TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Jul 13, 2015

Judge D’Army Bailey died yesterday (July 12) at the age of 73, less than a year after being re-elected to the Shelby County Circuit Court. A native of Memphis, Bailey earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1974 and practiced civil rights law in New York before moving to California. He later returned to Memphis, where he practiced law until being elected to the bench in 1990. He stepped down from the court in 2009 to return to private practice, but ran for and was re-elected to the court last year. Bailey was a civil rights activist, author and film actor. Perhaps most notably, he was among those responsible for saving the Lorraine Motel from destruction and creating the National Civil Rights Museum on that site in Memphis.

Services will be held this weekend, WREG reports. Visitation will take place Friday from 2 to 6 p.m. at the National Civil Rights Museum. On Saturday, funeral services will be held at noon at the Mississippi Boulevard Church, 70 North Bellevue Blvd., Memphis 38104. Burial will follow at Memorial Park Cemetery. Memphis Daily News has more on Bailey's life while WMC News 5 has reactions from Memphis leaders.