Wisdom, John Minor

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

Page 400

John Minor Wisdom, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, was one of the most influential jurists of the CIVIL RIGHTS era. He was prominent among southern judges who endured political pressures and physical threats for enforcing BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION and for making other rulings that advanced the fight for equality under the law. (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 [1954], was the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial SEGREGATION in public education to be against the law.)

Wisdom and his prominent colleagues on the Fifth Circuit court (Judges John R. Brown of Houston, Texas, Richard T. Rives of Montgomery, Alabama, and ELBERT PARR TUTTLE of Atlanta, Georgia) were known derisively as "The Four" by those who disapproved of their work. Under their gavels, JIM CROW LAWS were declared unconstitutional, African Americans were granted VOTING RIGHTS, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION in jury selection was curbed, and state COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES were desegregated. Though proud of his work, Wisdom was quick to point out that he was just one of many judges responsible for advancing the fight for civil rights in the old South. And in many ways, he was an unlikely individual to figure so prominently in the cause.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 17, 1905, Wisdom was a product of the old South, and he grew up accustomed to the privileges and prejudices of the white aristocracy. His father, Mortimer Norton Wisdom, had been a pall-bearer for General Robert E. Lee. His mother, Adelaide Labatt Wisdom, limited her son's youthful associations to people of his own social class and standing. It was not until Wisdom enrolled at Virginia's Washington and Lee University in 1921 that he was exposed to a more diverse cross section of the population and began to develop a broader view of the world. He received his bachelor of arts degree in 1925.

Wisdom entered the law school at Tulane University in 1925. He completed his studies in the spring of 1929 and was admitted to the Louisiana bar the same year. After law school, he joined several classmates to establish a New Orleans law practice. The firm of Wisdom, Stone, Pigman, and Benjamin endured in one variation or another for 30 years.

Wisdom established another enduring union on October 24, 1931, when he married Bonnie Stewart Mathews. They had three children.

By the late 1930s, Wisdom was...