Why one of NC lawyer James Ferguson’s biggest cases still affects Charlotte today
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Remembering James Ferguson
James Ferguson II, a Charlotte civil rights lawyer whose landmark cases desegregated schools nationwide died July 21, 2025 at 82. Ferguson, an Asheville native, was also a co-founder of North Carolina’s first interracial law firm.
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Charlotte historians say impacts of the 1971 Supreme Court case Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education are still present in the city’s education system today, a legacy tied closely to civil rights lawyer James Ferguson, who died this week.
Ferguson helped on the case that made Charlotte a national example of school desegregation. More than 50 years later, historians say the impact of the case continues to surface in conversations about equity, opportunity and civil rights. His impact remains even as schools today look very different from those shaped by the court’s ruling.
“It transformed the city,” said Charlotte historian Pamela Grundy. “It’s something that can be an inspiration, because things changed, and they stayed changed for a long time. It made a big difference.”
Swann was the first major case where a judge mandated district-wide bussing to achieve full desegregation, said Grundy. When the case was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1971, it became a national precedent for desegregation. Because of the policy, Charlotte had the most desegregated major school system in the country for about 25 years, Grundy said. It also fostered more political and social integration.
“You started to see a lot more African Americans participating in politics and other arenas where they’d been shut out,” she said. “It made a tremendous difference.”
While the case was litigated by Ferguson’s law partners Julius Chambers and Adam Stein, Ferguson took on a leading role in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the case was challenged. That challenge ended in April 2002 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Black parents, ending 32 years of busing.
In 1999, Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools were declared desegregated, and busing efforts ended, Grundy said. Today, she said, schools in Charlotte have resegregated to some extent, especially along economic lines.
“I think the legacy of Swann is still around, not in a big, obvious way, but in a lot of less visible ways,” Grundy said. “Especially in how people who experienced desegregation interact and what some of their community priorities are.”
Mecklenburg County Commissioner Arthur Griffin said Ferguson was a mentor to him, and that his work on Swann still resonates today.
“There’s still a moral force that James Ferguson left with respect to the Swann case, and that moral force continues to echo in the community,” he said.
Griffin, who attended segregated Charlotte schools and served as school board chairman decades later, said Ferguson provided students with hope about access to quality resources. Griffin’s wife graduated from West Charlotte High School in 1969, where her playground was on the gravel parking lot. In 1970, Griffin said, the parking lot was finally paved.
“There are significant reminders, physical reminders, as well as non-physical reminders, like the moral force of justice, that are here today because of James Ferguson and his co-partner, Julius Chambers,” he said.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education Chair Stephanie Sneed said the school system’s diversity of students and languages is directly attributed to Ferguson’s actions.
“Education is a pillar of any community,” she said, calling Ferguson’s impact “generational.”
Sneed also said Ferguson’s passing reminds her to be “courageous” and “unwavering” in providing students with the best free and public education possible.
Charlotte historian Tom Hanchett said Swann is a crucial part of Charlotte’s history.
“Our school system is not nearly as integrated as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s, but it remains one of the strongest urban school systems in the United States,” he said. “(Swann’s) part of who we are as Charlotte.”
And Ferguson’s legacy extends far beyond Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, both Hanchett and Grundy said. Ferguson founded South Africa’s first Trial Advocacy Program during the Apartheid era and helped obtain pardons for the wrongfully-convicted “Wilmington 10,” among other legal and advocacy work.
“(Charlotte) ain’t perfect, no American city is,” Hanchett said. “But the work of James Ferguson – it made a difference.”
Charlotte Observer intern Abby Pender contributed to this story.
This story was originally published July 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Why one of NC lawyer James Ferguson’s biggest cases still affects Charlotte today."
