The Legal Defense Fund’s (LDF) scholarship programs provide financial assistance to those who had been denied access to higher education for generations. For decades, the Herbert Lehman Education Fund and the Earl Warren Legal Training Program have guaranteed for many Black undergraduate students and law students that the battles to end segregation in education would not be undermined by financial need. The mission of LDF’s scholarship programs is to help transform the promise of racial equality into a social, economic, and political reality by supporting talented undergraduate students and law students.
The application period for the Herbert Lehman Education Fund and Earl Warren Scholarships is now closed.
In order to secure the hard-won gains of its watershed legal precedent, LDF created the Herbert Lehman Education Fund and the Legal Internship and Fellowship Program in 1964 to provide financial assistance to those who had been denied access to higher education for generations. Through their scholarship awards, the Lehman Fund and the Fellowship Program guaranteed for many able Black undergraduate students and law students that the battles to end segregation in education would not be undermined by financial need. Eight years later, as a successor to the Fellowship Program, LDF incorporated the Earl Warren Legal Training Program to cultivate future generations of attorneys dedicated to civil rights and public interest work. Additionally, the Warren Program sought to provide financial assistance for Black students pursuing legal careers.
For over 50 years, LDF’s scholarship program has provided more than $5.5 million of financial support to over 1,950 students. It has supported numerous distinguished leaders, including Congressman James Clyburn, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Marion Wright Edelman, the Honorable David Coar, and Nicole Austin-Hillery. The list continues to grow as LDF celebrates the recipients, supporters, and donors walking shoulder to shoulder to advance the mission of achieving racial justice, equality, and an inclusive society.
We are particularly grateful to the inaugural class of thirty-three Black Herbert Lehman scholarship recipients who were among the first students of color to challenge an overtly hostile and often dangerous desegregated school system in the South. They were pioneers who overcame adversity and paved the way for generations of students of color to follow. Among them were Robert Anderson, Jr. (first Black male student, University of South Carolina), Henri Monteith (first Black female student, University of South Carolina), Harvey Gantt (first Black student, Clemson University), Lucinda Brawley-Gantt (first Black female student, Clemson University), Cleveland Donald, Jr. (second Black graduate, University of Mississippi), Delores Johnson (first Black graduate, Winthrop College), Harold A. Franklin (first Black student, Auburn University), Sarah L. McCoy (first Black female student, Northeast Louisiana State College), and Vivian J. Malone (first Black graduate, University of Alabama).
Verna Bailey was among LDF’s first scholarship recipients. Bailey vividly recalls the severe hostility she experienced on campus. Her response was a powerful one. She completed her degree in three years and became the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Mississippi in 1968. Her story is one of the many triumphs from LDF’s long list of scholars.
