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Augustus Arvis Latting was born on January 30, 1905, in Helena (Phillips County), Arkansas. After earning his A.B. degree from Fisk University in 1926, he attended Northwestern University School of Law, graduating with a J.D. in 1932. He was admitted to practice before the Arkansas state Supreme Court on January 2, 1933, but did not settle into practice in Helena. Instead, Latting began a practice of law in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was one of the state’s earliest Black lawyers. He became a member of the Memphis and Shelby County bar in 1935. Ultimately, he became a judge, and was known as the “dean of black lawyers and a mentor” to a number of others. Latting married Marietta Ish of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1943 and they had three children: Arvis, Carol, and Jean.
Sources: Judith Kilpatrick, “(EXTRA)Ordinary Men: African-American Lawyers and Civil Rights in Arkansas Before 1950,” 53 Ark. Law Rev. 299, 381 n630, 394 (2000); Who’s Who in Colored America 331 (1950; Lawrence Buser, “History of Black Lawyers in Memphis Begins in 1868,” 4/10/2006, Memphis Commercial Appeal (http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0 ,2845,MCA_25340_4609252,00.html); Sadie Tanner M. Alexander, Who’s Who Among Negro Lawyers 23 (1945); African American Biographical Database, Profile available at http://aabd.chadwyck.com/bbidx/full_rec (last visited 6/21/99); Who’s Who in Colored America (Supp) (1950), p.331;