Lynn Walker Huntley, a lawyer who was deeply involved in a wide spectrum of civil rights cases and causes, including capital punishment, race relations and employment discrimination, died Aug. 30 at her home in Atlanta. She was 69.
The cause was cervical cancer, her husband, Walter Huntley, said.
Ms. Huntley was at various times an official in the Department of Justice, general counsel to the New York City Commission on Human Rights, a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a scholar and program director for the Ford Foundation and president of a charity that works to improve education for children.
“We must continue to struggle against racism, sexism and other forms of oppression, not only because it is the right thing to do, although it is,” Ms. Huntley once said. “We must continue to struggle because to give in and give up is to ensure that all is lost and to betray what we stand for.”
Ms. Huntley spoke those words early in her tenure at the Southern Education Foundation, whose mission is to raise educational standards in the South, especially for black children and those from poor families. Ms. Huntley joined the foundation in 1995 and in 2002 became its first female president. By the time she retired in 2010, she had raised more than $44 million and doubled its endowment, the organization said.
As a young lawyer, Ms. Huntley was a member of the Legal Defense and Educational Fund team that wrote a brief on behalf of William Furman, who had been sentenced to death for the murder of a man in Savannah, Ga., in 1967 during a home invasion. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court not only set aside his death sentence but also ordered a halt to executions across the country on the grounds that capital punishment, as it was then applied, was so random and arbitrary as to be unconstitutional.
The 5-to-4 decision in Furman v. Georgia was a triumph for the Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which had been fighting for years to abolish the death penalty. But the victory was only temporary. Four years later, after some states retooled their capital punishment laws to overcome the faults highlighted in the Furman decision, the Supreme Court court ruled, 7 to 2, in another Georgia case that the death penalty itself was not unconstitutional. Executions soon resumed.
Ms. Huntley was with the Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1971 to 1973 and again from 1975 to 1978, serving in the interim as general counsel to the human rights commission.
At the Justice Department in the early 1980s, she became the first black woman to head the Special Litigation Section in the Civil Rights Division. She was later promoted to deputy assistant attorney general and oversaw litigation intended to combat discrimination in employment, housing and federal programs, according to Chief Judge Richard W. Roberts of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, who worked in the Civil Rights Division as a young lawyer.
In 1982, Ms. Huntley joined the Ford Foundation, eventually becoming director of its Rights and Social Justice Program. She helped to start “Eyes on the Prize,” a 14-part documentary about the civil rights movement first televised on PBS over two seasons, in 1987 and 1990.
Mary Lynn Jones was born on Jan. 24, 1946, in Petersburg, Va. Her father, the Rev. Lawrence N. Jones, was active in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, when he was associated with Fisk University in Nashville. He was dean of Howard University’s divinity school in Washington from 1975 to 1991 and died in 2009. Her mother, Mary Ellen, died in 2003.
Ms. Huntley attended Fisk and graduated with honors from Barnard College with a degree in sociology. She also graduated with honors from Columbia University Law School, where she was the first black woman to become editor of the Columbia Law Review.
Later, she was a law clerk for Judge Constance Baker Motley of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, who in 1966 became the first black woman to hold a federal judgeship.
In addition to her husband, Ms. Huntley is survived by a stepdaughter, Tyeise Huntley Jones; and a brother, Rodney Jones. An earlier marriage, to Gary Walker, ended in divorce.
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Lynn Huntley, Southern Education Fund (retired)
From 2002 to 2010, Lynn Huntley served as president of the Southern Education Foundation (SEF), a public charity whose mission is the advancement of equity and excellence in education in the American South, k-16, for low-income students, especially African Americans and Latinos, who need help the most. Tracing its roots back to 1867, SEF is the region’s only African American led and directed public charity expressly focused on education policy and practice.
Ms. Huntley attended Fisk University as an early entrant, received an A.B. in Sociology with honors from Barnard College, and J.D. degree with honors from Columbia University Law School, where she was a member of The Columbia Law Review. She worked as law clerk for a federal judge, Judge Constance Baker Motley; and as staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she focused on cases involving the abolition of the death penalty, prisoner rights and education. She served as general counsel to the New York City Commission on Human Rights and as section chief and deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, where she directed a trial section to vindicate the rights of institutionalized persons, and exercised oversight of sections concerned with legislative affairs, employment, housing, federal regulatory and budgetary matters.
During her tenure at the Ford Foundation from l982-1994, where she advanced from program officer to director of Ford Foundation’s Rights and Social Justice Program, Ms. Huntley was responsible for grant making related to minority and women’s rights, refugee and migration issues, legal services for the poor, minorities and media, and coordination of field office activities related to the foregoing. In l995, Ms. Huntley joined the staff of the Southern Education Foundation as a program director, where she conceived and directed the Comparative Human Relations Initiative, an examination of race and inequality in Brazil, South Africa and the United States and strategies to reduce inequality. She is the author of several reports resultant from this effort, and served, with others, as editor of two related books, Tirando a Mascara(Removing the Mask, 2000) and Race and Inequality in South Africa, Brazil and the United States (2001). She retired from the Southern Education Foundation in 2010, having doubled the endowment and raised over $44 million from diverse donors.
Ms. Huntley has received many honors, including the Thurgood Marshall Award of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from Tufts University, honorary doctorates from Cambridge College in Boston, Mass., and Allen University in Columbia, SC, and the Lucy Terry Prince Award of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She was has also received the National Bar Association outstanding achievement award, and the Unsung Heroine Award from the Atlanta Coalition of 100 Black Women, and was the Association of Black Foundation Executives’ James A. Joseph Lecturer in 2004. She has served as a member of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, and on the Boards of the American Constitution Society, the Association of Black Foundation Executives (where she was counsel) Grantmakers for Education, CARE USA (where she was vice chair), the Center for Women Policy Studies, the Marguerite E. Casey Foundation, and the Interdenominational Theological Center. She was recently elected vice chair of the Board of Trustees of the Jesse Ball DuPont Fund in Jacksonville, Florida.
Ms. Huntley attended Fisk University as an early entrant, received an A.B. in Sociology with honors from Barnard College, and J.D. degree with honors from Columbia University Law School, where she was a member of The Columbia Law Review. She worked as law clerk for a federal judge, Judge Constance Baker Motley; and as staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she focused on cases involving the abolition of the death penalty, prisoner rights and education. She served as general counsel to the New York City Commission on Human Rights and as section chief and deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, where she directed a trial section to vindicate the rights of institutionalized persons, and exercised oversight of sections concerned with legislative affairs, employment, housing, federal regulatory and budgetary matters.
During her tenure at the Ford Foundation from l982-1994, where she advanced from program officer to director of Ford Foundation’s Rights and Social Justice Program, Ms. Huntley was responsible for grant making related to minority and women’s rights, refugee and migration issues, legal services for the poor, minorities and media, and coordination of field office activities related to the foregoing. In l995, Ms. Huntley joined the staff of the Southern Education Foundation as a program director, where she conceived and directed the Comparative Human Relations Initiative, an examination of race and inequality in Brazil, South Africa and the United States and strategies to reduce inequality. She is the author of several reports resultant from this effort, and served, with others, as editor of two related books, Tirando a Mascara(Removing the Mask, 2000) and Race and Inequality in South Africa, Brazil and the United States (2001). She retired from the Southern Education Foundation in 2010, having doubled the endowment and raised over $44 million from diverse donors.
Ms. Huntley has received many honors, including the Thurgood Marshall Award of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from Tufts University, honorary doctorates from Cambridge College in Boston, Mass., and Allen University in Columbia, SC, and the Lucy Terry Prince Award of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She was has also received the National Bar Association outstanding achievement award, and the Unsung Heroine Award from the Atlanta Coalition of 100 Black Women, and was the Association of Black Foundation Executives’ James A. Joseph Lecturer in 2004. She has served as a member of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, and on the Boards of the American Constitution Society, the Association of Black Foundation Executives (where she was counsel) Grantmakers for Education, CARE USA (where she was vice chair), the Center for Women Policy Studies, the Marguerite E. Casey Foundation, and the Interdenominational Theological Center. She was recently elected vice chair of the Board of Trustees of the Jesse Ball DuPont Fund in Jacksonville, Florida.
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Lynn Huntlley, aka Mary Lynn Jones, (b. January 24, 1946, Petersburg, Virginia - d. August 30, 2015, Atlanta, Georgia) was a prominent civil rights lawyer. She was born on January 24, 1946, in Petersburg, Virginia. Her father, the Reverend Lawrence Jones, was active in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, when he was associated with Fisk University in Nashville. He was dean of Howard University’s divinity school in Washington from 1975 to 1991 and died in 2009. Her mother, Mary Ellen, died in 2003.
Ms. Huntley attended Fisk University as an early entrant, received an A.B. in Sociology with honors from Barnard College, and J.D. degree with honors from Columbia University Law School, where she was a member of The Columbia Law Review. She worked as law clerk for a federal judge, Judge Constance Baker Motley; and as staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she focused on cases involving the abolition of the death penalty, prisoner rights and education. She served as general counsel to the New York City Commission on Human Rights and as section chief and deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, where she directed a trial section to vindicate the rights of institutionalized persons, and exercised oversight of sections concerned with legislative affairs, employment, housing, federal regulatory and budgetary matters.
During her tenure at the Ford Foundation from l982-1994, where she advanced from program officer to director of Ford Foundation’s Rights and Social Justice Program, Ms. Huntley was responsible for grant making related to minority and women’s rights, refugee and migration issues, legal services for the poor, minorities and media, and coordination of field office activities related to the foregoing. In l995, Ms. Huntley joined the staff of the Southern Education Foundation as a program director, where she conceived and directed the Comparative Human Relations Initiative, an examination of race and inequality in Brazil, South Africa and the United States and strategies to reduce inequality. She is the author of several reports resultant from this effort, and served, with others, as editor of two related books, Tirando a Mascara (Removing the Mask, 2000) and Race and Inequality in South Africa, Brazil and the United States (2001). She retired from the Southern Education Foundation in 2010, having doubled the endowment and raised over $44 million from diverse donors.
Ms. Huntley has received many honors, including the Thurgood Marshall Award of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from Tufts University, honorary doctorates from Cambridge College in Boston, Mass., and Allen University in Columbia, SC, and the Lucy Terry Prince Award of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She also received the National Bar Association outstanding achievement award, the Unsung Heroine Award from the Atlanta Coalition of 100 Black Women, and was the Association of Black Foundation Executives’ James A. Joseph Lecturer in 2004. She served as a member of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, and on the Boards of the American Constitution Society, the Association of Black Foundation Executives (where she was counsel) Grantmakers for Education, CARE USA (where she was vice chair), the Center for Women Policy Studies, the Marguerite E. Casey Foundation, and the Interdenominational Theological Center. She was recently elected vice chair of the Board of Trustees of the Jesse Ball DuPont Fund in Jacksonville, Florida.
During her tenure at the Ford Foundation from l982-1994, where she advanced from program officer to director of Ford Foundation’s Rights and Social Justice Program, Ms. Huntley was responsible for grant making related to minority and women’s rights, refugee and migration issues, legal services for the poor, minorities and media, and coordination of field office activities related to the foregoing. In l995, Ms. Huntley joined the staff of the Southern Education Foundation as a program director, where she conceived and directed the Comparative Human Relations Initiative, an examination of race and inequality in Brazil, South Africa and the United States and strategies to reduce inequality. She is the author of several reports resultant from this effort, and served, with others, as editor of two related books, Tirando a Mascara (Removing the Mask, 2000) and Race and Inequality in South Africa, Brazil and the United States (2001). She retired from the Southern Education Foundation in 2010, having doubled the endowment and raised over $44 million from diverse donors.
Ms. Huntley has received many honors, including the Thurgood Marshall Award of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from Tufts University, honorary doctorates from Cambridge College in Boston, Mass., and Allen University in Columbia, SC, and the Lucy Terry Prince Award of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She also received the National Bar Association outstanding achievement award, the Unsung Heroine Award from the Atlanta Coalition of 100 Black Women, and was the Association of Black Foundation Executives’ James A. Joseph Lecturer in 2004. She served as a member of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, and on the Boards of the American Constitution Society, the Association of Black Foundation Executives (where she was counsel) Grantmakers for Education, CARE USA (where she was vice chair), the Center for Women Policy Studies, the Marguerite E. Casey Foundation, and the Interdenominational Theological Center. She was recently elected vice chair of the Board of Trustees of the Jesse Ball DuPont Fund in Jacksonville, Florida.
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