Page 101 - The Scepter - Spring-Summer 2018_ Area Conferences Edition

Top Ladies of Distinction Remembers…

Lady Frankie Muse Freeman was an honorary member of Top

Ladies of Distinction, Inc. She died at age 101. Born Marie Frankie Muse on
Nov. 24, 1916, Lady Freeman grew up in Danville, Georgia, during the height of
segregation and Jim Crow laws.
After graduating high school, she enrolled in Hampton University, a historically
black college. There she joined Delta Sigma Theta sorority and would later be-
come the organization's 14th president. Lady Frankie went on to earn her law
degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and dedicated her career
to fighting to end Jim Crow.
Lady Frankie was an American civil rights attorney who served as the lead coun-
sel in the landmark 1954 case Davis et al. v. the St. Louis Housing Authority,
which ended legal racial discrimination in public housing.
In 1964, Lady Frankie became the first woman to be appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, (1964 -
1979) and was tasked with investigating and making recommendations on civil rights issues throughout the coun-
try. Lady Frankie was later inducted into the Bar Association Hall of Fame, the Civil Rights Walk of Fame, and
the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Freeman was instrumental in creating the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights founded in 1982. She was a prac-
ticing attorney in State and Federal courts for nearly sixty years. In 2007, Freeman was inducted in the Interna-
tional Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, Atlanta, Georgia, for her
leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement. On February 5, 2015, President Barack Obama appointed Freeman
to serve as a Member of the Commission on Presidential Scholars.