The Urban News

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Judge Cressie Thigpen, Jr. of the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Staff Reports Judge Cressie Thigpen, Jr. of the North Carolina Court of Appeals has a straightforward judicial philosophy: He believes in the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of North Carolina. He believes in the rule of law. He believes in dispensing justice fairly and without favoritism. He believes that every person has a right to have his/her day in court. Judge Thigpen was appointed to the Superior Court bench as a Special Superior Court Judge by Governor Michael Easley and served in that position for more than two years before being appointed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals by Governor Beverly Perdue. While serving on the Superior Court bench he earned the reputation of an impartial and hardworking judge, fair and courteous to all who appeared before him. He tried to make jurors feel at ease and tried to insure that litigants who represented themselves were given a fair shake. The first African American president of the North Carolina State Bar Association, Thigpen worked to increase the number of women and African Americans serving on its committees. He served on the board of trustees of UNC Chapel Hill for nine years, and on the board of trustees of his alma mater, North Carolina Central University, for five years, three of them as chairman. Cressie Thigpen Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Greensboro, Raeford, and Fayetteville, N. C. He was graduated from E.E. Smith High School where he played in the marching band and ran track. His mother was a schoolteacher in her early career and later a college librarian. His father was an entrepreneur, an artist, a painter, a farmer and, ultimately a teacher. He enrolled at Winston Salem State University and transferred to North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University) at the end of his freshman year. While at NCCU he majored in Business Administration with a minor in Spanish. He was selected as one of six students from UNC, Duke, and NCCU for a summer’s work in Central America with the Peace Corps. After graduating from NCCU he joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Mysore State, India, where his job was to teach farmers how to grow sorghum and other grains. Afterwards he returned to the U.S., worked a year at Prentice Hall Publishing Company, and then went to Rutgers University Law School. Upon graduation from law school, Cressie returned to North Carolina and went to work at the Durham Legal Aid Office. After passing the N. C. bar exam he opened a solo practice in Raleigh for two years, at which point his friend Dan Blue joined him. They formed the law firm later known as Thigpen, Blue, Stephens & Fellers. Blue later became the first African American Speaker of the NC House of Representatives. During the first ten years of his practice, Thigpen practiced real estate, domestic, criminal, and civil law; thereafter he concentrated on civil litigation and business law. He also taught law for one year at North Carolina Central University as an adjunct instructor. Judge Thigpen’s philosophy of life, like his judicial philosophy, is simple.

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