As the world eagerly awaits the inauguration of America’s first Black president, many Americans are just as excited by the prospect of another important first - Eric Holder as the nation’s first African-American Attorney General. Obama and Holder have much in common. They are both lawyers. They share a passion for pick-up basketball. They are both the sons of working class parents. And both have an up-close and personal experience with racial and economic hardship. I believe this gives them a special insight and empathy for the challenges facing so many of our citizens in these perilous times.
Also like Obama, Holder is the son of an immigrant father. Obama’s father was from Kenya, Holder’s from Barbados. Born in the Bronx, Holder grew up in Queens and is a product of New York City Schools, including, Stuyvesant High School, Columbia University and Columbia Law School. His father sold real estate; his mother was a secretary. Neither went to college, but both instilled in him a commitment to education and hard work as the pathway to a better life.
Upon graduation from law school in 1975, Holder became a U.S. Justice Department lawyer where he served until President Reagan appointed him Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 1988. In 1993, he became the first African-American U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, a position he held until his appointment in 1997 as Deputy Attorney General, serving under President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno. Holder served briefly as Acting Attorney General under President George W. Bush, until the Senate confirmed John Ashcroft. Since 2001, he has served as a star attorney in the D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling. On December 1, 2008 President-elect Obama announced Holder’s nomination to be the 82nd Attorney General of the United States.
Holder is not only eminently qualified to be the nation’s chief lawyer, he is an adamant defender of the rule of law and civil rights and is also determined to restore what he sees as an eroded respect for that principle in recent years. In a speech to the American Constitution Society in June of this year, he said, "The next president must move immediately to reclaim America’s standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights." He called for closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, declaring without qualification that the U.S. does not torture, ending the practice of transferring individuals involuntarily to countries that engage in torture, and ceasing warrantless domestic surveillance.
As a long-time member of Concerned Black Men, Eric Holder also understands that increasing our already overcrowded prison population is not the way to a safe society. Too many promising lives have been wasted in that futile approach. He has said, "I think too often law enforcement people focus on the enforcement side and don’t deal with the prevention side, and unless you do both, how are you ever going to really get a handle on the crime problem." Those are wise words from the man who may soon get a chance to put them into action.
