Joseph Cornelius Waddy

Joseph Cornelius Waddy (May 26, 1911 – August 1, 1978) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 1967 to his death in 1978.

Early and family life

Waddy was born on May 26, 1911, in Louisa County, Virginia. Waddy moved to Alexandria, Virginia in 1928 when he was seventeen years old. In 1938, he won an oratorical contest on the American Negro's constitutional rights, sponsored by the Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World. After his family moved across the Potomac River to Washington, D.C., he graduated from Dunbar High School. In 1935 Waddy graduated with honors, receiving an Artium Baccalaureus degree from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. After an additional three years of study, he received a Bachelor of Laws from Howard University School of Law, graduating at the top of his class. He married Elizabeth H. Hardy and they had a son, Joseph C. Waddy Jr. Among the most important civil rights cases he helped litigate were Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., 323 U.S. 192 (1944) and Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 (1957). Waddy served on the Citizens Advisory Council to the District of Columbia Commissioners from 1958 to 1962, and as an adjunct professor at the Howard University School of Law from 1966 to 1967. In 1962, Waddy was appointed to the municipal court for the District of Columbia in the domestic relations branch.

Death

Waddy died at Washington Hospital Center on August 1, 1978, of emphysema and a heart disorder.