To the Mayor and Pine Bluff City Council:
The National Bar Association will host the 36th Annual Wiley A. Branton Issues Symposium in New York in October. The National Bar Association is the oldest and largest global network of predominantly Black American attorneys and judges.
The late attorney Wiley A. Branton, a Pine Bluff native, was instrumental in transforming public education in the United States, particularly through his involvement in the Central High School crisis. In Pine Bluff, Interstate 530 runs along the southern perimeter named “Wiley A. Branton Sr. Highway,” honoring the first African American in Arkansas. Many Pine Bluffians don’t know or have never heard of Wiley A. Branton Sr.
Therefore, the Pine Bluff Interested Citizens for Voter Registration Inc. is requesting the mayor and city council establish a proclamation or ordinance for a “Wiley A. Branton Sr. Day” in the city of Pine Bluff and for this day to be established in perpetuity beginning Sept. 25.
Later this month, Thursday, Sept. 25, will be the 68th anniversary year for the nine Black scholars to enter the doors of Little Rock Central High School. During this turbulent time of unrest, President Dwight David Eisenhower had to send the 101st Airborne Division of the National Guard to Little Rock to protect the nine Black scholars from a violent crowd. Stepping from the shadows of discrimination and racism was Wiley Austin Branton Sr., who filed the lawsuit to ignite the Little Rock Central High School crises, but who is Wiley Branton?
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
In 2017, we spoke with Mayor Shirley M. Washington and Dr. Ryan Watley regarding the Branton home. We wanted it to become like the Daisy G. Bates home in Little Rock that it would become a tourist attraction, and to create a Civil Rights Trail from Pine Bluff to Little Rock, as lawyer Thurgood Marshall and Wiley Branton Sr. litigated the Little Rock Central High School case. Justice Marshall lived in the Branton home for a brief period as they traveled to and from Little Rock. After our public request for Alabama Street to be named Branton Boulevard the home burned.
REQUEST FOR WILEY BRANTON SR. DAY PROCLAMATION
Born as the second of five children to Leo Branton and Pauline Wiley Branton in Pine Bluff, Wiley Branton received his education at Missouri Street Elementary School and Merrill High School. He then attended Arkansas AM&N College, now known as the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and later the University of Arkansas School of Law at Fayetteville, where he became the fourth Black student to enroll and the third to graduate. Branton was a member of the Pine Bluff Interested Citizens for Voter Registration Inc., which was formed 61 years ago at Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, located at 1123 South Virginia Street, Pine Bluff.
After completing law school, he established a private law practice in Pine Bluff. He gained national prominence as the chief counsel for the Black plaintiffs in the 1957 Little Rock School Desegregation Case. Alongside the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, he worked on Cooper v. Aaron, a landmark case in American jurisprudence. Despite facing threats, harassment, and having a cross burned on his lawn for his commitment to civil rights, he persevered throughout his life.
In Atlanta, he coordinated efforts among various civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
He led the Voter Education Project, which resulted in the registration of over 600,000 Black voters across 11 Southern states, significantly contributing to the momentum for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Later, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked in the Department of Justice and directed the city’s anti-poverty agency, the Social Action Program of the Alliance for Labor Action, a collaboration between the United Auto Workers and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He became the executive director of the United Planning Organization, one of the most influential agencies in the Washington area.
He also served as Executive Secretary of President Johnson’s Council on Equal Opportunity and worked as a Special Assistant to Attorneys General Nicholas Katzenbach and Ramsey Clark. In 1971, he returned to legal practice as a partner in the Washington law firm Dolphin, Branton, Stafford, and Webber, remaining there until 1977. In 1978, he took on a new challenge as Dean of the Law School at Howard University, a position he held for five years while also serving as an adjunct professor. In 1983, he joined the law firm of Sidley and Austin, where he worked until his passing.
Contact Jesse C. Turner at (870) 730-1131 or (870) 413-6345.