Posted by From the Dallas South Newswire (Craig Watkins Campaign)
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins is the 2010 recipient of the L. Clifford Davis Legal Excellence Award given by the Black Women Lawyers Association (BWL) of Tarrant County. BWL will honor DA Watkins with a special event on Thurs., July 22 from 5 – 8 p.m. The event will be held at the historic YMCA building in downtown Ft. Worth, located at 512 W. 4th Street.
District Attorney Watkins is receiving the award due to his “magnificent contributions to the law,” said Valerie Baston. “BWL believes that you extol the virtues of Judge L. Clifford Davis, who was a legal pioneer for the civil rights movement in Texas.
L. Clifford Davis was born in 1925 received his J.D. from Howard University School of Law in 1949, after earning his undergraduate degree from Philander Smith College in 1945.
Davis worked with future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall on the case “Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas,” and he led the case to integrate Mansfield Independent School in Tarrant County. Davis filed the federal lawsuit to integrate the Fort Worth Independent School District.
Davis is also recognized for opening the first African-American law office in Texas. As a public servant, Davis served as Senior District Judge in Tarrant County from 1994–2003 and District Judge from 1989–1996.
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