[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 26, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1537-E1538]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO CORA T. WALKER

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 26, 2006

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would like to honor the 
life and legacy of Ms. Cora T. Walker. Cora Thomasina Walker was born 
on June 20, 1922, in Charlotte, N.C., one of nine children of William 
and Benetta Jones Walker. The family moved to the Bronx when she was a 
child. When she was an adolescent, her parents separated, leaving her, 
her mother and her siblings dependent on public assistance.
  After graduating from James Monroe High School in the Bronx, Ms. 
Walker promptly informed the Welfare Department that their help

[[Page E1538]]

was no longer required: she would support the family. She took a night 
job as a teletype operator with Western Union and also sold Christmas 
cards.
  At the same time, Ms. Walker was enrolled at St. John's University, 
then in Brooklyn, in a special 6-year program in which students earned 
both a bachelor's degree and a law degree. She received a bachelor's 
degree in accounting from St. John's in 1945 and a law degree the next 
year.
  For much of her career, Ms. Walker was active in the National Bar 
Association, a historically black organization. She helped found the 
association's Corporate Counsel Conference, an annual meeting sponsored 
by its commercial law section. In 1947, when Ms. Walker was admitted to 
the New York bar, she found the doors of the city's law firms tightly 
shut. (One firm relented and offered her a position--as a secretary.) 
So she struck out on her own.
  Active in Republican politics, Ms. Walker ran unsuccessfully for the 
New York State Senate in 1958 and 1964. In 1970, The New York Times 
included her--the only woman--on a list of the most powerful leaders in 
Harlem.
  In 1960, Cora Walker became the first woman to serve as president of 
the Harlem Lawyers Association. Until recently her law firm was located 
in Harlem, first on 125th Street and later from a renovated brownstone 
on Lenox Avenue. Ms. Walker was the first woman to run for president of 
the NBA. This is a little known fact by the younger lawyers.
  A recipient of numerous awards, the annual Black Law Student's 
Association's Breakfast held at the annual NBA Convention is named in 
her honor. She retired from the practice of law in 1999. The same year 
the New York County Lawyers' Association installed a plaque outside her 
Lenox Avenue law office commemorating her half-century of practicing 
law.
  In 1988, she helped found the Corporate Counsel Conference which is 
still sponsored annually by the Commercial Law and Corporate Law 
Section of the NBA. Her first client was an undertaker, for whom she 
did collections. Before her retirement, her firm was representing 
corporate clients such as Conrail, the Ford Motor Company, Texas 
Instruments and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Although she was representing 
corporate clients, she continued to draft wills and represent the 
``plain, ordinary, not elegant people'' .
  Cora T. Walker made an impact on the lives of many black lawyers 
across the country. She will be dearly missed, but not forgotten. It 
gives me great pleasure to give tribute to Ms. Cora T. Walker.

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