Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor who helped reframe debates around criminal justice, school desegregation and reparations during the 1990s and 2000s, all the while mentoring a new generation of Black lawyers that included President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, died on Friday at his home in Odenton, Md. Colette Phillips, a representative of the Ogletree family, said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Professor Ogletree was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2015 and publicly announced his condition a year later. A son of California tenant farmers and the first in his family to graduate from high school, Professor Ogletree rose from poverty to become one of the most prominent civil rights lawyers in the country, leaving a mark on the courtroom and the classroom. As a litigator, he defended clients both famous and unknown, including Tupac Shakur and the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, whom he helped to sue the city and the state of Oklahoma for restitution in 2003.

---

Persons: Charles J, Ogletree Jr, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Colette Phillips, Ogletree, Tupac Shakur Locations: Odenton, Md, California, Tulsa, Oklahoma