As a child, Richie Porter would visit his father in his judge’s chambers and tinker with a scales-of-justice statue on his desk.
“I would put things on the scale to make it move up and down,” he said.
Now a screenwriter in Los Angeles, Porter didn’t give much thought back then to the influence his father was exerting on the world outside those chambers. But when the older Porter, a longtime resident of Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood, died of cancer Jan. 5 at age 90, his legacy became clear.
Albert S. Porter Jr. served from 1969 to 1990 as a judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County’s Criminal, Divorce, Chancery and Law Divisions. Given that until the 1960s Black judges were rare, Porter represented a rebalancing of the scales of justice.
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In 1969, Mayor Richard J. Daley called Porter, asking him to consider filling a vacancy for judge.
“It shocked him,” said Richie Porter, who was 2 at the time but later heard his father’s recollections.
Judge Porter took up the gavel under appointment and was elected to the position the following year.
He had already worked as an adjunct professor at UIC John Marshall Law School, where he’d studied law. He also had served as Cook County assistant state’s attorney and deputy commissioner for the Department of Investigation. He also was a partner in the law firm Walton, Freeman & Porter.
In the 1960s, as a resident of Chicago’s 21st Ward, he became a precinct captain and struck up a relationship with Democratic 21st Ward committeeman Joseph Robichaux, who mentored him.
The connection proved valuable and likely led to the fortuitous phone call from Daley, Richie Porter said.
While on the bench, Porter received awards from Operation PUSH, the National Black Prosecutors Association, University of Illinois, and UIC John Marshall Law School.
He also was a founding member of the Illinois Judicial Council, started by African American judges in 1982.
As IJC’s Chairperson from 1989 to 1990, Porter played an important role in drawing minorities to the field of law.
Working with a variety of organizations, churches and civic groups, the IJC continues to award law school scholarships to minority students and others.
A member of the National Bar Association and Cook County Bar Association, which named him Judge of the Year in 1983, Porter also served as a review board member for the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois.
Born in Laurel, Mississippi, on Dec. 15, 1930, Albert Porter Jr. often said his parents were at the root of his successes.
Albert Porter Sr. headed for Chicago on northbound freight trains, looking for opportunity. After working menial jobs and saving money, he sent for Albert Jr. who was 3, and his mother, Ora Dase Porter. The family settled in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.
“They came from humble beginnings,” Richie Porter said. “My grandparents started with nothing. They had no resources, but they both valued hard work and saw to it that my father received an education.”
Porter lived by an ethos he frequently shared with his four children: “As a Black person, you have to work twice as hard to get half as far.”
He graduated from Wendell Phillips High School, in 1948, where he was a member of the National Honor Society.
In 1955, he graduated from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with a bachelor’s degree, having majored in chemistry and minored in mathematics. Soon after, he landed a job as a metallurgist at Argonne National Laboratory.
“He wasn’t happy at Argonne,” Richie Porter said. “He didn’t feel it was where he was supposed to be.”
Porter’s decision to switch vocations didn’t surprise his son.
“My father always told us to find out what you love to do and try to be great at it,” Richie Porter said.
Porter returned to Phillips High School to teach chemistry and math. There, he met Mildred Viola Birge, a fellow teacher. They married in 1959. Porter earned his law degree while working full time at Phillips.
Early on, the Porters tried relocating to San Francisco. “The best jobs they could get would have been working for the post office, so they decided to come back to Chicago,” said Richie Porter, who grew up in Beverly.
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After retiring from the judiciary in 1990, Porter entered private practice with Martin, Duckworth & Porter, P.C. He also went on to serve as deputy chief attorney for the Forest Preserves of Cook County and chair of the Illinois State Board of Elections.
For all the lives he touched, on January 25, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted: “Chicago lost a giant. Not only did Judge Albert Porter Jr. preside over his courtroom for decades with honor and fairness, he also inspired many Black Chicagoans to pursue careers in law. He’ll be deeply missed but his impact will endure for years to come.”
Susan DeGrane is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.