A Name to Remember

Wade McCree Jr. '37 joins other luminaries on the frieze

by Kim Foley Mackinnon

Almost as a matter of course, many Boston Latin graduates go on to illustrious and rewarding careers. What is not at all usual is to be so respected and revered that your name is inscribed in gold on the upper frieze of the Boston Latin School auditorium. There is room for only 38 names on that list and the final spot was given to Wade Hampton McCree Jr. '37, who passed away in 1987. He joins such luminaries as John Hancock, Joseph Kennedy and Leonard Bernstein. A ceremony was held last year to unveil his name, which will be permanently inscribed on the frieze next year when renovations are completed at the school.

Well-respected for his impressive career and his integrity, McCree has always been known as a groundbreaker. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude from Fisk University in 1941. After a four-year stint in the Army during World War II, he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1948. At a time when some lunch counters wouldn't serve black people, McCree became the first African-American judge appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit and the second African-American solicitor general in the history of the United States. McCree came from a long line of people determined to have an education despite all difficulties. His grandmother, Martha Hale McCree, a widow of a Union soldier with 13 children to support, worked in food services at Fisk University in Tennessee and encouraged her children to attend college. McCree's father was one of her three children to attend Fisk, working as a butler to pay for school.

There McCree Sr. met his future wife, Lucretia "Lulu" Harper. They married and settled in Des Moines, Iowa, after he received a degree in pharmacology at the University of Iowa. He opened what is believed to be the first drugstore in Iowa owned by an African-American. After World War I, McCree's father switched gears and worked for the Federal Narcotics Service. In 1924 he became the narcotics agent in charge of Hawaii. Again, this was a first for an African-American. After being transferred to Chicago, McCree Sr. requested to be moved to Boston so his five children could benefit from the superior education offered by the public schools. And so they did.

McCree Jr.'s younger brother, James McCree '50, said his brother received the Latin School's Patrick Thomas Campbell Prize for being the student who showed the greatest improvement between junior and senior years. He recalled that one of McCree's favorite teachers was Philip Marson, who taught English. His sister Catherine McCree Barthwell said she can remember helping with his "memory work" every night. He could recite those passages of Greek and Latin his entire life, to the amazement of friends and colleagues. McCree, like his father, worked various jobs to help pay for college.

After graduating 12th in his class from Harvard in 1948 and passing the bar exam, McCree and his wife, Dores, a Simmons graduate, moved to her hometown of Detroit. There, McCree entered into private practice at the legendary black law firm of Bledsoe & Taylor. In 1953 he was appointed to the Workman's Compensation Commission by Governor G. Mennen Williams. Two years later he became the first African-American to be named a judge of the Circuit Court for Wayne County, Mich. After that it was onward and upward.

President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1961, another first for an African-American. In 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. He served there until 1977, when he left to become solicitor general of the United States, the second African-American to hold that office - Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was the first. President Jimmy Carter, who nominated McCree to the post, said at his memorial service that McCree was "a true American hero."

Called the "10th Justice," McCree served as solicitor general for four years. He stepped down in 1981 to become the Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, a position he held until his death. As solicitor general, McCree personally argued 25 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, including the Richard Nixon presidential tapes case and the Bakke "reverse discrimination" case.

McCree's list of accomplishments is impressive, to be sure, but how he did it and how he influenced others by his actions and words is equally impressive. Rather than worry about obstacles imposed because of discrimination, McCree worked to make equality a reality. McCree taught his three children to be aware of history and race, but not to dwell on it, said his eldest daughter Kathleen Lewis. She and her brother chose law as their careers, too.

Lewis, an appellate lawyer in Michigan and recently nominated by President Clinton to the same U.S. Court of Appeals post her father once held, said education was "critically important" to her father. She said expanding opportunities for everyone was vital to him and he felt education was an "obligation to yourself."

When Lewis was denied entrance into an all-girls school in Detroit based on her race, her father founded the independent, interracial Friends School of Detroit in 1965. Although built too late for Lewis to attend, her younger sister did. Later, McCree helped found the Higher Education Opportunity Committee, which identifies worthy students in middle school and provides them with college scholarships. The statewide program in Michigan was renamed for him after his death. Lewis says that to this day people come up to her and relate how her father impacted their lives. "He gave wonderful advice," said Lewis. "He listened uncritically." Her sister, Karen McCree, a librarian at Time Warner in New York, agrees. "He showed everyone respect. He was admired even by his opposition."

Wade Harper McCree, Karen's twin brother and a judge in Detroit, said their father was "gracious to all" and quoted a proverb by which the elder McCree lived. He carries it written down, but his father had it memorized: "Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these."

The Wade McCree Jr. Award for the Advancement of Social Justice was established in 1990 by the Eastern District of Michigan chapter of the Federal Bar Association. At the ceremony in 1998, one of McCree's former law clerks, Joel Shere, summed up how many felt about him. "For those of us who knew Wade McCree as law clerk, colleague or attorney practicing in his court, it was his personal qualities that set him apart and made him so utterly unforgettable. It was not so much his terrific intellect and powerful analytical skills in dealing with difficult and complex issues - it was his dignity, the way he carried himself, his respectful treatment of all who appeared before him and - I think most memorable of all - the incredible beauty of his speech."

Retired judge Harry J. Elam '40, who was instrumental in getting McCree's name on the frieze, called his campaign a "labor of love." Elam said all his life he tried to emulate McCree. "I followed in his footsteps," said Elam. "I always looked up to him. He was my role model."

The two met in the Boy Scouts when Elam was 13 and McCree was 15. Elam recalls that McCree was the first from their community in Roxbury to earn an Eagle Scout award. Years later, Elam went to him for advice on a career choice and decided to follow McCree's path in the law. McCree's name on the frieze will be the latest in a long list of honors, among them 30 honorary doctorates and various awards and scholarships named for him, but perhaps it is the one he would have cherished most.

Dores McCree said that her husband would have been "very, very proud, overwhelmed and a little humbled" by his name appearing on the frieze. "The school was always a great source of pride to him," she said. "He included it on his resume. He let everyone know that he went there." •

For information on contributions to the Wade McCree Jr. scholarship fund,
contact BLSA at 617-423-6658.

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