Orzell Billingsley

Who was Orzell Billingsley?

Orzell Billingsley became one of the first ten blacks admitted to the Alabama Bar after attending Talladega College and Howard University.

His law practice was deeply involved with civil rights litigation, and he was one of the lead lawyers for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Billingsley served as General Counsel for the National Democratic Party of Alabama and was a delegate for the NDPA at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in 1968. Billingsley helped to incorporate more than 20 small towns in Alabama that had majority black populations. He was well known for his 15-year defense of Caliph Washington who was falsely accused of killing a white officer; it was this case that helped to end all-white juries in Alabama. Billingsley was arrested for helping to secure farmland for the Black Muslims in Alabama. Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were known to call on Billingsley regarding the turbulence in Alabama. Billingsley was a founding member of the Alabama Lawyers Association.

He was known as the “black Patrick Henry of Alabama.”