Morgan Stanford

News Obituary Article

DECATUR: Morgan Stanford, fervent crusader for workers' rights

By KAY POWELL

Labor lawyer Morgan Stanford was a stubborn defender of workers' rights.

In his 41-year practice, he couldn't understand why towns wanted to kick out unions but never wanted to kick out pro-management chambers of commerce. His beloved Georgia, he said in a 1989 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, lags "way behind in protecting the rights of the little man."

"He was a great champion of the underdog," said his daughter, Margaret Pavey of Mableton.

Mr. Stanford was an unapologetic liberal --- he had a subscription to "The Great Speckled Bird" underground newspaper in the 1960s --- and Democrat who felt all conservatives should join the Republican Party. He was fired from his part-time post as city attorney for Avondale Estates in the 1950s for attending a racially integrated party.

Mr. Stanford had been president of Common Cause Georgia and of the Greater Atlanta Council on Human Relations, which pushed for equal accommodations, school integration and employment opportunities for blacks.

He took his daughter to a Ku Klux Klan rally on Stone Mountain in the 1960s "because he said he wanted to know what the other side was up to," Ms. Pavey said. "I was frightened, but it was a profound experience."

Morgan Callaway Stanford, 87, an Atlanta native, died of dementia Sunday at the VA hospital nursing home in Decatur. The body was donated to Emory University School of Medicine. Memorial service plans will be announced.

"Morgan was a giant in the union movement in the South," said his law partner Jim Fagan of Atlanta. "He was dedicated to the union movement. He was very aggressive in supporting workers' rights. He was a skilled trial lawyer. His cross-examinations were phenomenal."

Mr. Stanford used his knowledge of the law, passion for workers' rights, wit and charm to persuade judges and juries, Mr. Fagan said. He represented electrical workers, auto workers, garbage collectors and musicians.

People think "everybody in the country needs a contract except the union," Mr. Stanford said upon his retirement in 1989. "Suppose the Braves just approached Dale Murphy and said, 'Hell, Dale, let's just live by the golden rule?' "

He knew the moment he decided to be a labor lawyer. It was a scene from a newsreel he saw at Ponce de Leon Theatre in 1934, a scene that repulsed him. Georgia National Guardsmen, called out by the governor during a labor clash at Porterdale's cotton mill, rounded up men, women and children and herded them into barbed-wire prisons.

A tall, bald, athletic man, Mr. Stanford woke up smoking a cigar and went to sleep smoking a cigar, Mr. Fagan said, and once was thrown out of a hearing for his cigar smoking.

He loved wrestling and took his daughter to wrestling matches. "On summer nights when you didn't have air-conditioning," she said, "he would gather the neighborhood children and teach them wrestling holds."

He marched in every march, supported women's rights and had drinks with feminist Betty Friedan, his daughter said, adding, "He was never afraid of any kind of challenge."

Survivors include a brother, Henry King Stanford of Americus; a sister, Annabel Nickel of Decatur; and two grandchildren.

© 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution