Eric Holder: 1st African-American Attorney General
Posted on 30. Jul, 2009 by Leshell Hatley in Scholarly Celebrations
Eric Holder
Eric H. Holder Jr. was sworn in as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States on February 3, 2009, by Vice-President Joe Biden. President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Mr. Holder on December 1, 2008.
In 1997, Mr. Holder was named by President Clinton to be the Deputy Attorney General, the first African-American named to that post. Prior to that he served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1988, Mr. Holder was nominated by President Reagan to become an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Mr. Holder, a native of New York City, attended public schools there, graduating from Stuyvesant High School where he earned a Regents Scholarship. He attended Columbia College, majored in American History, and graduated in 1973. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1976.
While in law school, he clerked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. Upon graduating, he moved to Washington and joined the Department of Justice as part of the Attorney General’s Honors Program. He was assigned to the newly formed Public Integrity Section in 1976 and was tasked to investigate and prosecute official corruption on the local, state and federal levels.
Prior to becoming Attorney General, Mr. Holder was a litigation partner at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, DC, a position he held since 2001. He represented clients such as Merck and the National Football League. [He represented the NFL during its dog fighting investigation against Michael Vick.]
In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement with the Justice Department for Chiquita Brands International in a case that involved Chiquita’s payment of “protection money” to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a group on the U.S. government’s list of terrorist organizations. In the agreement, Chiquita’s officials pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $25 million. Holder represented Chiquita in the civil action that grew out of this criminal case.
Eric Holder
In March 2004 Holder and Covington & Burling were hired by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to act as a special investigator to the Illinois Gaming Board. The Gaming Board had voted 4-1 earlier that month to allow a casino to be built in Rosemont, Illinois. That vote defied the recommendation of the board’s staff, which had raised concerns about alleged organized-crime links to the Rosemont casino’s developer. The move had also raised concerns that the governor had named his close friend and fund-raiser, Christopher Kelly, as a “special government agent” to be involved in official state negotiations about the casino. Holder’s legal work for the State of Illinois never materialized when the board reversed its decision and refused to hire Kelly. The investigation was subsequently canceled on May 18, 2004.
While D.C. v. Heller was being heard by the Supreme Court in 2008, Holder joined the Reno-led amicus brief, which urged the Supreme Court to uphold Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban and said the position of the Department of Justice, from Franklin Roosevelt through Clinton, was that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual’s right to keep and bear arms for purposes unrelated to a State’s operation of a well-regulated militia. Holder said that overturning the 1976 law “opens the door to more people having more access to guns and putting guns on the streets.”
Holder is married to Dr. Sharon Malone, an obstetrician; the couple have three children. Malone’s sister was Vivian Malone Jones, famous for her part in the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door which led to integration at the University of Alabama. Holder is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, the first African American Fraternity.
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