"Wiley-Austin-Branton-Sr." (December 13,1923-December 15,1988)

Was a civil rights leader  in Arkansas who helped desegregate the University of Arkansas School of law and later filed suit against the Little Rock School  Board in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court as Cooper v.Aaron.His work to end legal segregaton and inequality in Arkansas and the nation was well known in his time.


He was born in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County),the second child of Pauline Wiley & Leo Andrew Branton.His daddy and paternal granddaddy owned and operated a taxicab business.His mama was a schoolteacher in the segregated public schools prior to her marriage.He had three brothers and a sister.


He as educated in the segregated schools of Pine Bluff and attended the local African American college,Arkansas Agricultura,Mechanical and Normal (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff),prior to being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 during World WarII.Hus wartime experience opened his eyes to the horror and madness of prejudice.Returning from military service,Wiley became active in civil rights activities while operating the family business.He married Lucille Elmora McKee in January 1948,They had six children.


At this time,he also was involved in integrating the University of Arkansas School of Law.The University,similar to most other Southern colleges and universities,traditionally had refused to admit African Americans as full-time students.In 1948,U.S.Supreme Court opinions had required the state-supported graduate schools of several other states to admit African-American students. Wiley was a member of the NAACP. Arkansas State Conference of Branches When Arkansas governor Ben Laney  held a statewide conference to promote his idea for a regional graduate school for African American students.Wiley was so disgusted with the discussion that he declared his intention to register in the undergraduate school of the university.Wiley also persuaded a friend,Silas Herbert Hunt  to register for the university's school of law.(Silas had graduated from Arkansas Agricultural,Mechanical and Normal and was planning to attend the University of Indiana School of Law.)When they traveled to Fayetteville(Washington County) to attempt registrations,accompained by Pine Bluff attorney Harold Flowers and photographer Geleve Grice,Wiley refused admission Silas was accepted.


Wiley was admitted to the School of Law in January 1950.He was the fifth African American admitted to the school and,in 1953,the third to graduate.Wiley opened a law office in Pine Bluff after his admission to the bar and conducted a general practice between 1953 and 1962.


In early 1956,Wiley filed suit against the Little Rock School Board for failing to integrate the public schools properly after the U.S. supreme court's Brown v.Board of Education of Topeka,Kansas decision.Wiley suit precipitated the desegregation of Central High School and ultimately was heard by the U.S. Court as Cooper v.Aaron in 1958.During the years he was involved in this case,Wiley worked primarily with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Education Fund,Inc.'s director-counsel,Thurgood Marshall,who presented the argument to the Supreme Court.They won the case,and the school board  was ordered to proceed with desegregation.Wiley and Marshall became fast friends during this period of great stress and potential violence.The case made Wiley nationally known and led to his recruitment as executive director of the Voter Education Project  in 1962.


During a thirty-month period between 1962 and 1965,Wiley worked with representatives of Major African-American civil rights organizations to register almost  700,000 new African American voters in eleven Southern states.This was accomplished  despite massive resistance from the white population of most of those states.During this time,Wiley met and mentored a young Vernon Eulion Jordan Jr.,who succeeded him as executive director of the Voter Education Project eventually became Wiley's second close friend.


Following this successful venture,Vice President Herbert Humphrey asked Wiley to become executive director of the President's Council on Equal Opportunity and help coordinate implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.When the council was abolished by President Lyndon Johnson in September 1965,the president asked Wiley to move to the Department of Justice as his personal representative and continue working to implement the Civil Rights act  of  1965.


In 1967,after two years with the Justice Department,Wiley was named excutive director of the United Planning Organization (UPO),which provided social service programs to Washington DC  under grants through the Equal Opportunity Act of 1964.In this role,Wiley helped  Washington DC recover from the effects of riots that followed the assassination of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.in 1968.From the UPO,Wiley moved to the alliance for Labor Action in 1969,where he helped Walter Reuther,president  of the United Auto Workers Union,to create social service programs across the country.Walter unexpected death in May 1970 lessened the program's progress.Wiley left the alliance for Labor Action in August 1971 and returned to the private practice law.


He joined with others to create the Dolphins,Branton,Stafford and Webber in Washington DC.There he practiced law,at one point supervising the successful effort to obtain court-ordered protection of illegal  FBI surveillance files on Dr.King.He also continued his active involvement in the many social organizations of which he was a member.The most prominent among these were the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc; the NAACP;the National Bar Association;the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity;and the Masons.


In December 1977 came the announcement that Wiley would be the new dean of Howard University School of Law.He took that post during a troubled period in the school's existence and was proud of his work  in restoring some of its historical prominence as a creator of African American civil rights lawyer.


Wiley would remain dean for five years,leaving in September 1983 to join the Chicago law firm of Sidley and Austin in its Washington DC office. There,in a reprise of earler years,he resisted Senator Jesse Helm's effort to obtain access to the FBI's files on Dr.King.


Wiley died of a heart of attack.