Z. Alexander Looby

Zephaniah Alexander Looby (April 8, 1899 – March 24, 1972) was a lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee who was active in the Civil Rights Movement. Born in the British West Indies, he immigrated to the United States at the age of 15. After working at a variety of jobs, he earned degrees at Howard University, Columbia University Law School, and New York University.

He settled in Nashville, Tennessee, where he built a law practice and taught at Fisk University. He is noted for being part of the defense team for 25 black men charged in attempted murder for the Columbia race riot of 1946 and winning acquittals for most, in the aftermath of the first major racial confrontation in the United States after World War II. He participated in numerous other cases, including leading desegregation of schools in Nashville.

Looby, the son of John Alexander and Grace Elizabeth (Joseph) Looby, was born in Antigua. When he was five, his mother had died while giving birth to a sibling. His father died when Looby was a teenager. The youth moved to the United States in 1914 as an orphan when he was fifteen years old. After reaching the U.S., he worked various odd jobs, reading widely to educate himself.

Looby attended Howard University as an undergraduate and became a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1922. He went on to earn a law degree in 1925 from Columbia University in New York City, and a doctorate in jurisprudence from New York University in 1926.

After graduating from New York University, Looby moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he started as an assistant professor at Fisk University, a historically black college. In July 1928 he passed the Tennessee bar exam and opened his own practice. In 1932, he helped found the Kent College of Law in Nashville. This African-American night school admitted both men and women.

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