Senior Judge Thelton Henderson, as the first Black lawyer in the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, investigated the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four little girls. In 1982, he freed Johnny Spain of the San Quentin 6. In 1997, he declared the anti-affirmative action Proposition 209 unconstitutional, but his decision was overturned on appeal. - Photo: Mike Kepka, SF Chronicle
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