Lynne had a brilliant mind and was a strong advocate for justice and equity. A lawyer by training, Lynne attended Fisk University as an early entrant, received an A.B. in Sociology with honors from Barnard College, and J.D. degree with honors from Columbia University Law School, where she was a member of The Columbia Law Review. She worked as law clerk for a federal judge, Judge Constance Baker Motley; and as staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she focused on cases involving the abolition of the death penalty, prisoner rights and education. She served as general counsel to the New York City Commission on Human Rights and as section chief and deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, where she directed a trial section to vindicate the rights of institutionalized persons, and exercised oversight of sections concerned with legislative affairs, employment, housing, federal regulatory and budgetary matters.
Most of us at ABFE know Lynne from her prestigious career in philanthropy. From 2002 to 2010, she served as president of the Southern Education Foundation (SEF), a public charity whose mission is the advancement of equity and excellence in education in the American South, k-16, for low-income students, especially African Americans and Latinos, who need help the most. During her tenure at the Ford Foundation from l982-1994, where she advanced from program officer to director of Ford's Rights and Social Justice Program, Ms. Huntley was responsible for grant making related to minority and women's rights, refugee and migration issues, legal services for the poor, minorities and media, and coordination of field office activities related to the foregoing. She served on the Boards of Grantmakers for Education, the Marguerite E. Casey Foundation, the Jesse Ball DuPont Fund and most recently the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta.
Lynne was also a strong ABFE champion. She served on the Board of ABFE from 1987-1992 and served as our Counsel. She was named the James A. Joseph Lecturer in 2004 where she shared her thoughts on contemporary education through a fictional letter from Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Most recently, she contributed her time and attention in 2011 to help us launch our Leverage the Trust Campaign and resulting Black trustee organizing work.
We will miss her brilliance and contributions. ABFE will share notice of any public services as we receive the information.
To read Lynne's 2004 James A. Joseph Lecture, click here.
