After serving for eight years in the District of Columbia Public Defender Service, rising to the position of deputy director, Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., or Tree, as he was affectionately known, was appointed a lecturer at Harvard Law School in 1984.
Among his many achievements, he founded the Criminal Justice Institute, which trains student lawyers to represent indigent defendants in the Boston area. He led the Trial Advocacy Workshop for many years, and he also created the legendary “Saturday School” program, a forum to support Black students and examine critical issues in the study of law, which brought luminaries in law and other fields to campus to connect with students and discuss issues of justice, race, and equity.
In 2005, Ogletree launched the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, named in tribute to the legendary civil rights lawyer who created the litigation campaign that eventually resulted in the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education.
Ogletree also represented high-profile clients, such as Anita Hill and Tupac Shakur, as well as the countless clients he served through his impactful work at CJI and the Public Defender Service.
Throughout his career, Ogletree was a nationally recognized leader in addressing issues of race, justice, and equality. His teaching shaped generations of students working on those issues, including the future President Barack Obama ’91 and First Lady Michelle Obama ’88.
He is the author of numerous articles, editorials, and books on race and criminal justice, including “Life without Parole: America’s New Death Penalty?” “The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America,” and “The Road to Abolition: The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States.”
He received many honors, including being named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and one of the 100 most influential black Americans by Ebony magazine.
The celebrated, influential, and beloved Harvard Law professor and civil rights scholar, died peacefully on August 4, 2023, in his home in Odenton, Maryland, from Alzheimer’s disease.
In celebration of Black History Month, the Training Division is honoring black legal minds in the United States who have advanced civil rights and continue to inspire advocates to dismantle systems of oppression and work for a better tomorrow.
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