J. L. Chestnut, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

J. L. Chestnut

American activist

Date of Birth: 16-Dec-1930

Place of Birth: Selma, Alabama, United States

Date of Death: 30-Sep-2008

Profession: lawyer

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

J.
L.
Chestnut, Jr.
(December 16, 1930 – September 30, 2008) was an author, attorney, and a figure in the Civil Rights Movement. He was the first African-American attorney in Selma, Alabama, and the author of the autobiographical book, Black in Selma, which chronicles the history of the Selma Voting Rights Movement, including the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches and Bloody Sunday. Chestnut was born in Selma, and attended Howard University Law School.
He returned home as Selma's only black attorney, and represented civil rights demonstrators at trial there when the Selma Movement began in the 1960s. In 1986, Chestnut was one of the founders of the New South Coalition, along with Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Richard Arrington, when the Alabama Democratic Party refused to endorse Jesse Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination.In 1994, Chestnut was active in protesting the jailing of political activist Lyndon LaRouche.
He was interviewed in the Tuscaloosa News saying that when he met LaRouche, "I told him that he might as well be black and in Alabama." He died, aged 77, of kidney failure, after an illness lasting several months in a hospital in Alabama.