Henry Louis Gates Jr. leads a panel discussion during the Sept. 18 symposium on Constance Baker Motley.

It was her time. And for those who put together the first symposium honoring the work done by Constance Baker Motley, it was about time.

Held Sept. 18 at Alumni Hall and sponsored by Quinnipiac's School of Law and the Yale Law School, "The Life of Constance Baker Motley: Civil Rights Lawyer and Federal Judge" allowed both the distinguished group of panelists and attendees the opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the life of a woman who broke social barriers as a professional black woman with the greatest of ease--and grace.

Among her long list of precedents and honors was the title of being the first black female to serve as a federal judge in 1982, a New York state senator in 1964 and a Manhattan borough president in 1965.

"There is very little out there now that is about Judge Constance Baker Motley," said Quinnipiac law professor Marilyn Ford, who planned, directed and emceed the symposium dedicated to the New Haven native who passed away in 2005 at the age of 84.

It was Ford's son, Gary, who first got the proverbial ball rolling about a year and half ago when he started researching the life and work of Motley during a women's studies class at the University of Maryland while working on his doctorate degree in American studies. He has since decided to do his dissertation on professional black women during the Civil Rights Era.

"Basically I feel like she doesn't have her proper place in the historical narrative," Gary Ford said. "They talk about her as being a pioneer of civil rights, but they really don't emphasize the amount of impact she had on desegregation cases... I feel for her to get her rightful place in the movement would be something I'd like to come out of this symposium."

"I think it's a great way to consolidate all the various aspects of her history and her legacy," Motley's son, Joel Motley III, said. "It's interesting to see how many aspects of her life can be brought together and are at least touched on in one setting."

The day's agenda included the presentation of a documentary on Motley produced by Michael Calia, director of the Ed McMahon Mass Communications Center. The list of speakers included National Public Radio news analyst and host Juan Williams; former Clinton presidential adviser Vernon Jordan and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

It was Gates who presided over a discussion about the historical significance of the 1961 federal court case in which two teenagers from Atlanta, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, attempted to become the first black undergraduate students at the University of Georgia. Among the group of lawyers defending the two students as part of the N.A.A.C.P.'s Legal Defense and Education Fund was Motley, who would go on to be known for important roles in desegregation cases in the South including at the Universities of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

Joining Gates on the stage was Hunter, who later went by the last name of Hunter-Gault on her way to becoming an Emmy Award-winning journalist; Jordan, who served on the defense team while still working on his law degree from Howard University and Calvin "Bud" Trillin, a famed journalist and humorist who covered the case for Time before writing a book about the entire story, "An Education in Georgia."

Each panelist painted a picture of Motley as an extremely focused and intense woman who could be imposing but nonetheless feminine and quiet in her demeanor. Through a set of direct questions, she would succinctly knock down walls composed of perjurious statements. Those walls were built by the university's administrators who were equally determined to keep their school segregated regardless of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which outlawed such practices.

"She was quiet in the interrogation of these people and she was so calm that they would be lulled into not appreciating that she was about to hit them over the head the hardest possible question that would lead to duplicity and lying. She let their guard down and I watched it," Hunter-Gault said. "She had this way, even with a witness, of telling you to go to hell and making you look forward to your trip," Jordan added.

It was Jordan who was assigned by Motley to find a piece of evidence that would tip the scales to his team's favor: a file of an admitted white student with a weaker academic record than Hunter. He found such an item after searching for about two weeks straight.

Out of all the stories that emerged from the case, one of the more iconic images is that of Jordan walking with Hunter and her mother through the gates of the university on her way to the admissions building to enroll in class. This is the same building that would be named in 2000 after her and Holmes, who became a successful orthopedic surgeon before passing away in 1995. Along their walk, the trio was confronted by protesters, projectiles and other tangible forms of racism and hate.

"They called her everything and they called me everything but we were not afraid," Jordan told the crowd. "We didn't talk about fear. We were on a mission and we knew what the mission was and that was the admission of these two young people....Secondly we had no notion that we were making history. We were just doing what we were supposed to do and we did that. It was his steadfastness that was reassuring. And he was fearless. He never showed any fear....I can tell him now I loved him for it," Hunter-Gault added.

Gates mentioned to the audience that he was 10 years old watching the evening news when he saw footage of Jordan and Hunter walking through the crazy scene. "I'll never forget it," Gates told the audience. "The idea that I know them and I'm sitting on the stage to me is a total miracle because they were heroes to me and all of our people from that second on. You were there. You remember."

Hunter-Gault recalled a time before the actual trial when she was sitting in a car, desperately yearning to have the life of a normal 19-year-old. Motley then got in the car and showed a softer side to the student. Behind Motley's machine-like precision, there was a heart. A big one.

"Now this is a woman who never talked to me and all of a sudden, she put her hand on my leg and said 'I know how you feel... I would like to be in New York this weekend with my husband and my 12-year-old son whom I haven't seen in a long time, but we have a job to do.' I thought, 'Wow! I exist!' And I think from that moment on there was a bonding beyond her representing me," Hunter-Gault said.

"I realized that I could become empowered by this strong, powerful black woman and if she could do it, I could do it."