Margaret A. Burnham is a civil rights lawyer, teacher, and an activist. She graduated from Tougaloo College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1969). She left college after her freshman year to work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi. That experience led her to become a civil rights lawyer.

From 1970-1972, Ms. Burnham was a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York City, where she litigated school desegregation and student rights cases in the South. In the 1970s, she represented civil rights and political activists including Angela Davis, the Rev. Ben Chavis and Attica prisoners.

In 1973, she joined the staff of the Roxbury Defenders Office in Boston. In 1978, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis appointed Ms. Burnham to the Boston Municipal Court, making her the first black woman judge in the state. In 1982, Ms. Burnham became the director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers in New York City. In 1989, she returned to law practice in Boston, founding the law firm of Burnham, Hines and Dilday.

Ms. Burnham's practice is limited to civil rights and employment litigation. She has served on several professional boards including the Council of the Boston Bar association, the Committee for Public Counsel Services and the Massachusetts Bar Association's Individual Rights & Responsibility Committee.

In 1993, President Nelson Mandela appointed Ms. Burnham to serve on an international human rights commission to investigate alleged human rights violations within the African National Congress. The Commission was a precursor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which established the 1994 election in South Africa.

A former fellow of the Bunting Institute at Racliffe College and Harvard University's W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Studies, Ms. Burnham has written extensively on contemporary legal and political issues, including human rights, criminal justice, race and the law. She is currently a lecturer in the Political Science Department of MIT.

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Last updated April 16, 2002