Bed-Stuy Street Named For Late Civil Rights Attorney

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — A block in Bed-Stuy has been named in honor of a prominent civil rights attorney, who died in 2015, according to officials.

The section of Decatur Street between Lewis and Stuyvesant avenues was recently co-named "Jacqueline Berrien Way" after Berrien, who was chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Barack Obama and an associate director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Berrien, who died from cancer in 2015, served for nearly 15 years with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, according to the organization.

“Jacqueline Berrien was an instrumental figure in LDF history, a superb mentor, and a dear friend,” said current LDF Associate Director-Counsel Janai Nelson. "This street-naming will cement her name where her heart was always anchored—in the community. And I am grateful to participate in honoring her legacy today.”

Nelson said Berrien litigated some of the Legal Defense Fund's most notable voting rights and desegration cases, including a case out of Florida that lasted 40 years and resulted in the county being forced to end its segregated school system.

At the EEOC, Berrien adopted "the agency’s first-ever regulations implementing the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Acts and recovering a record amount of monetary relief for discrimination plaintiffs through administrative enforcement," according to Nelson.

"She was a fierce and fastidious advocate who was as kind and personable as she was brilliant," Nelson said.

Berrien first started at LDF as a summer intern in 1986. She also worked as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and at the Ford Foundation.

In 2009, Ms. Berrien was selected by President Obama to head the EEOC.