Year: 2023

Kindly RSVP by Friday, September 15, 2023
to Kim Amos at execdir@cflabota.org or 407.341.8199

On March 30, 2023, CFLABOTA welcomed more than 70 students and teachers from Foundation Academy and Lake Highland Preparatory School for a symposium celebrating the 7th Amendment. Lake Highland Preparatory School’s magazine Tartan featured an article on CFLABOTA’s 7th Amendment Symposium which took place in the 23rd Floor Courtroom in the Orange County Courthouse.

A special thank you to Chief Judge Lisa Munyon, as well as Judge Jordan and Judge Heather Pinder Rodriguez.

Our Chapter members met on March 8th at the Country Club of Orlando, and were joined by many members of our local judiciary. Our honored speaker, Judge Richard Gergel, Federal District Judge, South Carolina, and author of “Unexampled Courage,” told the heartbreaking and compelling story of the beating and blinding of a decorated World War II African American soldier, Sargent Isaac Woodard.

The beating and blinding of Sargent Woodard by a law enforcement officer following his discharge at the end of World War II brought national attention to the gross prejudice and injustice endured by African Americans during the Jim Crow Era. This atrocity deeply moved Judge J. Waties Waring, Federal District, South Carolina (1942-1968) who encouraged Thurgood Marshall, the era’s leading civil rights attorney, to challenge the “Separate But Equal” doctrine established in 1896 by Plessy v. Ferguson. This back story, as told by Judge Gergel, revealed how this bold action ultimately helped pave the way to one of the most significant United States Supreme Court civil rights cases, Brown v. Board of Education, which de facto overruled the Plessy decision in 1954.

CFLABOTA held its 2022 Judicial Luncheon award ceremony at the at the University Club Downtown Orlando on November 15, 2022, and honored Rafael Martinez and The Honorable John E. Jordan.