Ben Crump is a man of the people. Whenever Black people face legal injustice, attorney Crump is never far away. Today, Dec. 23, Crump and Friends hosted a toy drive, giving hundreds of gifts to youth around Atlanta. Kids received gifts including bikes, dolls, basketballs, footballs and other toys and electronics.
Why was this toy drive important to you?
You know, when my fraternity [brothers] Chris McCreery and C BlaQue and us started talking about this and they said, we’re gonna do this Ben Crump and Friends Christmas extravaganza, I said, it’s not only my obligation, but it’s my pleasure to do it. Because I grew up in the projects with a single mother and my two little brothers. And I know Christmas wasn’t always the happiest times. And so now that we’ve been blessed and can go back and make sure children in our community know that they are loved and valued and respected, then that’s what Christmas means to me. And it was so special seeing all that Black joy today with all those little Black boys and girls saying, man, Santa Claus didn’t miss us.
What made you want to become a civil rights advocate?
It was when I was in the fourth grade when we had the school bus and I saw everything they had on the white side of town versus what we had on the Black side of town. And my mother told me the reason we got to go to the new schools with the new books and new technology was because of the NAACP Brown v. Board of Education case and a lawyer named Thurgood Marshall. And I made a decision right then as a nine-year-old fourth grader that when I grew up, I was going to be like Thurgood Marshall and fight to make our community and people who look like me have a better opportunity at achieving the American dream. And for every day when I wake up, I still got the same objective as that little nine-year-old boy. Trying to make sure us Black people have an equal opportunity. And The American promise.
Can you give us a year in review?
Now, this year was a very pivotal year for the Ben Crump Law Firm. We got major landmark justices in Tyre Nichols case. The young man who was beaten to death by the five police officers, all of them were convicted in state court. And then Sonya Massey … The sister who the police told to get the pot of water off the stove, and then he shot her in her face in her own home. So we’re fighting for justice for her. And we were able to get a conviction for Breonna Taylor this year with the Justice Department. The first time in history that a Black woman has gotten a federal conviction of a police officer for killing her. And so that was landmark. Botham Jean, just in November, we were able to settle after five years. Remember, Botham Jean was the brother in his apartment minding his own business when the white policewoman came into allegedly the wrong apartment and shot and killed him, thinking that it was her apartment. Allegedly. And then she said self-defense. Well, after five years, we finally had the trial on that case, and we got $100 million verdict for Botham’s life. And then just this month in December for Tyre Sampson, the young Black kid who was 14 years old with his football team visiting the Central Florida theme park, Icon Park, fell to his death from the free fall ride. And we got a historical verdict, the largest ever in history for a Black child when the jury came back and returned the verdict of $310 million. And so we started the year with a bang, and we ended the year with a bang. And we know in 2025, we’re gonna have a lot of hurdles, a lot of obstacles, but Black people, we gonna be all right.
