![]() Supreme Court which unanimously ruled in 1958 that Arkansas officials must comply with federal court orders mandating desegregation. In 1956, Branton filed a lawsuit against the Little Rock School Board on behalf of local African American parents. With his wife as office manager and secretary, Branton continued in general practice until 1962. He returned to Pine Bluff, passed the bar, and began general practice. He was the fifth black student to enter and in 1953 became the third to graduate. Supreme Court ruled that African Americans could not be denied admission to state-supported graduate and professional schools, Branton entered the University of Arkansas Law School. Branton was convicted and fined $300 which the local black community paid to show its support for his activities. When Branton initiated an NAACP voter registration campaign in Pine Bluff he was arrested and charged with violating Arkansas election laws by teaching blacks how to mark and fill out election ballots. ![]() During this time he also joined Pine Bluff’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) branch. In January 1948, Branton married Lucille Elnora McKee of Pine Bluff. Branton was honorably discharged from the Army in 1946 but his wartime experience helped shape his ideas about race and prejudice and his later determination to end discrimination. Branton attended a segregated elementary, junior high, and high schools in Pine Bluff and as a teenager worked in the family business.īranton enrolled in Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College in Pine Bluff and graduated in 1942.One year later he was drafted into the United States Army and first served with military intelligence but was reassigned to lead a construction battalion building bridges in the South Pacific. His father, Leo Andrew Branton, ran a family-owned taxi cab business while his mother, Pauline Wiley, was a school teacher. was born on Decemin Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Civil rights attorney Wiley Austin Branton Sr.
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