# NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) Founded in 1940 by Thurgood Marshall as the litigation arm of the NAACP; legally separated from the NAACP in 1957 and operates as an independent 501(c)(3). Marshall served as LDF's first executive director and was the organization's lead counsel in *[[Brown v. Board of Education]]* (1954). Successive presidents-counsel have included Jack Greenberg, Julius L. Chambers, Theodore M. Shaw, John Payton, Sherrilyn Ifill, and Janai Nelson (current). LDF is the most institutionally significant civil-rights litigation organization in the United States, with a continuous post-1940 record of bringing the largest racial-justice cases of each generation — from school desegregation through 1960s sit-in defenses through housing discrimination, capital punishment, and voting rights. ## 2025–26 redistricting role LDF is **lead counsel** in the federal challenges to the 2025 mid-decade congressional redistricting maps in: - **Texas** (alongside [[LULAC]]) — challenging the targeting of five Coalition Districts as racial gerrymander; SCOTUS ultimately upheld the map 6–3 on 2026-04-27 - **North Carolina** — challenging the targeting of NC-01, the state's only Black-represented competitive seat, as a Section 2 / [[Fourteenth Amendment]] violation; federal three-judge panel denied PI in early April 2026, allowing the map to be used for 2026 while merits proceed - **Missouri** (in coordinating role with the ACLU) — challenging the Troost Avenue line in Kansas City as racial gerrymander LDF's posture on the 2025–26 wave is that the Republican mid-decade redraws systematically targeted Black-represented and Black-influence districts in violation of the Voting Rights Act § 2 and the 14th Amendment, even where they were not nominally drawn on race. The Supreme Court's *[[Louisiana v. Callais]]* decision (April 29, 2026) has materially rewritten LDF's Section 2 strategy by requiring proof of intentional discriminatory motive rather than discriminatory effect. See [[Redistricting Timeline 2025-2026]]. ## Related - [[LULAC]] — co-counsel on Texas - [[Redistricting Timeline 2025-2026]] — multi-state racial-gerrymander challenges