|
|
Columns::October 28, 2002
Spreading the wealth: University announces plans to buy, sell properties
Open-enrollment period under way for health insurance
Four named Fellows by American Academy of Advancement of Science
Dedication is held at new Center for Applied Genetic Technologies
Dunning announces leadership changes at Georgia Center
Special delivery: Professor works to improve efficacy of cancer drugs
Senior public service associate makes workplaces work better
Administrative Changes
Kudos
Trying times
Into an artist’s world
Campus News
 |
| Donald Hollowell is often hailed as a patriarch of the civil rights struggles of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. (Photo by Paul Efland) |
Hollowell to receive honorary degree at Commencement
By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
The university will award an honorary degree to Donald L. Hollowell, the venerable Atlanta lawyer whose fights to integrate UGA, register African-American voters and combat racial discrimination made him an icon of the civil rights movement.
Hollowell will receive the honorary Doctor of Laws degree at UGA’s fall semester undergraduate commencement exercises Dec. 21. He will be the 75th recipient of the degree which, after the earned doctorate, is the highest recognition UGA can bestow.
The university awards honorary degrees for “exemplary and broad contributions to society.” Recipients must demonstrate a “sustained record of achievements of lasting significance” in their field.
Hollowell, now 84 years old, and New York lawyer Constance Baker Motley led the legal team that in 1961 forced UGA to open its doors to its first African-American students, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes. His law firm also handled scores of other civil rights cases, including several decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
As president of the Voter Education Project from 1971 to 1986, Hollowell helped raise the number of African Americans registered to vote in the United States from 3 million to 5.5 million. He also created and led the southeastern regional office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which fought racial discrimination in the workplace.
“Donald Hollowell was a leader in perhaps the most important social movement in the history of our country,” says President Michael F. Adams. “His commitment to the principles of justice and equality for all citizens, and his unflinching courage and determination in the face of great opposition and even danger, merit our highest esteem and gratitude. The University of Georgia is proud to honor a true hero.”
Often hailed as a patriarch of the civil rights struggles of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, Hollowell was a shrewd legal tactician who championed civil rights in the courtroom rather than the streets. He joined the movement as lead counsel for the legal team that waged a seven-year unsuccessful battle to enroll Horace Ward in the UGA law school in the 1950s. Ward eventually graduated from Northwestern University law school, joined Hollowell’s law firm and, in an ironic twist, was instrumental in helping Holmes and Hunter (now Charlayne Hunter-Gault) break the segregation barrier at UGA.
Hollowell was a mentor and teacher for young lawyers such as Ward, Vernon Jordan and Marvin Arrington, and was an associate of many leaders of the civil rights movement, including Julian Bond and Martin Luther King Jr., whom he once helped free from a Georgia prison after his arrest in a protest.
In her autobiography, Hunter-Gault recalls that Hollowell was a hero to student civil rights activists, who used to chant “King is our leader, Hollowell is our lawyer, and we shall not be moved.”
|
|
|
|
|
