Speeches: Attorney General Eric Holder Resigns & President Obama Acceptance

Mr Holder is the first black US attorney general and has had the fourth longest tenure in the post in history resinged today September 25th, 2014. Listen to The Gist of Freedom with Roy Paul www.BlackHistoryUnversity.com

Now that Holder feels he has accomplished more in recent months in the areas of prison and sentencing reform and helped restart a national conversation about racial justice in light of the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., the people said, he feels more comfortable with leaving government.

In August 2014, Holder became controversial again when he ordered the Department of Justice to investigate events surrounding the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson, Missouri police officer, Darren Wilson. He ordered the DOJ to investigate possible civil rights violations related to the shooting and excessive force Ferguson police used against Brown supporters following the incident.   

Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. Attorney General since 2009, was born on January 21, 1951 in the Bronx, New York to parents of Barbadian descent, Eric, a real estate agent and Miriam Holder, a telephone operator.  Holder was raised in East Elmhurst, Queens, a community which included a number of famous African Americans such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier. Civil rights activist Malcolm X lived two blocks from young Holder and on one occasion in 1964, then recently crowned heavy weight champion Muhammad Ali entertained him and other community children on the steps of the Malcolm’s house.

Holder  entered Columbia University where he participated in sit-ins by African American students.  In 1973, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in U.S. history from Columbia and then entered Columbia University Law School, earning a J.D. in 1976.