Guest Commissioners Fred Banks, Jr. Fred Banks, Jr. is a partner in the general litigation group in the Jackson office of Phelps Dunbar where he practices in the areas of commercial litigation, alternative dispute resolution, legislative and governmental relations and appellate law. Mr. Banks is a former Presiding Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court and retired from that position in October 2001. He was appointed to the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1991 and served on that court for 11 years. Prior the Mississippi Supreme Court, Mr. Banks served as a circuit judge in Hinds and Yazoo counties for six years. From 1976 until 1985, he served in the Mississippi House of Representatives where he served as Chair of the Ethics Committee, the Judiciary Committee and the Legislative Black Caucus. He also served as a member of the Mississippi Board of Bar Admissions from 1978 to 1980, and as a member of a number of advisory commissions at the state and federal level. Mr. Banks currently serves on the Board of Directors for the NAACP, Community Foundation of Greater Jackson, Mississippi Center for Justice and the Mississippi Commission on International Cultural Exchange. Has made numerous speeches and presentations at seminars in the area of appellate and trial practice to such groups as the Mississippi Bar Association, Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association, Magnolia Bar Association, National Bar Association, National Judicial Counsel, and Mississippi Public Defenders Association. Mr. Banks received both his Bachelor of Arts degree and his law degree from Howard University. Henry Kirksey Henry Kirksey is a former Mississippi state senator, veteran proponent of civil rights and retired Tougaloo College professor. He was the lead plaintiff in most of the redistricting cases brought in Mississippi to bring the state into compliance with the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Mississippi was a dangerous place to do so. This was instrumental in opening the door to the creation of fair redistricting plans throughout the state. As a result, Mississippi today appears to have more African American elected and appointed officials at every level of government than any other state in the nation. As part of this process, Kirksey became the first African American elected to the Mississippi Senate since Reconstruction. He became known for filing the lawsuit that led to Jackson changing its form of government in 1985 to the mayor-seven-member council system. He also was a member of the group that fought for reapportionment changes in the late 1970s that led to a record number of black candidates being elected to the Legislature. Kirksey was instrumental in challenging the districts from which state court judges ran, resulting in more diversity on the bench. He was significant to the formation of Mississippi's majority-black 2nd Congressional District. Armand Derfner Armand Derfner has taken his passion for civil and voting rights from small towns across the South to the U.S. Supreme Court. His Voting Rights Act history began the first day the Act was effective in August 1965, when he worked with the first federal examiners designated under the Voting rights Act, registering citizens to vote in Greenwood, Mississippi. Since then, he has been actively involved in the VRA extensions of 1970, 1975, and 1982 and has repeatedly been asked to testify before Congress on voting rights. In his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina he's better known for challenging County Council's at-large system of elections, arguing that the system discriminates against black voters. Prior to his current private practice at Derfner, Altman & Wilborn, he served as an attorney for Covington & Burling, the Lawyers’ Constitutional Defense Committee (Jackson, MS) the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (Washington, DC) and the Joint Center for Political Studies (Washington, DC). He was also a Visiting Professor of Law at American University. Twice he served as South Carolina's representative to the American Civil Liberties Union's national board to extend the Voting Rights Act. Derfner has been honored extensively for his contributions to public interest through precedent-setting cases. In 2002, he was named Trial Lawyer of the Year for his work in Ayers v. Fordice, a 25 year class-action lawsuit involving Mississippi’s treatment of its black college students and its traditionally black universities. The state of Mississippi settled for $513 million. Derfner received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Yale. Back to main page