William Henry Hastie Jr. (November 17, 1904 – April 14, 1976) was an American lawyer, judge, educator, public official, and civil rights advocate.

Hastie attended Amherst College, Massachusetts in 1925, where he graduated first in his class, magna cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree.

[7] From 1933 to 1937 he served as assistant solicitor for the United States Department of the Interior,Cite error: The tag has too many names (see the help page).

[2] One of his students was Thurgood Marshall, who led the Legal Defense Fund for the NAACP and was appointed as a United States Supreme Court Justice.

[citation needed] Hastie served as a co-lead lawyer with Thurgood Marshall in the voting rights case of Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944) in which the Supreme Court ruled against white primaries.

[7] Hastie received a recess appointment from President Harry S. Truman on October 21, 1949, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to a new seat authorized by 63 Stat.

In an interview with Robert Penn Warren for the book Who Speaks for the Negro?, Hastie commented that as a judge, he had not been able to be "out in the hustings, and to personally sample grassroots reaction" but that for the Civil Rights Movement to succeed, both class and race must be considered.

[15] But due to political calculations he did not do so, as he believed that an African-American appointee would have faced fierce opposition in the United States Senate from Southerners such as James Eastland (D-Mississippi), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

[19] A permanent memorial room in his honor is hosted by The Beck Cultural Exchange Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, which also houses his personal papers.

"[22] When he resigned as the top aide on racial matters to the War Department in 1943, he said it was caused by "reactionary policies and discriminatory practices in the Army and Air Forces.