Will The University of Florida Construct a Monument to Virgil Hawkins?

The University of Florida Levin College of Law offered a summer pre-law program for minority students. Attorney and noted civil rights activist pictured here leads a class in 1984. Photo: Orlando Sentinel | University of Florida.

A graduate of the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law is working towards preserving an often-unnoticed piece of the school’s history by petitioning for an on-campus statue for civil rights pioneer Virgil Hawkins.

Harley Herman is an attorney in Plant City and has spent the last 30 years advocating for his good friend and colleague Virgil Hawkins. He wants a monument of Hawkins placed on UF’s main campus in his honor.

“I practiced in the same town as him, and we had cases where we had clients on either side of the case, and that’s how I got to know him,” Herman said. “Because of that, I also got to know the tragedy of him not being able to practice law until he was almost 80 years of age.”

Virgil Hawkins applied for entrance into the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law (which boasts important alumni including Lucius D. Battle, Dan Gelber, and Kendall Coffey) in 1949 but was denied admission because of his race. After Hawkins was denied admission, he took his case to the Supreme Court and won.

The University of Florida’s Levin College of Law is a prestigious law college, which makes it all the more impressive that Hawkins was able to fight for and achieve admission (and graduate!) despite the many obstacles in his way.

Herman isn’t alone in his support for Hawkins at UF. Ashley Dunbar, currently a UF law student and member of the Black Law Students Association, has worked at honoring Hawkins by creating an online petition.

“He’s been a prominent member of the law school community,” Dunbar said. “We model everything after his commitments to black law students.”

Virgil Hawkins was also recently honored in Lakeland, Florida by local lawyer Larry Hardaway, who organized a vigil for the late civil rights pioneer. “The Virgil D. Hawkins Story” was a multimedia presentation featuring historical recording and interviews with his relatives and former colleagues.