Whereas Louis Lorenzo Redding (referred to in this preamble as Louis L. Redding ) was born on October 25, 1901, in Alexandria, Virginia, the eldest of 5 children born to Lewis Alfred and Lillian Holmes Redding; Whereas Louis L. Redding was an educator, attorney, and lifelong activist who worked on civil rights and educational issues; Whereas Louis L. Redding graduated from Howard High School in 1919, which, at that time, was the only public high school for African-American students in Delaware; Whereas Louis L. Redding received a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 1923; Whereas, while at Brown University, Louis L. Redding and 7 other men established a chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity in Providence, Rhode Island; Whereas, in 1923, Louis L. Redding was the first African American awarded the prestigious William Gaston Prize for excellence in oratory and, as a result, delivered a commencement speech at Brown University; Whereas Louis L. Redding became an English instructor and the vice principal of Fessenden Academy outside of Ocala, Florida, the oldest continuously operated school originally for African-American students in Florida; Whereas Louis L. Redding left Fessenden Academy to teach English in the high school division of Morehouse College, a historically Black college in Atlanta, Georgia; Whereas, after 2 years of teaching, Louis L. Redding enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1925; Whereas, in 1926, as a law student at Harvard Law School, Louis L. Redding was ejected from the Wilmington, Delaware, municipal court while protesting segregation of the courtroom; Whereas that municipal court was the first court in Wilmington, Delaware, to desegregate its gallery; Whereas Louis L. Redding graduated from Harvard Law School in 1928 as the only African American in a class of about 200 students; Whereas, in 1929, Louis L. Redding became the first African American to pass the Delaware bar; Whereas Louis L. Redding remained the only African-American lawyer in Delaware for 26 years