Percy Julian Jr., a pioneering Madison civil rights and liberties attorney, died Sunday in Madison. He was 67. Julian never regained consciousness after suffering a stroke at his home Saturday, according to Jeff Scott Olson.
“He was a pioneer in the field of civil rights litigation,” said Olson, Julian’s close friend and fellow attorney. “He started out during the time of Martin Luther King Jr. and was one of the people who made the civil rights laws passed in the King era real tools for justice, especially for African-Americans.”
Julian was best known for representing University of Wisconsin-Madison students charged in the Dow Chemical demonstrations in the 1960s and handling pioneering employment discrimination and voting rights class action suits across the United States, often in cooperation with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Julian received his law degree from UW-Madison in 1966.