Phyllis Craig-Taylor’s formative years in Jim Crow-era Alabama cultivated in the educator a passion that would shape her entire legal career.
As one of the first Black children to integrate the local public schools, Craig-Taylor recounts often the instances where White children would taunt and throw objects at her and other Black classmates for merely attending a school to expand their future opportunities in life. On another occasion, a high school guidance counselor told her that she was not “college material.”
These early childhood years would be the beginning of Craig-Taylor’s long fight toward justice for all students to receive a quality education.
“At the end of each day, my mom and I would collect the debris and store it in a cigar box,” Craig-Taylor recalls. “That debris was later used as evidence in court to further the progression of public school integration. My battle was part of a larger journey, and I was inspired to pursue a career in law.”
Today, that battle is still ongoing as the Brown v. Board of Education’s 1954 mandate to integrate schools with “all deliberate speed” turned out to be “as slow as possible,” Craig-Taylor said in an interview with WUNC last year.
Now, Craig-Taylor — with more than 25 years of legal experience — is in a position to shape and inspire the next generation of lawyers at the North Carolina Central University School of Law, where she has served as professor and dean since 2012.
Following the law school’s motto “In Truth and Service” in her own leadership and service, Craig-Taylor says she strives to “inculcate in our students a spirit of truth and service through leading by example and serving the community.”
