Material is unprocessed. Please contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
This collection is located on-site.
Course materials, notes, research materials, notebooks and writings of Professor Kellis Parker (1942-2000), first full-time African-American law professor at CU. Known for outspoken advocacy of ending racial discrimination in academia and for embracing jazz as a framework for understanding law.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
Material is unprocessed. Please contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
This collection is located on-site.
Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Kellis Parker papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Gift of Shilla Kim-Parker, 2018.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Kellis E. Parker, a noted legal scholar and civil rights activist who embraced jazz as a framework for understanding the law and, in 1972,became the first full-time black law professor at Columbia University.
Professor Parker's classes in contract law and seminars on the music industry, remedies and the roots of African-American law educated and edified many generations of students," said Law Dean David Leebron. "We will deeply miss the optimism, enthusiasm and generosity he brought to every endeavor.
Parker grew up in Kinston, NC, where his parents owned and operated the first black dry cleaning establishment in town. Their struggles were recorded in Professor Parker's book, The East End Dry Cleaners Hello Blues. Music was what the family used to keep their spirits high and to augment the family income. Professor Parker's instrument was the trombone, his brother Maceo's was the saxophone and his brother Melvin played the drums. Both Maceo and Melvin became professional musicians.
Parker was one of five black students who integrated the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1960, where he worked with Rep. Allard Lowenstein to challenge segregation. At Howard University Law School he graduated at the top of his class and was editor-in-chief of the Howard Law Journal. Upon graduation he clerked for Spottswood W. Robinson III in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Planning to return to North Carolina to practice law, Parker instead took Judge Robinson's suggestion to try teaching. He secured a position at the University of California at Davis Law School, earning tenure after three years, and moved to Columbia Law School in 1972. He earned tenure there in 1975. At the time of his death, he held Columbia's Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professorship of Law. For a number of years he also taught seminars at Howard Law School and served as faculty advisor to Howard's Law Journal.
Professor Parker's primary area of expertise was contract law, but his unique intellect moved it in many new directions. His 1975 case book, Modern Judicial Remedies, was the first to introduce civil rights remedies into the regular law school curriculum. His subsequent writings, including Law and the Black Experience: A Minority Report, have all centered on using the law and a fresh and creative sense of justice to resolve the race issues in this country. He formulated legal strategies for cases at the Center on Constitutional Rights, the NAACP Legal and Education Defense Fund and for numerous other organizations and individuals.
An accomplished jazz trombonist, Professor Parker performed with the Don Shaw Group at the 1999 Naples, Italy, Jazz Festival. He was a familiar part of jazz bands around Columbia University as well as throughout New York and many European urban centers, but he joined most happily with Parker, the band of his son and daughter-in-law, Kellis Jr. and Darliene. These experiences, plus his course in music contract law, "Jazz Roots Revisited: The Law the Slaves Made," made him the first stop on the road to success for many young entertainers.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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| Subject | ||
|---|---|---|
| African American law teachers | CLIO Catalog | ArchiveGRID |
| Jazz | CLIO Catalog | ArchiveGRID |