Lynch is replacing Holder at a time when there are a number of critical civil rights cases involving African Americans under review by the Justice Department. Many civil rights activists are looking to Lynch to take up the mantle and continue pursuing these cases with the same passion that Holder has exhibited.
Lynch will immediately inherit the high-profile case of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Baltimore man who died mysteriously from a severed spine on April 19 after being in police custody. The Justice Department said it would investigate Gray’s death before Lynch was confirmed.
Gray is now part of a growing list of unarmed Black men who have been killed by police officers over the years. Several recent killings have been captured on video. It’s an epidemic that Congress has largely ignored.
Lynch is the former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Her current tenure as U.S. Attorney began in 2010, and she previously held the position from 1999−2001. As U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Lynch oversees federal prosecutions in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.
She was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her father was a fourth-generation Baptist minister; her mother, an English teacher and school librarian. Lynch’s family church served a meeting place for students organizing anti-segregation boycotts in the early 1960s. At Harvard University in the 70’s, she and Sharon Malone, Holder’s wife, organized the first Delta Sigma Theta chapter at the school.
“The historic significance of Ms. Lynch’s confirmation cannot be overstated,” said Leslie Proll, Director of the Washington, D.C. office at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. “Her confirmation should not have been this difficult; Congress should now extend considerable good will to the Attorney General as she faces the immense challenges at the helm of the Department.”
Lynch is eminently qualified to lead the Justice Department and will likely advocate for criminal justice reform. Today, with more African American men becoming targets of police, Lynch’s role as the nation’s 83rd Attorney General is critical for communities of color in a so-called post-racial America.
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Loretta Lynch Is Finally Confirmed: What Can She Accomplish? was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
