SELMA, Ala. — J.L. Chestnut Jr., the first black lawyer in Selma and a prominent attorney in civil-rights cases, died Tuesday. He was 77.
Chestnut’s law partner, state Sen. Hank Sanders of Selma, said Chestnut died in Birmingham of complications after an operation.
A Selma native who got his law degree at Howard University, Chestnut returned to his hometown in 1958 and became a key legal figure in the civil-rights battles in Selma. Later, he defended blacks in major voter-fraud prosecutions and helped black farmers make financial claims against the U.S. Agriculture Department.
His legal work included defending blacks in fraud prosecutions brought by the Justice Department in west Alabama in the 1980s. He joined other black leaders in a meeting with Attorney General Edwin Meese in 1985 to complain about the department’s handling of civil-rights issues.
Later he was a lead attorney in a class-action lawsuit that thousands of black farmers filed against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for regularly denying subsidies and other assistance to them because of their race.
A federal judge approved a settlement of the case in 2000 and Chestnut led the appeals for thousands of farmers who were denied compensation in the federal settlement.
