The Merced County Courthouse is named after a Harvard law professor who taught Obama

A courthouse in California’s agricultural heartland was named after a local son who went from working in the fields to a distinguished career at Harvard Law School, where he taught Barack and Michelle Obama.

Family members and supporters attended a ceremony Friday that named the Merced County Courthouse in honor of Charles James Ogletree Jr.’s contributions to law, education and civil rights, Fresno Bee reports.

Ogletree, 70, represented Anita Hill when she accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing, and he defended the late rapper Tupac Shakur in criminal and civil cases. He also unsuccessfully fought for reparations for members of the black community of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who survived the 1921 racial massacre by white men.

The legal scholar, who retired from Harvard in 2020 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, was not present. But among dozens of people, including judges and prominent public figures, there were brother and sister.

Ogletree talked about his humble roots, where he grew up in poverty on the south side of the railroad tracks in Merced, a black and brown neighborhood. His parents were seasonal farm workers and he picked peaches, almonds and cotton during the summer. He went to college at Stanford University and then to Harvard Law School.

Richard Ogletree said that if his brother were present at the ceremony, he would expect him to say what he had heard from him in previous speeches and presentations: “I stand on the shoulders of others.”

“He always wants to give credit to others and not take credit for himself, which he well deserves,” said Ogletree, who called his brother his hero.