The HistoryMakers

Born on March 11, 1917, in Careyville, Florida, Judge Robert Carter moved north to Newark, New Jersey, with his mother as an infant. Carter's childhood was beset by family tragedy. He lost three siblings and his father during his early childhood. Studious and introspective, Carter excelled in school, skipping two grades and graduating from high school at age sixteen. He received a scholarship that enabled him to attend Lincoln University, and upon receiving his A.B. in political science, was offered a scholarship to Howard University's School of Law.

After obtaining his LL.M. from Columbia University, Carter was drafted into the armed forces. The pervasive racial prejudice he encountered affected him deeply, and shortly after he ended his tour of duty, he was hired as an assistant to NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall. Carter would stay on as a lawyer for the NAACP for the next twenty-four years. During his tenure, he argued twenty-two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court – including Brown v. Board of Education (1954) – and won twenty-one of them. After the Brown decision, many southern states sought to stem the tide of desegregation by aggressively intimidating the organization most responsible, the NAACP. Attempting to incapacitate the NAACP, southern states passed legislation that required the organization to make its membership lists public, believing this would intimidate and cow NAACP supporters. In a series of cases, beginning with NAACP v. Alabama (1958), Carter argued successfully that such legislation violated the NAACP's First Amendment right to free speech, because it was clearly intended to intimidate people. In each instance, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Carter and the NAACP; the membership maintained its anonymity; and the NAACP remained a powerful force for desegregation in the South.

After leaving the NAACP in 1968, Carter spent several years at a private law firm before he was appointed as a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York in 1972. He has held adjunct faculty positions at the University of Michigan and New York University law schools and at Yale University's graduate school. Carter remains an outspoken advocate of equal rights and recently made headlines when he decried the rampant racial prejudice plaguing the criminal justice system.

Over his lengthy and esteemed career, Carter has been the recipient of many awards, honors and degrees. He has sat on dozens of boards, committees and taskforces and has published numerous articles.

Carter was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 22, 2001.