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As chair of Vera's board of trustees for two decades, Burke Marshall was instrumental in making Vera an organization with a passion for justice and an unshakable faith in the democratic process. In memory of his contributions to the Institute and his life of public service, we have renamed our annual fund.

Vera's annual fund supports the earliest stages of developing solutions to injustice, solutions that people around the world can learn from and implement in their own ways. The fund allows Vera to focus on the work that mattered to Burke Marshall—building a more just and humane society.

Donations are tax deductible to the extent provided by law. You may donate by credit card or by check. Checks should be made out to The Vera Institute of Justice and mailed to:

Vera Institute of Justice
Attn: Anna Kornilakis
233 Broadway, 12th Floor
New York, New York 10279
Burke Marshall believed that good societies are built through the collective work of fair-minded individuals and that lasting change can never be accomplished through coercion or force. In the 1960s, Burke Marshall's deft diplomacy enabled him to revolutionize civil rights in a dangerously divided America. As assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he crafted and garnered support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which gave all Americans, regardless of their race, equal opportunity under the law, and what later became the 1965 Voting Rights Act. When he left the United States Justice Department in 1965, President Johnson wrote on his letter of resignation, "I have never known any person who rendered a better quality of public service."

Burke Marshall continued to serve the public for the rest of his life. After leaving government, he briefly worked as a partner at the Washington law firm of Covington & Burling and then became general counsel of IBM. Neither job fully satisfied him, however, and he soon began to look for, as he once said, "something good to do." What he found was an opportunity to transform the small, family-run Vera Foundation into a public institution at the moment when Vera's groundbreaking work on bail reform was having national influence.

Burke chaired the Vera Institute of Justice Board of Trustees for two decades, from 1966 through 1986, as Vera took on an increasingly wide range of justice issues. While he never sought to direct the course of Vera's work, his wisdom and high moral standards helped to ensure that Vera's projects always aimed to make the administration of justice more fair and humane for the people who depend on it.

In 1970, Burke Marshall left IBM to become deputy dean and a professor at Yale Law School, where his belief in equal justice under the law and due process inspired many young law students to take up careers in public service. Later, he was named Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor Emeritus of Law and George Crawford Professorial Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School.

After stepping down as chair of Vera's board, Burke Marshall remained involved with the Institute, serving as a member of the board and then as Chair Emeritus, and in 1996 generously agreed to chair the board of the newly created Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), a Vera spin-off that helps prisoners returning to New York City get paid work immediately and then a permanent job. He knew that CEO provides more than employment. "It's giving them some piece of hope," he said.

Burke Marshall died on June 2, 2003.