Lawrence Otis Graham, Westchester attorney and best-selling author, dies at 59
Lawrence Otis Graham, a prominent Westchester attorney and best-selling author whose books examined the nation”™s complex history of race relations, died on Feb. 19 at the age of 59.
Graham was raised in Mount Vernon and White Plains and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1988. He was of counsel at the White Plains law firm Cuddy & Feder LLP, where he specialized in real estate law, land use and governmental affairs.
He also served as chairman of the Westchester County Police Board and as trustee of SUNY Purchase College Foundation, was an adjunct professor at Fordham University and Dutchess Community College and unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Republican Rep. Sue W. Kelly for her seat in New York’s 19th Congressional district in 2000.
On a national level, Graham was notable for authoring 14 books including “Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class” (1999) and “The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty” (2006), and his commentary on racial politics was regularly featured in newspaper op-ed sections and television news broadcasts.
In June 2008, he created a national stir with an article in New York magazine detailing his undercover experiences posing as a busboy at the Greenwich Country Club, detailing a too-casual use of racial epithets among its all-white membership.
Graham was a Chappaqua resident and the cause of his death was not disclosed. He is survived by his wife Pamela Thomas-Graham, an author, a former president and CEO of CNBC and former group president of Liz Claiborne, and their three children.
County Executive George Latimer praised Graham”™s legacy, writing on Facebook: “He left an indelible mark while he was with us. And we mourn his departure this day.”