As unassuming as he was creatively brilliant, professor Derrick A. Bell Jr. leaves behind an indelible mark on the legal profession and literature, where his books combined fact and fiction in unforgettable allegory. Bell, 80, died Wednesday, Oct. 5 at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan.
According to his wife, Janet Dewart Bell, the famed writer and legal authority succumbed to carcinoid cancer, a “slow growing” neuroendocrine cancer, from which he suffered for several years.
Despite the ailment, Bell continued to appear on panels, deliver lectures and, most famously, write the books that demonstrated his profound understanding of America’s legal policies and his boundless imagination.
It was with his third book, “Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism” (1992), that Bell secured his place in the nation’s literary canon, though it merely continued metaphors, allegory and characters already introduced in “And We Are Not Saved” (1987), particularly the irrepressible Geneva Crenshaw.
But before the books captured the attention of many readers, there was Bell’s commitment and integrity that resonated in the activist community-none more captivating than his defiance at Harvard Law School, where, for five days in 1986, he remained in his office to protest the school’s failure to grant tenure to two professors who promoted critical race theory, a theory he formulated.
That stance was typical of Bell’s resolve, and it characterized his uncompromising determination to see justice done, even if it meant sacrificing his own personal gain. In his early 20s, fresh out of the University of Pittsburgh Law School and working for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, he resigned from the department when told his position was in conflict with his membership in the NAACP.
He immediately took a job at the NAACP working with the renowned Thurgood Marshall. From 1960 to 1966, Bell administered 300 desegregation cases involving schools and restaurant chains in the South.
Three years later, after a brief stint at the University of Southern California, Bell was recruited and hired by Harvard Law School. He was the answer to protests there launched by students to hire a Black professor.
Bell’s arrival and influence had an immediate impact on the students, including Charles Ogletree Jr., now a professor at Harvard and founder of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.
“I had the honor and privilege of being one of Bell’s students when he taught at Harvard Law School during the 1970s,” Ogletree. “He took me and the small cohort of other students of color who were there under his wing and became a beloved figure whom we admired, trusted and turned to repeatedly for guidance and support.”
In his book, “All Deliberate Speed,” Ogletree paid homage to his mentor and explained the importance of Bell’s concept of “interest convergence.” Quoting Bell, Ogletree wrote: “When whites perceive that it will be profitable or at least cost-free to serve, hire, admit or otherwise deal with Blacks on a nondiscriminatory basis, they do so.” Otherwise, Bell continued, when they fear there may be a loss or inconvenience, “discriminatory conduct usually follows.”
Much of this concept, as well as his critical race theory (“a body of legal scholarship that explored how racism is embedded in laws and legal institutions, even many of those intended to redress past injustices”), was prominently featured in Bell’s “Race, Racism and American Law” (1973), which is widely used in law schools throughout the country and abroad.
In 1980, Bell left Harvard to become dean of the University of Oregon School of Law, the first African-American to hold such a position at a publicly founded law school. However, five years later, his principles were again tested and he resigned when the school refused to offer a position to an Asian-American woman.
Back at Harvard, following the five-day protest, a series of encounters set the stage for his unpaid leave of absence in 1990. He promised not to return until the school hired a Black woman to its tenured faculty. His relationship with Harvard effectively ended when the school refused to extend his leave.
By this time, however, Bell had taken a position at New York University School of Law as a visiting professor, a post he held until his death.
Bell was born on Nov. 6, 1930, in Pittsburgh to Derrick Albert and the former Ada Elizabeth Childress. After graduating from Schenley High School near Pittsburgh’s Hill District, he became the first member of his family to go to college, attending Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1952. A member of the ROTC at Duquesne, he was later an Air Force officer for two years, one of them in Korea. Afterward he attended the University of Pittsburgh Law School, where he was the only Black student, earning his degree in 1957.
Thus was laid the foundation of his remarkable career and matchless contributions to the civil and human rights struggle.
Bell leaves to mourn his passing a host of relatives, friends and colleagues. According to Ogletree, Bell’s first marriage was to Jewel Bell, who died in 1990. They were the parents of three sons: Derrick III, Carter and Douglas. In 1992, he married Janet Dewart Bell, a communications expert. The couple lived in New York City on the Upper West Side.
In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions in his name be made to the Derrick Bell Lecture Fund at the following address:
Derrick Bell Lecture Fund
New York University School of Law Office of Development and Alumni Relations D’Agostino Hall
110 W. 3rd St., 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012
The memorial service for Bell will be held on Nov. 3 at Riverside Church, 120th Street and Riverside Drive, in New York City.