Ann Fagan Ginger’s achievements in a lifetime dedicated to establishing, protecting and preserving human rights and international peace laws are nearly unfathomable.
Born July 11, 1925, in East Lansing, Michigan, the Berkeley-based attorney, writer, educator and civil rights expert graduated as one of only eight women in her class from the University of Michigan Law School in 1947. She began her career as administrator at the National Lawyers Guild before practicing labor law in Ohio and Boston, where she and her then-husband during the McCarthy era refused loyalty oaths and were barred for 20 years from practicing law.
The barriers thrown up in the 1950s did nothing to stop Ginger’s momentum, which carried her to New York City and led to actions taken to dismantle McCarthyism. Among other examples, in 1959 she argued and won Raley v. Ohio before the U.S. Supreme Court and earlier, in 1955, launched the Civil Liberties Docket, an archive of civil rights litigation still widely used by lawyers and activists worldwide.
In 1965, having relocated with her family to California, Ginger founded the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute in Berkeley. The MCLI is named after Alexander Meiklejohn, an educator and political philosopher Ginger held in high esteem for his First Amendment advocacy during the Cold War. The organization’s umbrella of programs and services cover legal research, education, advocacy, training for interns and volunteers, and publication of works that serve as crucial amicus briefs used in the courts.
Ginger died at home in Berkeley on Aug. 20, 2025. At age 100, her firepower and visibility had scaled down during the last five years, but her remarkable inducement had in no way ceased, according to longtime friend and colleague Jennifer Smith.
“I met Ann when I applied to work for her at MCLI,” Smith recalls in a phone interview. “I was a college student and worked there, off-and-on for about five years. It was a small, grassroots nonprofit, so I worked side-by-side with Ann. I’d walk into the office, and she’d start asking, ‘Is this done? Is that done?’ And then she’d jokingly say, ‘I guess I should start with how are you?’ Her mind was constantly active, thinking about new ways to promote justice, do activism.”
Smith is now 43 and a psychotherapist with a private practice. As a forever-admirer of her former boss, it presents a challenge to select highlights that best exemplify Ginger’s impact on international peace law, the fight to preserve human rights and social justice issues such as free speech, peaceful protest, and efforts made in public and in the courts to illuminate and eradicate racial violations of domestic and international peace laws, and more.
“In recent years, Ann was not focused on one issue, but on holding the U.S. accountable to treaties that cover race, gender, sexuality and a lot of other topics,” says Smith.
“Other than the McCarthyism she fought against, most remarkable is the digest (Civil Liberties Docket) she created. There is no way civil rights cases are won without the documents she collected that had never been published. She sent it out to subscribing lawyers, giving them a way to win cases and tune into other lawyers about how to build a legal strategy. That was a major contribution to the field in a time when arguments had to be created without the First Amendment and other protections,” she continues.
Ginger also thought in uniquely individual patterns, which caused her to realize that the United States, by ratifying international human rights laws, was obligated to enforce them in this country. She sent reports alerting organizations that oversee international laws of the transgressions in the United States of racial laws and environmental violations that occurred during Hurricane Katrina, and other incidents.
Ginger in her private life was the mother of two sons, Thomas Ginger, a lawyer who died in 1998 from multiple sclerosis complications, and James Ginger, of Berkeley. Although two marriages ended in divorce, Smith says Ginger’s 20-year companion, J.R. “Richard” Challacombe, a writer, photographer, journalist and environmentalist who died in 2020, provided constant support throughout their “long, deep, deep love affair.”
A memorial service will be held (and livestreamed) in honor of United Nations/Human Rights Day, a day Ginger deeply cherished. The service is planned for Saturday, Nov. 29, at 2:30pm, at Berkeley Unified Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St.
A celebration of Ginger’s life will be held on Saturday, June 6, 2026, at 2:30pm at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. Details will be announced on the church’s website (bfuu.org) and on the MCLI website (mclihumanrights.org). A tribute page where donations to the Ann Fagan Ginger Legacy Fund may be made supports publication of her work, including an upcoming memoir, and invites people to share memories, stories and photos: everloved.com/life-of/ann-ginger.
