D'Army Bailey
Encyclopedia
D'Army Bailey is an attorney, retired circuit court
judge, civil rights
activist, author and film actor, born in Memphis, Tennessee
. He also served as a city councilman in Berkeley, California
, from 1971-73.
Bailey is founder of the National Civil Rights Museum
which opened in 1991 at Memphis’ Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was slain in 1968. His 1993 book, Mine Eyes Have Seen: Dr. Martin Luther King’s Final Journey, focused on that period. A new book, The Education of a Black Radical, published in October 2009, recalls Bailey’s own history in the civil rights movement.
His interest in civil liberties issues also led Bailey to film, where he portrayed a judge in the 1999 film The People vs. Larry Flynt
.
He’s also had roles in seven other movies, including portrayals ranging from a minister to a street-hustling pool player. He is a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
As a lawyer, Bailey practiced law for 16 years in Memphis before being elected as a judge on the Circuit Court of Tennessee's Thirtieth Judicial District in 1990. He presided over a nationally recognized trial lasting four months in 1999 in which three major tobacco firms were acquitted of wrongdoing in contributing to the deaths of smokers. He also has been twice nominated to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court.
In September 2009, he retired from the bench and became a member of the Wilkes & McHugh, P.A, a national civil litigation law firm, founded in 1985 by Jim Wilkes
and Tim McHugh.
Bailey has lectured at law schools, including Harvard, Loyola in California, Washington and Lee, Washington University in St. Louis, and Notre Dame University. He also has published legal articles at the law schools at Harvard University, the University of Toledo, Washington and Lee, and Howard University. Bailey has served on the executive committee of the Tennessee Judicial Conference.
He received his law degree from Yale University
in 1967. He received a Doctor of Laws degree from Clark University
in Worcester, Massachusetts in 2010.
Bailey is married to the former Adrienne Marie Leslie, and the couple have two adult sons, Justin and Merritt. He is licensed to practice in Tennessee, California, Arkansas and Pennsylvania.
As president of the school’s freshman class, and for the next two years Bailey was drawn into the fight against segregation, joining a sit-in at a Greyhound bus station, picketing against discriminatory hiring practices at Baton Rouge businesses, and leading a march from the Southern University campus to downtown to support fellow students jailed for demonstrating.
Bailey led a class boycott later, resulting in his expulsion. News of Bailey’s ouster coursed through the civil rights community to Clark University in Worcester, Mass., where sympathetic students had established a scholarship for a civil rights activist. The students raised $2,400 through community appeals, bake sales and car washes to bring Bailey to Clark and continue his education.
At Clark, Bailey helped organize and became director of the Worcester Student Movement. In this role, he invited and hosted Malcolm X
as a guest speaker at Clark, worked briefly with Abbie Hoffman in the Worcester movement’s early days, and interacted with such civil rights and student activist icons as James Meredith
, John Lewis, Tom Hayden
and Allard Lowenstein.
The Worcester Student Movement was active tutoring students from the city’s low-income neighborhoods. It also picketed against a downtown department store for not employing blacks as clerks and organized demonstrations against a city manufacturing company. Bailey began to understand the power of law in advancing change as he assisted with the filing of legal complaints with the federal government to halt discrimination in the city.
Eventually, Bailey became ensnared in the divisive, coalition politics that dominated Berkeley city government at the time. Political conservatives and the city’s business community helped finance a recall effort targeting Bailey. Despite drawing support from such allies as civil rights’ leader Medgar Evers
’ widow, Myrlie, Jesse Jackson
, west coast ILWU labor leader Harry Bridges
, Julian Bond
, Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton
, and the National Bar Association and it’s President, O.T.Wells, Bailey was recalled from the council in 1973. In 1974 he returned to Memphis, where he opened a law practice with his brother, Walter Lee Bailey, Jr.
While running a full-service law practice, Bailey in 1982 became part of a group of attorneys and activists who raised $144,000 to buy the Lorraine Motel, site of the King assassination, at auction on the steps of the Shelby County Courthouse.
A year later, Bailey made an unsuccessful run for Memphis mayor. But his focus soon became trained on establishing the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, serving as Board President from 1983 until the Museum opened in 1991. The museum on the site of the once-rundown motel has flourished and has become one of Memphis’ top visitors’ attractions. Exhibits trace the story of the struggle for African-American civil rights from the arrival of the first Africans in the American colonies in 1619 through the assassination of King in 1968.
A 2001 expansion added new buildings to the museum, including a former rooming house at nearby 418 South Main Street, from which the shots were fired that killed King. James Earl Ray was convicted of King’s killing and later died in prison while serving a 99-year sentence.
After lobbying to obtain public and private funding for the museum, Bailey resigned from its foundation board within months of the facility’s opening. Bailey said he felt fellow board members had lost sight of a central mission of the museum, which was to continue spurring advances in civil rights.
Bailey, by then an elected circuit court judge, envisioned the museum serving as a catalyst for activities aimed at what he said would “carry out the unfinished business of the civil rights movement,” inspiring youth and taking stands on minority-rights issues.
Before his first election to the court in 1990, Bailey had practiced law for 16 years in Memphis. His general law practice represented clients in criminal and civil cases. Much of his casework was in personal injury law. Bailey served three terms as president of the Memphis chapter of the National Bar Association. He was elected to three judicial terms and was twice nominated to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court. After 19 years as a circuit court judge in Tennessee’s Thirtieth Judicial District, Bailey resigned Sept. 15, 2009 to resume a career as a civil trial lawyer focusing on medical malpractice, nursing home liability and catastrophic injury. Bailey joined Wilkes & McHugh, P.A. to take part in major cases with a firm recognized as a pioneer in nursing home abuse litigation. Wilkes & McHugh, P.A. has been named one of the 20 top plaintiffs’ firms in the nation by the National Law Journal.
In The People vs. Larry Flynt, Bailey starred among a host of familiar faces making film appearances, including James Carville, President Clinton’s former political consultant. His latest film, Cigarette Girl, centers on a story line somewhat ironic for a judge who 10 years ago presided over a landmark tobacco trial. The film is set in 2035, a future in which cigarette smokers have been ostracized into ghettos called “smoking sections” and a pack of cigarettes cost more than $60.
Bailey has appeared in the following films cast in these roles:
Circuit court
Circuit court is the name of court systems in several common law jurisdictions.-History:King Henry II instituted the custom of having judges ride around the countryside each year to hear appeals, rather than forcing everyone to bring their appeals to London...
judge, civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activist, author and film actor, born in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. He also served as a city councilman in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, from 1971-73.
Bailey is founder of the National Civil Rights Museum
National Civil Rights Museum
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, is a privately owned complex of museums and historic buildings built around the former Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street, where Martin Luther King, Jr...
which opened in 1991 at Memphis’ Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was slain in 1968. His 1993 book, Mine Eyes Have Seen: Dr. Martin Luther King’s Final Journey, focused on that period. A new book, The Education of a Black Radical, published in October 2009, recalls Bailey’s own history in the civil rights movement.
His interest in civil liberties issues also led Bailey to film, where he portrayed a judge in the 1999 film The People vs. Larry Flynt
The People vs. Larry Flynt
The People vs. Larry Flynt is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman about the rise of pornographic magazine publisher and editor Larry Flynt, and his subsequent clash with the law. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, and Edward Norton.The film was written by...
.
He’s also had roles in seven other movies, including portrayals ranging from a minister to a street-hustling pool player. He is a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
As a lawyer, Bailey practiced law for 16 years in Memphis before being elected as a judge on the Circuit Court of Tennessee's Thirtieth Judicial District in 1990. He presided over a nationally recognized trial lasting four months in 1999 in which three major tobacco firms were acquitted of wrongdoing in contributing to the deaths of smokers. He also has been twice nominated to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court.
In September 2009, he retired from the bench and became a member of the Wilkes & McHugh, P.A, a national civil litigation law firm, founded in 1985 by Jim Wilkes
Jim Wilkes
Jim Wilkes was recently named as one of the top 10 most influential people by Mr. Wilkes was is a well-known Tampa, Florida native, who has made national news for his outspoken advocacy on behalf of nursing home residents who have been victims of abuse. To some, Wilkes is a hero, to others he is...
and Tim McHugh.
Bailey has lectured at law schools, including Harvard, Loyola in California, Washington and Lee, Washington University in St. Louis, and Notre Dame University. He also has published legal articles at the law schools at Harvard University, the University of Toledo, Washington and Lee, and Howard University. Bailey has served on the executive committee of the Tennessee Judicial Conference.
He received his law degree from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1967. He received a Doctor of Laws degree from Clark University
Clark University
Clark University is a private research university and liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts.Founded in 1887, it is the oldest educational institution founded as an all-graduate university. Clark now also educates undergraduates...
in Worcester, Massachusetts in 2010.
Bailey is married to the former Adrienne Marie Leslie, and the couple have two adult sons, Justin and Merritt. He is licensed to practice in Tennessee, California, Arkansas and Pennsylvania.
Early years
The civil rights movement has been a steady current running through Bailey’s life. His involvement stemmed while growing up in South Memphis and attending the segregated Booker T. Washington High School from 1955–59, where he graduated and went on to attend the nations largest historically black university, Southern University in Baton Rouge, La.As president of the school’s freshman class, and for the next two years Bailey was drawn into the fight against segregation, joining a sit-in at a Greyhound bus station, picketing against discriminatory hiring practices at Baton Rouge businesses, and leading a march from the Southern University campus to downtown to support fellow students jailed for demonstrating.
Bailey led a class boycott later, resulting in his expulsion. News of Bailey’s ouster coursed through the civil rights community to Clark University in Worcester, Mass., where sympathetic students had established a scholarship for a civil rights activist. The students raised $2,400 through community appeals, bake sales and car washes to bring Bailey to Clark and continue his education.
At Clark, Bailey helped organize and became director of the Worcester Student Movement. In this role, he invited and hosted Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
as a guest speaker at Clark, worked briefly with Abbie Hoffman in the Worcester movement’s early days, and interacted with such civil rights and student activist icons as James Meredith
James Meredith
James H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President...
, John Lewis, Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...
and Allard Lowenstein.
The Worcester Student Movement was active tutoring students from the city’s low-income neighborhoods. It also picketed against a downtown department store for not employing blacks as clerks and organized demonstrations against a city manufacturing company. Bailey began to understand the power of law in advancing change as he assisted with the filing of legal complaints with the federal government to halt discrimination in the city.
Political involvement, public service
With his newly minted degree, Bailey worked in New York as national director of the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council recruiting law students for civil rights legal work in the South. Later, he moved to San Francisco to practice law and was elected to the Berkeley City Council, where he served from 1971 to 1973. In the tumultuous politics of Berkeley, he pushed efforts to open new job opportunities and for expanding housing, recreational and child-care programs.Eventually, Bailey became ensnared in the divisive, coalition politics that dominated Berkeley city government at the time. Political conservatives and the city’s business community helped finance a recall effort targeting Bailey. Despite drawing support from such allies as civil rights’ leader Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
’ widow, Myrlie, Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...
, west coast ILWU labor leader Harry Bridges
Harry Bridges
Harry Bridges was an Australian-American union leader, in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union , a longshore and warehouse workers' union on the West Coast, Hawaii and Alaska which he helped form and led for over 40 years...
, Julian Bond
Julian Bond
Horace Julian Bond , known as Julian Bond, is an American social activist and leader in the American civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating...
, Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton
Percy Sutton
Percy Ellis Sutton was a prominent black American political and business leader. A civil-rights activist and lawyer, he was also a Freedom Rider and the legal representative for Malcolm X...
, and the National Bar Association and it’s President, O.T.Wells, Bailey was recalled from the council in 1973. In 1974 he returned to Memphis, where he opened a law practice with his brother, Walter Lee Bailey, Jr.
While running a full-service law practice, Bailey in 1982 became part of a group of attorneys and activists who raised $144,000 to buy the Lorraine Motel, site of the King assassination, at auction on the steps of the Shelby County Courthouse.
A year later, Bailey made an unsuccessful run for Memphis mayor. But his focus soon became trained on establishing the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, serving as Board President from 1983 until the Museum opened in 1991. The museum on the site of the once-rundown motel has flourished and has become one of Memphis’ top visitors’ attractions. Exhibits trace the story of the struggle for African-American civil rights from the arrival of the first Africans in the American colonies in 1619 through the assassination of King in 1968.
A 2001 expansion added new buildings to the museum, including a former rooming house at nearby 418 South Main Street, from which the shots were fired that killed King. James Earl Ray was convicted of King’s killing and later died in prison while serving a 99-year sentence.
After lobbying to obtain public and private funding for the museum, Bailey resigned from its foundation board within months of the facility’s opening. Bailey said he felt fellow board members had lost sight of a central mission of the museum, which was to continue spurring advances in civil rights.
Bailey, by then an elected circuit court judge, envisioned the museum serving as a catalyst for activities aimed at what he said would “carry out the unfinished business of the civil rights movement,” inspiring youth and taking stands on minority-rights issues.
Law career
From 1976 to 1983 Bailey worked part-time for the Shelby County public defender’s office, representing defendants in dozens of first-degree murder cases. During this period he also wrote a weekly opinion column for the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper. Bailey also has hosted a local television program, Memphis Forum, and has appeared as a legal and political analyst for Court TV.Before his first election to the court in 1990, Bailey had practiced law for 16 years in Memphis. His general law practice represented clients in criminal and civil cases. Much of his casework was in personal injury law. Bailey served three terms as president of the Memphis chapter of the National Bar Association. He was elected to three judicial terms and was twice nominated to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court. After 19 years as a circuit court judge in Tennessee’s Thirtieth Judicial District, Bailey resigned Sept. 15, 2009 to resume a career as a civil trial lawyer focusing on medical malpractice, nursing home liability and catastrophic injury. Bailey joined Wilkes & McHugh, P.A. to take part in major cases with a firm recognized as a pioneer in nursing home abuse litigation. Wilkes & McHugh, P.A. has been named one of the 20 top plaintiffs’ firms in the nation by the National Law Journal.
Film career
Bailey’s film career has spanned three decades and he’s worked with such illustrious producers and directors as Oliver Stone, Milos Forman, Kevin Sullivan, Michael Hausman, and Jim Jarmusch. Bailey has described acting as “hard work, but it’s something different for me.” Several associates have called Bailey a Renaissance man. Bailey’s response, according to a recent Memphis Flyer article: “I say, why not?”In The People vs. Larry Flynt, Bailey starred among a host of familiar faces making film appearances, including James Carville, President Clinton’s former political consultant. His latest film, Cigarette Girl, centers on a story line somewhat ironic for a judge who 10 years ago presided over a landmark tobacco trial. The film is set in 2035, a future in which cigarette smokers have been ostracized into ghettos called “smoking sections” and a pack of cigarettes cost more than $60.
Bailey has appeared in the following films cast in these roles:
- Cigarette GirlCigarette GirlCigarette Girl is a 2009 film written and directed by Mike McCarthy, and starring Cori Dials, Ivy McLemore, Helen Bowman, and Danny Vinson...
(2009): Store Owner - Nothing But the TruthNothing But the Truth (2008 film)Nothing but the Truth is a 2008 American drama film written and directed by Rod Lurie. According to comments made by Lurie in The Truth Hurts, a bonus feature on the DVD release, his inspiration for the screenplay was the case of journalist Judith Miller, who in July 2005 was jailed for contempt of...
(2008): Supreme Court Judge - Street LifeStreet LifeStreet life may refer to:* Homelessness, a condition of living on the streets, without a fixed home* Streetlife , an African American hip-hop artist* Street Life , a jazz album released by The Crusaders...
(2007) (V): Agent Mike Stone - Forty Shades of BlueForty Shades of BlueForty Shades of Blue is a 2005 independent film directed by Ira Sachs. It tells the story of Alan James , an aging music producer who lives in Memphis, Tennessee with his much younger Russian girlfriend, Laura . Their life together is complicated by the presence of Alan's adult son Michael Forty...
(2005) (uncredited): Man - Woman's Story (2000): Adam Freeman
- How Stella Got Her Groove BackHow Stella Got Her Groove BackHow Stella Got Her Groove Back is a 1998 romance film, directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan. The film stars Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs, Whoopi Goldberg and Regina King. This film is an adaptation of Terry McMillan's bestselling novel by the same title...
(1998): Minister - The People vs. Larry FlyntThe People vs. Larry FlyntThe People vs. Larry Flynt is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman about the rise of pornographic magazine publisher and editor Larry Flynt, and his subsequent clash with the law. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, and Edward Norton.The film was written by...
(1996): Judge Thomas Alva Mantke - L.A. Court - Mystery TrainMystery Train"Mystery Train" is a song written by Junior Parker and Sam Phillips. It was first recorded in Phillip's Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee in 1953. Raymond Hill plays tenor sax and Matt Murphy plays lead guitar with Bill Johnson on piano, Pat Hare on...
(1989): Pool Player 3 (segment "Lost In Space")