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Collins speaker series reuben v anderson mississippi supreme court justice
Reuben V. Anderson (born 1943) was a Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court from 1985 to 1990.
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Early life
Anderson was born in 1943, in Jackson, Mississippi. His father was a bricklayer, and his great-great-grandparents were slaves. He graduated from Tougaloo College in 1965. He received his law degree in 1967, from the University of Mississippi, a mere five years after it admitted its first black student, James Meredith, and four years after it admitted its first black law student.
Career
Anderson first worked as a civil right lawyer, in the firm Anderson, Banks, Nichols & Stewart, from 1968 to 1977, where he was the associate counsel for the Mississippi NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Anderson was appointed to the Jackson municipal court where he served two years. He then spent four years as a Hinds County court judge. Next, for three years, Anderson was a judge on the 7th Cicuit Court. In 1985 Anderson was appointed to the State Supreme Court in 1985, becoming the first black judge on that court.
Family
Anderson's wife is the former Phyllis Wright. They have two children, Vincent, and Raina Anderson-Minor.