
Ogletree, a 1952-year-old lawyer, earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1978 and then practiced law for the District of Columbia Public Defender Service before going back to the school as a professor in 1984, according to Harvard. As “Tree,” he established the law school’s Criminal Justice Institute and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, according to a statement from Dean John F. Manning.
“Charles was a devoted supporter of social justice, civil rights, equality, and human decency. He significantly altered the course of history, and his loss will be felt by all, according to Manning.
According to Harvard, Ogletree defended a number of well-known clients, including Hill who accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during Thomas’ nomination hearings for the Supreme Court. also defended his colleague Henry Louis Gates Jr. during his contentious 2009 arrest at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also represented the rapper Tupac in legal matters.
When he founded the Reparations Coordinating Committee, a group of attorneys, academics, and government representatives who filed lawsuits on behalf of those who had been the victims of racism and slavery, Ogletree also rose to prominence as one of the leading legal advocates for reparations. He represented the survivors and descendants of the victims of the 1921 Tulsa race riots in a lawsuit seeking restitution in the early 2000s alongside Johnnie Cochran and other lawyers.
Even though the lawsuit was ultimately rejected, it contributed to reviving interest in the riots and the bigger reparations problem.
“Very few of us possess a clear sense of the actual tragic events that led to the death & destruction of millions of Africans just being transported from Africa to the United States,” Ogletree stated in an interview with the Harvard Law Bulletin in 2001. It is, in some ways, just as awful as the Holocaust, but it has gotten far less attention.
There hasn’t been a decade where the cycle of prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination has gone unbroken, he continued. To the same extent that you can discuss Jim Crow legislation and de jure and de facto desegregation in the 19th century, you can also discuss racial profiling, the discriminatory death penalty, and disparities in sentencing in the twenty-first century.
In a statement released on Saturday, Barack and Michelle Obama paid tribute to Ogletree, praising him for being “consistently helpful and motivated by a genuine concern for others.”
In addition, Ogletree founded the Harvard Law School Saturday School program, which Barack Obama referred to as being “for Black students who didn’t necessarily have the support systems at home” to help them succeed in law school. According to Obama, it ultimately got to the point that students from various backgrounds started coming to hear Ogletree.
Following his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease, Ogletree departed from Harvard Law School in 2020, according to Harvard. According to Harvard, the man passed away from the illness on August 4 at his home in Odenton, Maryland.
Following his diagnosis, according to the Obamas, Ogletree sought to raise awareness of the condition, especially among people of color, and “wanted to be a spokesperson for the disease.”
The dean, Manning, praised Ogletree for his “bravery and openness” regarding “the illness with that he struggled in his final years.”
“He had a way of teaching that was powerful, decent, and giving – that without judgment helped you edge generally a little closer to the best version of yourself,” Manning said. He also had a way of educating his friends.
We are incredibly appreciative of Charles’ numerous contributions to Harvard Law School as well as the enormous impact he left regarding issues of racial justice and equality.