Mar 24, 2022 - Sale 2598

Sale 2598 - Lot 187

Price Realized: $ 438
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(CIVIL RIGHTS.) Presidential Citizens Medal certificate awarded to longtime civil rights attorney Jack Greenberg by President Clinton. Partly-printed calligraphic document with autopen signature of "William J. Clinton" as president. One page, 11 x 14 inches; in original condition. In original plain morocco folder with minimal wear. Washington, 8 January 2001

Additional Details

Greenberg was the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1961 to 1984. This commendation reads "In the courtroom and the classroom, Jack Greenberg has been a crusader for freedom and equality for more than half a century. Arguing 40 civil rights cases before the United States Supreme Court, including the historic Brown v. Board of Education, he helped break down the legal underpinnings of desegregation in America, and . . . has helped shape a more just society."

You may note an amusing error in the text. Greenberg devoted his career to fighting segregation, not desegregation. Greenberg requested a corrected certificate from Clinton's office, but with only 12 days remaining before the changing of the guard to the Bush administration, time was simply too short. William Cole's "A Jack Greenberg Lexicon," pages 155-7. Provenance: Greenberg's adopted son William Cole.