The Oklahoma Bar Journal November 2022

James Osby Goodwin Sr. James Osby Goodwin Sr. is an attorney and award- winning pub lisher and editor of The Oklahoma

notables, in the matter of repara tions for victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. In the late 1970s, Mr. Goodwin laid the foundation to preserve Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District, famously known as America’s “Black Wall Street,” with his initiative, the “Greenwood Market Community.” For two decades, he held an option to purchase all of Greenwood’s remaining vacant properties before negotiating an agreement for the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce (which was co-founded and incorporated by his father in 1938) to gain control to own and develop the district. In 2003, he received the Lifetime Excellence Award, with the East Regional Health Center in Tulsa being renamed the James O. Goodwin Health Center. He served 50 years on the Tulsa City-County Board of Health – the first African American and longest-tenured member in the board’s history. He is also the first Tulsan to have three different mayors from both politi cal parties dedicate an official day (1986, 2008 and 2018) that recog nizes his lifetime contributions and civic commitment to his hometown. Among numerous accolades, Mr. Goodwin has been inducted into the TU College of Law Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame (along with his father and two brothers) and the TU Collins College of Business Hall of Fame. He is the recipient of

Instructions Committee. He is also a founding member of the Community Health Foundation and a former member of the Bank of Oklahoma Board of Directors, the U.S. Federal Magistrate Judge Selection Committee, the State Department of Health Advisory Council and the Buck Franklin Lecture Series. He is admitted to practice in the Oklahoma Supreme Court; United States District Court for the Northern, Eastern and Western Districts of Oklahoma; United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit; United States Supreme Court; and United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Among his many law-related initiatives, he was co-plaintiff against the state of Oklahoma, resulting in legislative reapportion ment immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court’s declaration of one-man vote rule. He initiated the first desegregation lawsuit in the city of Tulsa, resulting in school desegregation, and he was co-counsel in litigation resulting in Tulsa’s new city council form of government. He successfully chal lenged before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals the constitu tionality of a state statute and city ordinance regarding freedom of speech and was co-counsel with Charles Ogletree, Willie Gray and Johnnie Cochran, among other

Eagle Publishing Company, which he has been associated with for six decades. The news paper, founded in 1921 after the Tulsa Race Massacre, is one of the 10 oldest African American newspapers in the United States. His father, Edward L. Goodwin Sr., served as owner and publisher from 1936 to 1972 before turning it over to his children. Mr. Goodwin first served as The Oklahoma Eagle ’s president and legal coun sel for about 10 years before becoming co-publisher starting in 1979 with his younger brother, Robert Kerr Goodwin, and later with his older brother, Edward Lawrence Goodwin Jr. He was named sole publisher in 2014. Mr. Goodwin received his for mal education at the University of Notre Dame and the TU College of Law. His accomplishments and community involvements are voluminous. He is a member of the Tulsa County Bar Association, American Inns of Court, Johnson Sontag Chapter, OSU-Tulsa Board of Trustees and Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Criminal Jury

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL