in education and taught learning-disabled students in the Detroit public schools. Archer began to consider gradu- ate school when his future wife suggested he might want to consider law school. He was admitted in 1966 to the Detroit College of Law, again worked his way through school, and in 1970 received his Juris Doctor degree against the backdrop of a country in upheaval. T e Civil Rights Movement was calling for radical
change and making full-throated demands for social, political, and economic equality for African Americans. T urgood Marshall had led a magnifi cent legal team to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the “sepa- rate but equal doctrine” in public schools with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. T e Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were organizing protests, marching, and advocating for fair pay, housing, jobs, justice in the courts, and equal treatment in every aspect of life for black Americans. Detroit was a fl ashpoint in this fi ght for equality and was home to one of the most violent and destructive race riots in 1967. Archer came of age professionally during this time, as America faced an ultimatum to speed up the process of racial change or face a new revolution that promised to be as historic as the one that had taken place in 1776. In 1971, Archer attended his fi rst annual meeting of the
National Bar Association (NBA)—originally the “Negro Bar Association”—which was founded in 1924 after black lawyers were denied membership in the ABA. T e follow- ing year Archer attended his fi rst ABA annual meeting held in San Francisco. As he describes his experience, he recalls what it was like to go from his second NBA annual meeting where he saw a thousand lawyers who looked like him, to a place where he saw two others who looked like him. Archer said then that he knew he had a choice to make. “I could go back to the NBA and feel more comfortable,”
said Archer. “Or I could become active in the ABA to help open the door for other lawyers and people of color.” Archer became involved in the mainstream bar, and it is
arguably where he has had the greatest impact. In addition to membership in the ABA, he was the fi rst person of color elected president of the State Bar of Michigan, and served as the president of the Michigan-based Wolverine Bar Association, an association for black lawyers, jurists, and law students in Detroit. A Life Member of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Archer served as president of the National Bar Association from 1983-84 and was elected president of the American Bar Association for the 2003- 2004 term. His friend, legal colleague, and fellow ABA member
Robert J. Grey Jr., perhaps put it best when describing Archer’s impact on the ABA. “Diversity doesn’t just hap- pen,” said Grey. “Frederick Douglass said ‘power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.’ T e (American Bar Association) is a lot diff erent today.
MCCA.COM
IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME WE
MADE A STRONG STATEMENT ABOUT THE [AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION] BEING AN OPEN ORGANIZATION.” — Robert J. Grey, Jr.
PROCLAMATION FOR THE YOUNG LAWYERS SECTION IN THE MID-1970S, ARCHER BEING INTERVIEWED
BY “THE KING OF TALK RADIO IN DETROIT” PAUL W. SMITH IN THE LATE 1990S.
In a short period of time, (we) made a strong statement about the association being an open organization.” Years before he became president, Archer was appointed
to chair a commission aimed at increasing diversity in the organization, its leadership, and the profession. He also helped develop a commission to increase the participation and promotion of women in the association and the profes- sion. Hillary Rodham Clinton was named its fi rst chair. ABA tradition calls for newly elected presidents to be
escorted down the aisle to the podium by people they deem important to their careers or lives. Archer was escorted by Cecilia “Cissy” Marshall (wife of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice T urgood Marshall) and now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Of his two escorts on that auspicious day, Archer said, “T at set the tone for the change to come.” Now, people of color and women serve or have served in
every leadership position in the ABA as they make strides in the legal profession generally. In 1985, Governor James Blanchard appointed Archer an
associate justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. He was elected to an eight-year term the following year and in his fi nal year on the bench in 1990, Michigan Lawyers Weekly named him the most respected judge in Michigan. As his tenure on the bench neared the end, Archer began think- ing that there was another way to serve his beloved Detroit more directly. He considered running for mayor. “Kids in our city seemed to be killing each other over jack-
ets and gym shoes and businesses were leaving Detroit,” Archer said. T e deterioration of the city clenched his decision to run.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012 DIVERSITY & THE BAR® 21
GOVERNOR WILLIAM MILIKEN SIGNING A LAW DAY
LEFT TO RIGHT: ARCHER WITH MICHIGAN
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