Wofford, Harris, 1926-2019

Harris Llewellyn Wofford Jr. (April 9, 1926 – January 21, 2019) was an American attorney, civil rights activist, academic, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he notably served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania between 1991 and 1995.

Born in Manhattan and raised in Johnson City, Tennessee and Scarsdale, New York, he founded the Student Federalists while a student at Scarsdale High School. From 1944 to 1945 he served in the United States Air Force, and then attended the University of Chicago where he received his A.B. degree in 1948. He studied law at both Yale University and Howard University and was awarded an LL.B. degree from each institution. He served as Special Assistant to Chester Bowles from 1953 to 1954. From 1954 to 1958 he practiced law in Washington, D.C. before teaching as an Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School. Wofford played a key role in the civil rights movement with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and later served as trustee to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violet Social Change. Under President Eisenhower, he was counsel to the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh of the University of Notre Dame on the first United States Commission on Civil Rights. During the John F. Kennedy administration, he was a Special Assistant to the President and chaired the subcabinet group on civil rights. While on the White House staff, Wofford helped Sargent Shriver plan and organize the Peace Corps; in 1962, he became the Peace Corps’ Special Representative to Africa and director of its large Ethiopia program. He later earned the role of Peace Corps Associate Director under President Lyndon B. Johnson.

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