Pioneering civil rights attorney James Ferguson II dies

DANIEL COSTON | THE CHARLOTTE POST

James Ferguson II, who along with law partner Julius Chambers successfully argued for busing as a tool to desegregate public schools in the 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education decision, has died at age 82. Mr. Ferguson launched North Carolina's first multiracial law firm in 1967 with Chambers and Adam Stein.

James Ferguson II, a civil rights attorney whose legal victories included the use of busing to desegregate public schools, has died at age 82.

Mr. Ferguson, along with law partner Julius Chambers, successfully argued the historic 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education case that opened the door for busing as a tool to desegregate public school campuses. The United States Supreme Court sided with Darius and Vera Swann, who argued the school district was not doing enough to desegregate its campuses.

During the case, Ferguson’s law office was set ablaze by an arsonist.

“I just want to feel that I’ve done all I can do to bring about equality – for everybody,” Ferguson told The Post in 2016. “That’s what life is about – trying to create the society we think we want.”

Mr. Ferguson, who opened a one-man practice on East Trade Street in 1964, joined forces with Chambers and Adam Stein three years later to launch North Carolina’s first multiracial law firm, Ferguson Stein Chambers. The firm is now known as Ferguson Chambers & Sumter. Among Mr. Ferguson’s noteworthy legal wins were pardons for the Wilmington 10 more than four decades after the civil rights activists were convicted of arson in the 1971 firebombing of a supermarket. He also represented the Charlotte 3.

His work also took him to South Africa in the 1980s, where he trained lawyers during the apartheid regime where Black people were relegated to second-class citizenship.

Mr. Ferguson, known as “Fergie” to friends, said he realized he wanted to practice law in 1960 as a high school senior. As a student advocate for civil rights in segregated Asheville, Mr. Ferguson and his peers consulted the city’s two Black lawyers for advice. The attorneys promised to help whenever they could.

“It hit me that that was a wonderful position to be in,” Mr. Ferguson recalled. “I knew I wanted to be in a position to bring about community change.”

Mr. Ferguson took on high profile civil rights cases in the 1970s as North Carolina became a hotbed of cases. In addition to the Wilmington 10, who earned pardons from Gov. Beverly Perdue, he represented the Charlotte 3 – T.J. Reddy, James Grant, and Charles Parker – who were convicted in 1971 for the burning of Lazy B Stables three years earlier. The Lazy B was desegregated in 1967. 

Gov. Jim Hunt commuted their sentences in 1979.

Mr. Ferguson also represented Darryl Hunt, a Black man from Winston-Salem who was wrongfully convicted in 1984 and sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and the murder of Deborah Sykes, a white newspaper copy editor. The introduction of DNA evidence and confession by Willard Brown to the crimes led to Hunt’s exoneration. 

“Never give up and never take things personally,” Mel Watt, an attorney at Ferguson’s firm before leaving in 1993 when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, recalled in 2016.  “Practicing civil rights is just hard and difficult. Fergie has managed to keep his freshness and his commitment going despite the trials and tribulations.”

Mr. Ferguson often took on cases that looked like sure losers during a time when courts were often hostile to judges and political forces, such as lawsuits to ensure racial equity in public schools. 

“Fergie would take on the unpopular cause with a zeal that is almost unnatural.” Frank Emory, an attorney at Ferguson’s firm in the 1980s. “I think of his courage in every sense of the word.”

Courage, Mr. Ferguson maintained, is a matter of perspective.

“You look at a situation, you see what needs to be done and then you do it,” he said. “You never give a lot of thought to the risk. If you spend your time weighing the risk, you never get much done.”

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