He receive a bachelor's degree from Howard University,a Bachelor of Law degree from Columbia University,and a Doctor of Juristic Science from New York University.In 1926 he came to Fisk University as assistant professor of economics and remained until 1928.At various times he served as a lecturer at Fisk University & Meharry Medical College Medical College.In 1929 Zephaniah was admitted to the Tennessee bar and practiced law in Memphis for three years.He returned to Nashville and helped to found the Kent College of Law,Nashville's first Law School for African Americans since the Central Tennessee College's department of law (1877-1911).
In the Civil Rights movement of the World War II era,he rose to a position of local leadership.After losing a 1940 runoff election to a white opponent in a race for a city council,from 1943-1945 he presided over the James Carroll Napier Bar Association.In 1946 the NAACP hired Zephaniah,Maurice Weaver,and Thurgood Marshall to represent the African Americans charged with murder following the recent race riot in Columbia,Tennessee.Zephaniah's legal defense helped acquit twenty-three of the defendants.He crisscrossed the state in the company of other African-Americans lawyers,arguing against Jim Crow and discrimination.Zaphaniah is credited with desegregating the Nashville airport.dining room and the city's public golf courses.
Soon after the momentous U.S. Supreme Court decision of Brown vs.Board of Education of Topeka (1954),Zephaniah filled a suit against the local public schools on behalf of A.Z.Kelly,a barber whose son had been denied to a nearby white school.During the sit-in demonstrations civil rights marches of the 1960s,Zephaniah and other African Americans provided money and legal services for local college students who were arrested and jailed.On April 19,1960,his Meharry Boulevard home was destroyed by dynamite.
Zephaniah viewed politics as a way to change an oppressive system.In 1951 he and fellow attorney Robert Emmitt Lillard became the first African Americans to be elected to the city council since 1911.In 1962 he lost a bid for a seat on the Tennessee Supreme Court.A year later,Zephaniah became a member of the Metropolitan Charter Commission.In 1971 he retired after serving on the old city council and the new Metropolitan Council for a combined total of twenty years.
Zephaniah died at Hubbard Hospital after a prolonged period illness.He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Nashville.
Ten years later,the Nashville Bar Association,whose white members had denied Zephaniah's membership application in the 1950's,posthumously granted a certificate of membership in his name.His contributions to Nashville are recognized in the Z.Alexander Looby Library and Community Center erected by the city on Metro Center Boulevard.
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