Home | Background | Lawyers | Wiley Austin Branton | Contact
Vince M. Townsend, Jr. was admitted to practice before the state supreme court on July 6, 1942. He left almost immediately for Los Angeles, California, where he practiced law until the 1990s. In Los Angeles, he was involved in the California Association of Black Lawyers (CABL), serving as Parliamentarian in 1980 and 1981. In 1980, he also was elected to the board of directors of the National Bar Association. He also served on the CABL Executive and Convention Committees. He maintained his Arkansas law license all his life. Nothing more is known about him. He was born April 12, 1906, and died October 16, 1997 in Los Angeles, California.
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); e-mail message, Charles Smiley, Esq., CABL Historian, 6/30/2007, charles.smiley@acgov.org; e-mail from Stephen, dtd 2/16/2009, citing http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com and http://vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/search.cgi.