[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 47 (Thursday, April 13, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S2723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO DOVEY J. ROUNDTREE

 Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the American Bar Association 
Commission on Women in the Profession announced in February the winners 
of the 2000 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Awards.
  Among those worthy recipients was Dovey J. Roundtree, General Counsel 
for the National Council of Negro Women, whom I have been privileged to 
know for many years.
  As a former law clerk to Federal Circuit Judge Prettyman, then as an 
Assistant United States Attorney, followed by private practice in the 
greater metropolitan area of Washington, DC, I came to know and admire 
the professional achievements of Attorney Roundtree.
  She is most deserving of this recognition for her tireless efforts to 
help others.
  The award Mrs. Roundtree has earned is named for the first woman 
lawyer in America, Margaret Brent. She arrived in the Colonies in 1638, 
and was involved in 124 court cases over the course of eight years, 
winning every case. In 1648, she formally demanded the right to vote in 
the Maryland Assembly, but her petition was denied by the Governor.
  These awards were established in 1991 to honor outstanding women 
lawyers who have achieved professional excellence in their area of 
specialty and have actively worked to help other women lawyers.
  Attorney Roundtree and her work have been admired for more than three 
decades. She has been a leading civil rights lawyer, an Army veteran, 
an ordained minister and a resident of Spotsylvania.
  She is a founding partner of the Washington, DC, law firm of 
Roundtree, Knox, Hunter and Parker, and she served for 35 years as 
General Counsel to the National Council of Negro Women and as special 
consultant for legal affairs to the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
  Mrs. Roundtree attend Howard University Law School on the GI Bill and 
went on to break legal ground in both civil and criminal law. Her 1955 
bus desegregation victory before the Interstate Commerce Commission, 
Sarah Keys versus Carolina Coach Company, was critically important in 
the legal battle for civil rights.
  She was the first black woman admitted to the Bar Association of the 
District of Columbia and actively recruited other black women 
attorneys.
  Dovey J. Roundtree is most deserving of this award.

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