• Founder and President Emerita of the Children's Defense Fund, established in 1973.
• First African-American woman admitted to The Mississippi Bar in 1964.
• Practiced law with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund's Mississippi office.
• Helped establish the Head Start program.
• Contributed to the organizing of the Poor People's Campaign of Martin Luther King Jr.
• Elected the first Black woman on the Yale board of trustees in 1971.
• Graduated valedictorian from Spelman College and earned a Bachelor of Laws from Yale Law School in 1963.

Biography