by Mary Spiller
August 30, 2025
Ferguson spent many years combating for racial justice by difficult college segregation, reversing wrongful convictions, and sparing prisoners from execution.
James E. Ferguson II, a civil rights lawyer who spent many years combating for racial justice by difficult college segregation, reversing wrongful convictions, and sparing prisoners from execution, died July 21 in Charlotte, N.C. He was 82. His son, James Ferguson III, mentioned the trigger was problems of Covid-19 and pneumonia.
Lengthy earlier than incomes his legislation diploma, Ferguson was energetic within the civil rights motion, organizing classmates within the Jim Crow South to combine libraries, lunch counters, and different public areas. After graduating from Columbia Legislation College in 1967—the place he recalled being considered one of fewer than 15 Black college students in a category of about 300—he joined Julius Chambers and Adam Stein to type Charlotte’s first racially built-in legislation agency, in keeping with The New York Instances.
“We weren’t practising legislation within the summary,” Ferguson mentioned in Robert Samuel Smith’s e-book Race, Labor & Civil Rights (2008). “We had been the authorized arm of the civil rights motion in North Carolina.”
In 1971, Ferguson helped persuade the U.S. Supreme Court docket to uphold busing as a device for integrating public colleges in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Schooling. The unanimous ruling grew to become a nationwide mannequin for college desegregation efforts. Through the case, his legislation workplace was torched in an arson assault—no accidents or arrests adopted—however Ferguson by no means forgot the three a.m. cellphone name alerting him to the blaze.
Ferguson additionally labored on landmark instances overturning wrongful convictions. He helped safe pardons for the Wilmington 10, who spent almost a decade in jail, and represented the Charlotte Three, whose lengthy sentences had been later commuted.
Partnering with the Innocence Venture, he launched DNA proof and new testimony that led to the 2004 exoneration of Darryl Hunt, who had spent 19 years imprisoned for a homicide he didn’t commit.
“For those who do justice to Darryl Hunt, you may have carried out justice to the state, to the prosecution, to your nation and yourselves,” Ferguson instructed an all-white jury throughout the case.
Starting in 2011, Ferguson additionally fought below North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act to cut back demise sentences for 4 inmates, succeeding in having their sentences modified to life imprisonment. “He endured abuses and threats however made everybody really feel seen and heard — that’s the civil rights motion,” mentioned legal professional Sonya Pfeiffer, his legislation companion. “What he did for colleges throughout the nation was extraordinary.”
Past the courtroom, Ferguson skilled Black legal professionals in apartheid-era South Africa, lectured at Harvard Legislation College, served as basic counsel for the ACLU, and led the North Carolina Academy of Trial Attorneys.
“I simply wish to really feel that I’ve carried out all I can do to result in equality — for everyone,” Ferguson instructed The Charlotte Publish in 2016. “That’s what life is about — attempting to create the society we predict we wish.”
He’s survived by three kids, a brother, 4 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. His spouse, Barbara, died in 2022.
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