For 25 years, ‘Black America’s attorney general’ Ben Crump has been fighting against racial injustice.
Many know him as the lawyer who represented the family of George Floyd, who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020.
But his clientele includes the relatives of many other high-profile cases in the US, from Trayvon Martin, the teenager shot dead by a neighbourhood watch coordinator in 2012, to Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old medical worker killed by police in her own home.
Jacob Blake, Randy Cox and Patrick Lyoya are just a few of the other victims, either injured or killed by US law enforcement, whose loved ones he has battled to help.
“The police for hundreds of years have killed Black people and not had any financial accountability, whatsoever,” he said in Civil: Ben Crump, a Netflix documentary about his life and career.
“I want to make it financially unsustainable for them to continue to kill Black people unjustly.”
Now Mr Crump has his sights set on healthcare, with a potentially landmark case against cosmetics giant L’Oreal in the offing.
The civil rights champion has spoken to The Independent about what motivates him, the similarities between inequality in the US and the UK and his hopes for the future.
Launching the Ben Crump Law firm in Florida at the end of 2017, five years later his office now receives on average 500 calls per day.
The high-flying attorney credits his humble beginnings with fuelling a desire to make levelling “the playing field” his life’s work.
Born in North Carolina in a single-parent household, Mr Crump attended an integrated school in a white neighbourhood at the behest of his mother Helen, who worked as a local maid and in a Converse shoe factory. The youngster found it remarkable that it had the best facilities while the school in “his side of town” had none.
“I remember my mother telling me that we get the opportunity to go to the best schools with the best resources because of Brown V Board of Education – and a lawyer named Thurgood Marshall.
“Right then I made the decision that when I grow up, I’m going to fight for people in my community, and people who look like me to have an equal opportunity at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
“Every morning, I wake up, go fight for equal justice under the law and justice for all.”
In 2021, Mr Crump was included on the Time 100 annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, pleading cases involving environmental injustice, banking discrimination and healthcare negligence such as the upcoming L’Oréal case.
Black women who use chemical hair straightening products are more likely to develop cancer of the womb, it has been claimed – and now dozens of people have teamed up to launch a legal battle against the multi-billion corporations that create the products.
L’Oreal USA Inc and other makers of hair straightener products, including Motions, Dark & Lovely, Olive Oil Relaxer, and Organic Root Stimulator, are all being sued for assisting in the development, marketing, and sale of “dangerous” products.
This follows the release of a US government study which found that women who reported frequent use of hair straightening products were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer compared to those who did not use the products.
Jennifer Mitchell, 32, is leading the charge as the first person to file a lawsuit in October 2022 through Mr Crump, her representative.
The Missouri resident had hopes of having children that were dashed after being diagnosed with uterine cancer and having to undergo a hysterectomy aged 28, following years of using chemical hair straighteners.
In a statement, L’Oréal said it is “confident in the safety of our products and believe the recent lawsuits filed against us have no legal merit”.
Mr Crump described the matter as a “public health crisis”.
“If these statistics were of more affluent white women and young women who were twice as likely to develop uterine cancer and not be able to bear children then people would be ringing the alarm,” the lawyer said.
“So why is it any less of a public health crisis that is affecting predominantly Black women in America? Society has pressured Black women into conforming to European standards of beauty by straightening their hair to look like Caucasian women.”
Having gone through a traumatic health crisis, Ms Mitchell said her ordeal is far from over. “I have to worry about whether or not I’m going to get it again, if it’s going to come back in a different form,” she said.
“Once you have uterine cancer, you can be more susceptible to colon cancer or to breast cancer. A lot of people don’t know that.”
Eight other lawsuits have been filed, on behalf of Black women, against US corporations that manufacture hair straightening products. They are seeking damages to compensate claimants for their anguish and the economic damage of medical bills.
Black women in the US, who report using hair straightening products more than other populations, are more likely to suffer from aggressive forms of womb cancer than other populations and death rates are higher among this group too, according to the National Institutes of Health study. The research tracked data from 34,000 women for over a decade.
“We must continue to tell our Black women and girls: you are beautiful, just as God made you; your hair is enough, the way God put it on top of your head,” Mr Crump said.
“The standard of beauty cannot be defined for our women and our daughters by European white people. That is the most critical thing that we have to continue to articulate. If not, our children, young women and daughters will continue to put the potentially poisonous chemicals in their hair and cause horrific health effects on their bodies.
“That’s why we have filed this lawsuit. We think it’s significant, in the same way that the talcum powder litigation was very significant for Black women and women of colour have been disproportionately affected by these multibillion-dollar corporations putting profit ahead of safety, especially of marginalised women of colour,” Mr Crump alleged.
From disparities in healthcare outcomes to the criminal justice system, and everything in between, Mr Crump is well aware of how systemic racism blights Black lives in the UK.
Just last month, he appeared alongside Jasmine Rand, a fellow civil rights lawyer who also represented George Floyd’s family, as a special guest at the Law Centres Network’s annual conference in the UK. The pair discussed the importance of dismantling entrenched inequalities.
“The racial battle in the UK I think is not very different than the fight for racial justices is in America,” he said. “I think that just like in America, our brothers and sisters in Great Britain are being oppressed under a system that is biased in every aspect, and we have so much in common that we have to figure out ways to join in solidarity to fight against racism and the tyranny of oppression.”
Dealing with the trauma that often comes with his job, Mr Crump tries to prioritise self-care as much as possible.
“I understand that we must stay strong and focused for our clients who turn to us for guidance. But with that said, dealing with so much death and tragedy has an effect on any human being and therefore, we have to always remember that we’re not invincible and need encouragement too.
“I try to turn to people like Jasmine Rand and others who represent optimism and hope for a better world for our children.
“Then I turn to my ancestors and heroes ... I like to read and learn about how they were able to deal with such tragedy and injustice on a daily basis. I try to lean on their examples to continue to fight for the future of our children.
“Anytime I get dismayed, always think about my daughter, Brooklyn, and the other young people who are going to be the future of this country. And I conclude that they are worth the fight always.”
