A just life

George Leighton rose to prominence as a civil rights attorney and a federal judge. Still practicing law at 86, his heart remains in his hometown of New Bedford

By Robert Lovinger, Standard-Times staff writer

George Leighton is a long way from roasting peanuts.

And yet, when the native returns to New Bedford, he insists on taking his "sentimental journey," which includes driving by a particular storefront.

There, near the corner of Union and Purchase streets, the 86-year-old slows down to savor the memory of "the only job that ever paid me money in New Bedford."

When he was 13, Mr. Leighton turned the crank on the store's peanut roaster.

Today, he looks back on a life spent turning up the heat on injustice and redeeming the promise -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- embedded in the American dream.

One of the nation's most distinguished Cape Verdean-Americans, Mr. Leighton stepped down as a federal district court judge in 1987.

You wouldn't say George Leighton carries himself with a regal bearing. He is too much of a

democrat for that.

He is too proud, as well, of his roots as the son of immigrants who shuttled their seven children between unheated apartments in New Bedford's South End and primitive shanties in the Plymouth cranberry bogs.

And yet, there is something noble about him. To begin with, there are the gentle and confident eyes, the warm, expansive smile, the assured sweep of a hand.

Partly, it is what we project onto him. But it also comes from inside. Call it the easy stature of an important man secure in the knowledge that he made himself important.

Thanks to astonishingly good health, he is still practicing law in Chicago, his primary residence since leaving Massachusetts a half-century ago.

He returns often to Massachusetts, though, staying in the Plymouth home he's owned for the past two years.

One of the most surprising things about Judge Leighton is that he never set foot in a high school. His parents, needing him to work, pulled him from the seventh grade. In those days, this was not unusual. What was rare was the young man's response.

His is the story of someone who, against great odds, acquired a top college education and then took his place as a lawyer at the heart of America's great moral moment, the civil rights movement.

He fought for clients sitting on death row and in the high councils of organized crime.

And he dedicated himself to the notion that the law is not just a means to an end, but a noble end all its own.

His fourth-grade teacher couldn't pronounce his name, so one day, she told George Neves Leitao that from that moment on, he would be George Leighton.

His mother and father were cultured people, but they didn't speak English. So, the name change never became an issue, he says.

His parents came to the United States from the Cape Verde island of Brava.

His mother, Anna Silva Garcia, arrived in 1909, the child of an upper-middle-class, shipowning family.

His father, Antonio Neves Leitao, who came in 1895, was the son of a black Cape Verde woman and white Portuguese man.

When Mr. Leighton was a child, his family spent the cold months in the city, the warm months in the bogs of Plymouth.

"We didn't really live in New Bedford. We only hibernated there," he told the Chicago Sun-Times in a 1976 story.

His first New Bedford home was at 9 Howland St., a building which no longer exists. When Route 18 was being built, he says, all residents on the stretch of Howland between Second and Water streets were displaced.

He also lived at 111 Acushnet Ave. "I had kinfolk all along Acushnet Avenue," he recalls. "I don't think there's a square inch of Acushnet between Union and South streets that I didn't walk."

It was during this time that he found one of the loves of his life: chess. He learned the game at an informal boys' club program run by a woman named Mary Hayden.

"She had a 'burden' to help underprivileged kids," he recalled in a 1987, local cable TV interview with host Jack Custodio.

Over the years, Mr. Leighton has made a number of gifts in her memory to the American Chess Federation. "No one has ever given me a greater gift than she did," he said.

In 1929, his parents took him out of seventh grade and put him to work. They found him a job as a mess boy doing menial labor on an oil tanker steaming from Providence to Aruba.

After that, there was another ship, then a stint as a player of guitar and banjo with the popular Duke Oliver Band.

But the life of the mind gnawed at him. It had been instilled by his father, an avid reader of Shakespeare and such.

Mr. Leighton taught himself the material he would have learned in high school, including math and history. He took remedial classes sponsored locally by the federal government's Works Progress Administration (WPA).

"I was deeply involved in finding a college to go to," he says. He settled on Howard University in Washington, D.C., believing that Howard, one of the nation's most prestigious black colleges, would provide him the education he needed.

Then, in 1936, the moment arrived that would set so much of the rest of his life in motion. It would cement his belief that "if you set out to do something worthwhile, you'll be surprised to find out where help comes from."

New Bedford's Cape Verdean Memorial Scholarship Fund held its first essay contest that year. The fund was established by a Cape Verdean group headed by Alfred J. Gomes. A prominent attorney and civic leader, Mr. Gomes is the man for whom the city's Gomes Elementary School was named in 1977.

Mr. Leighton won $200 for his essay, "The Obligation of the Professional Man to His Community." His reading of history had led him to that subject, he says.

The $200 essay prize "was a lot of money in 1936," he said in the cable TV interview with Mr. Custodio. The scholarship would pay his first year's tuition, with enough left over for books.

But the scholarship committee surprised him. "They told me, 'We're not going to give you the $200 because you're not a high school graduate. We'll send $100 to Howard for the first semester. If you make it through, we'll send the other $100.'"

At first, Howard bridled at accepting a student who hadn't gone to high school. After passing an entrance exam, though, Mr. Leighton was admitted as an "unclassified student."

The rest is history.

He finished his first semester with three As, two Bs, a spot on the dean's honor role, and a job as assistant to the dean of men.

During that first year in Washington, Mr. Leighton experienced his first brush ever with blatant bias. He ordered coffee and a piece of pie in a shop. "The man told me they didn't serve niggers."

That incident, he said in the 1987 TV interview, reminded him to "treasure the fact that I had been reared in a climate (New Bedford) in which the overt racism I have seen and dealt with elsewhere did not touch me."

He graduated from Howard in 1940, magna cum laude and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was also included in the book, "Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges."

From there, it was on to Harvard Law School -- and also to marriage. In 1942, he wed Virginia Berry Quivers. They were married 52 years, until her death in 1995.

Mr. Leighton has two daughters -- Anne Reynolds of Ohio and Barbara Whitfield of Chicago -- and five grandchildren.

His second year at Harvard was interrupted by World War II. Mr. Leighton saw battle with the infantry in the Pacific, then returned to Cambridge in 1945, graduating from Harvard in 1946.

The principles embodied in his essay on obligation have guided him ever since. The professional man's obligation, he says today, is to "serve your community to the best of your ability, always uphold and respect the law, and never hesitate to pay your taxes."

He walked out of Harvard Law and looked around for a place to be.

He chose Chicago and headed there in 1947 because it had a huge African-American population and a dynamic Democratic Party machine.

In 1950, as a rising attorney there, Mr. Leighton paid the Cape Verdean scholarship fund back, with interest, donating $300. It would not be the last time he gave money to that and other worthy New Bedford causes.

He went on to serve as an assistant Illinois attorney general and rose to become president of the NAACP's 32,000-member, Chicago chapter, the nation's largest.

He pursued politics, as well. For a time, he headed a Democratic Party ward organization.

In the 1950s, attorney Leighton fought alongside people like future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, using the law to test the justness of the nation and its constitution.

At a 1951 dinner in Rhode Island, Alfred Gomes praised Mr. Leighton as "New Bedford's gift to that small circle of brilliant, colored lawyers who almost daily are battering down before the U.S. Supreme Court the concept of second-class citizenship for the colored man."

This, of course, was prior to the Supreme Court's landmark, 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation case. Mr. Leighton was arguing and winning civil rights cases not only in Illinois, but in Mississippi, Alabama and before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1950, Mr. Leighton represented black parents in Harrisburg, Ill. Their children's segregated school had no gym and no library, but did have railroad tracks running through the middle of the school yard.

"These segregated schools," he recalls, smiling, "were always called the Abraham Lincoln School."

He sued, claiming the children were being denied the right to a decent education. He won an injunction ordering the desegregation of Harrisburg's schools.

The same year, he boarded a train for Alabama, where he was to press another civil rights case. But when he was barred from the train's club car and demanded to be served there, he was "arrested" and locked in one of the train's empty rooms.

Afterwards, he sued the Gulf Mobile & Ohio Railroad for its treatment of him, but lost the case.

Nineteen-fifty also brought one of the most troubling episodes of his career.

In Cicero, Ill., a black family was being barred from moving into an apartment they had rented. Mr. Leighton took their case and won. But as a result, whites in Cicero rioted, burning down the house the black family was to move into.

In the wake of the event, Mr. Leighton was indicted for conspiring to start a race riot.

He was devastated. "Being indicted is a traumatic experience. I spent many sleepless nights worrying about the fact that I might be imprisoned."

"To the credit of the Chicago bar, lawyers rallied around me. And the Chicago Tribune wrote editorials denouncing the indictment.

"Finally, Thurgood Marshall came from New York -- he was general counsel for the NAACP at the time -- and argued for the indictment to be dismissed."

Eventually, it was, but several years later.

Headlines at the time in this newspaper reflected relief in New Bedford that Mr. Leighton had finally been exonerated.

Clearly committed to the civil rights struggle, Mr. Leighton nevertheless opposed the movement's use of civil disobedience. In a 1967 speech to the New Bedford NAACP, he criticized protesters who "sit in the streets, throw themselves in front of police vehicles or go and sit in someone's office until they force that person to give in to their demands."

In 1963, he represented Sam Giancana, head of the Chicago crime syndicate, in a suit claming the FBI was violating his civil liberties.

Although the government hadn't charged Mr. Giancana with a crime, agents trespassed on his property, trained cameras on his home and followed him everywhere.

"I came to the conclusion that Sam Giancana had been arrested and imprisoned without being charged," he says. "He was being deprived of his liberty."

It is a case Mr. Leighton looks back on with pride.

"I have always felt strongly that no one is either above or below the law," Mr. Leighton said in the 1987 cable TV interview. "This was a high point of my career because it illustrated the point that no one in this country should fall below the law." He won an injunction against the FBI and its tactics.

Mr. Giancana was not the only organized crime figure Mr. Leighton represented. But he became better known as a "death house lawyer" for his frequent work with inmates condemned to death or to life imprisonment.

He also made headlines in 1953, when he helped free a man who had spent 17 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Mr. Leighton grew interested in Earl Howard Pugh's case when he discovered that police had suppressed evidence that would have cleared Mr. Pugh and another defendant in the murder case. (The second man died in prison in 1949.)

A 1959 story in this newspaper was headlined, "City Native in Chicago is Champion of Lost Causes." The story spoke of Mr. Leighton's reputation as a lawyer who took on "lost causes and doomed men. ... The prisoners seem to share one common difficulty -- no money to pay lawyers."

He donned the judicial robes for the first time in 1964, when he was elected a circuit court judge in Cook County, Ill.

His rulings quickly earned him a reputation among some as soft on crime. Early on, his conviction rate in non-jury trials fell significantly below the average for criminal court judges.

And in his most controversial decision, in 1965, he freed two men who'd been charged in the stabbing of a police officer.

Police organizations, Chicago's newspapers, and even FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover attacked Mr. Leighton for that decision. The Chicago Sun-Times urged the judge be reassigned to hear civil suits where "we trust his understanding of such cases is better than his understanding of criminal law."

Mr. Leighton defended his ruling, claiming it was not a crime to resist an unlawful arrest. Ultimately, he weathered the storm and held onto his post after a Cook County judicial panel studied the case and took no action against him.

In 1969, he was assigned to sit on the Illinois Appellate Court. The following year, he was elected to a 10-year post on that court, garnering more than 1 million votes.

And then, in 1975, President Gerald Ford nominated him for a seat on the U.S. District Court in Chicago. In a Justice Department interview for that post, Mr. Leighton was asked about his representation of Mr. Giancana.

"I told them, 'If there is ever a biography written of my life, I want it to be known that the high point of my career was defending the head of the Cosa Nostra against J. Edgar Hoover."

He was confirmed for the judgeship in February 1976.

He retired from the federal bench in 1987, announcing his decision to join the Chicago firm of Earl Neal and Associates.

"I think if you undertook a complete search of retired federal judges, you'd find I'm one of the few who's practicing law. I actually go to court, arguing cases before juries and on appeal."

"I'm in unusually good health for someone my age. I don't have any of the normal burdens of aging. At least, not yet," he says, laughing.

Besides the blessing of good genes, he says, he maintains a healthy lifestyle. "I never smoked, I don't drink alcoholic or carbonated beverages, and I eat two meals a day."

In addition to the law practice and frequent trips back East, Mr. Leighton gives his time to various civic groups and universities.

Now and then, he gets the chance to play chess in Chicago's public schools. "I enjoy playing against 20 to 30 kids, but it's exhausting."

Looking back, he can be as awed as others at the story of his life. "You know, I don't remember appreciating at the time what I was going through: the civil rights cases, Sam Giancana, saving six people from the electric chair. I appreciate it more now."

Would he do anything differently?

"Not really."

When asked how he'd like to be remembered, he replies, "Just as a hard-working person. I've been extremely fortunate. I held one of the highest positions one can hold in the federal government: that of a lifetime, district court judge."

For a period in 1986, he was appointed to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. "That's the court which most people acknowledge is one tier below the Supreme Court."

One day, during a break, "I wandered aimlessly away from the building."

He found himself standing in front of Union Station. "Fifty years earlier, almost to the day, I had found my way to Howard University to see if they would let me in."

Now, he was standing in front of the same station entrance he had exited a half-century earlier. He began to flip through memories and reflect on how far he'd come.

"Standing there, I couldn't contain myself," he recalls, his voice shaking. "I was overwhelmed."

Over the years, he has returned to New Bedford many times to be honored or to play a role in tributes to others.

Often on trips back to Massachusetts, he makes his "sentimental journey."

"I'm one of the only ones who will go with him," his sister, Virginia Cardozo of Watertown, says with a smile. She, Mr. Leighton, and brother John Leitao of Taunton are the family's only surviving siblings.

Mr. Leighton and his sister drive into downtown New Bedford, turning from Sixth Street onto Union Street, traveling east. Then they turn right onto Acushnet Avenue, heading south.

Slowing down, of course, to smell the peanuts.

'A noble adventure': A law student's love of democracy

By Robert Lovinger, Standard-Times staff writer

A lifelong Democrat whose career was crowned when a Republican president (Gerald Ford) named him a federal judge, George Leighton knows how the system works.

But as a Harvard Law School student, 24 years before that appointment, Mr. Leighton made clear his devotion to the democratic way of life.

In 1941, he won second prize and $200 in a national Town Hall essay contest that drew some 12,000 entries. His work, titled "What Democracy Means to Me," laid out the principles that would flow like a river through his life as an attorney, judge and citizen.

(This was the second time he'd scored in an essay contest. The first, in 1936, provided him the money to begin studies at Howard University.)

In the Town Hall composition, he argued for a forgiving, loving definition of democracy.

Excerpts follow:

"To begin with, I should point out that I am black -- a Negro. And as such I have had experiences that tend to shake my faith in democracy. I have lived in situations that to some would constitute absolute betrayal of democracy itself. ..."

"(But) I realized very early in my life -- a poverty-stricken one, by the way -- that we include too much in our definition of democracy. ..."

"It came to me that there are such entities as social democracy, economic democracy and political democracy. Whenever I encounter any situation in which my rights under one of these entities are violated, I know what protest to make and what criticism to incur. I lose not my faith in our American democracy as a whole. ..."

"It is indubitably clear that there is nothing wrong with our way of life. It remains only for us to apply its principles and reap the fruits of its possibilities. ..."

"To me, American democracy is like a religion: not an incongruity of ideals, but a stabilizer around which to build my ideals. ..."

"American democracy means to me the opportunity to live as a free individual. Within the limits of my ability, I can make as great a success of my life as I desire. ..."

"Let those who criticize our way of life look for a better example of human achievement. ..."

"The shortcomings I find in our American scene are not inherent therein; they represent, rather, misunderstanding and misapplication of our strength and potentialities. ..."

"The freedom that permeates this great American land inspires me. The full life that is possible here makes life a noble adventure. I have but one hope: that some day, I shall make a worthwhile contribution to this adventure."

Staff photos by Mike Couto
Judge George Leighton, the son of Cape Verdean immigrants, dropped out of school after sixth grade to help support his family. A self-made man, he reached the pinnacle of his career as a federal judge appointed by President Gerald Ford. Today, at, 86, he splits his time between practicing law in Chicago, enjoying family time in Plymouth -- and visiting his childhood haunts in New Bedford.