Oscar Adams

Who was Oscar Adams?

Oscar William Adams, Jr. was the first African-American Alabama Supreme Court justice and the first African American elected to statewide office in Alabama.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Adams was a 1940 graduate of A. H. Parker High School. He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in philosophy at Talladega College in 1944, and a law degree at Howard University in Washington D. C. in 1947. He was admitted to the Alabama Bar that year and launched his own private practice, specializing in Civil Rights cases, often on behalf of Fred Shuttlesworth's Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. During 1963's Birmingham Campaign Adams was a member of the Central Committee that met at the A. G. Gaston Motel to plan demonstrations.

Adams became the first African American to join the Birmingham Bar Association in 1966. In 1967, he partnered with white attorney Harvey Burg to form the state's first integrated legal practice. The firm he later founded with James Baker and U. W. Clemon was one of the foremost law firms to litigate Civil Rights cases in the 1960s and 1970s.

Adams was appointed to the Alabama Supreme Court on October 10, 1980, by Governor Fob James. He won re-election in 1982 and 1988. He taught classes in appellate and trial advocacy at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law. He retired from the bench on October 31, 1993, in order to spend time writing a memoir. Governor James appointed Ralph Cook to finish his term.