He provided legal counseling for activist Martin Luther King Jr., one of the leaders of the civil rights movement.
[2] During World War II, he served as a pilot in Italy as one of the Tuskegee Airmen and flew 105 combat missions.
[3][4] Eskridge advised the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an African-American civil rights organization, in the late 1960s.
Harlan made this decision after being persuaded by his clerks to read Elijah Muhammad's book Message to the Blackman in America, which convinced him that Ali indeed qualified for conscientious objector status.
[8] He was portrayed by Chuck Cooper in the film Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight about the Clay v. United States case in the Supreme Court.
Eskridge died in January 1988 at Oak Forest Hospital after spending eleven months in a coma.