Conrad J. Lynn | |
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Born | November 4, 1908 Newport, Rhode Island, USA |
Died | November 16, 1995 Pomona, New York, USA |
(aged 87)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Syracuse University College of Law |
Occupation | Attorney |
Known for | Activism |
Spouse(s) | Yolanda M. Lynn |
Parent(s) | Joseph Lynn of Augusta, Georgia, and Nellie Irving Lynn of Aiken, South Carolina |
Awards | The Roy Wilkins Civil Rights Award 1990, presented at the 23rd Annual NAACP image Awards |
Conrad Joseph Lynn (November 4, 1908 – November 16, 1995) was an African-American civil rights lawyer and activist known for providing legal representation for activists, including many unpopular defendants. Among the causes he supported as a lawyer were civil rights, Puerto Rican nationalism, and opposition to the draft during both World War II and the Vietnam War. The controversial defendants he represented included civil rights activist Robert F. Williams and Black Panther leader H. Rap Brown.
Conrad J. Lynn was born in 1908 in Newport, Rhode Island, to parents who had moved north from Georgia. His mother was a domestic worker and his father, a Republican, worked as a laborer. When he was a child, the family moved to Rockville Centre in Nassau County on Long Island. Lynn attended law school at Syracuse University on a debating scholarship, in 1932 becoming the first African American to graduate from the Syracuse University College of Law.
As a young man in the 1920s and 1930s, he was a member of the Communist Party, but he was ousted in the late 1930s because he had defied the party by supporting Trinidadian oil workers who went on strike against Britain. He never rejoined. Years later, the House Un-American Activities Committee was to describe him erroneously as "indiscriminate in support of Communist organizations."