Civil Rights pioneer L. A. Bedford started firm that would become Bedford Bunkley & Davis and founded the J.L. Turner Legal Society in 1952—Dallas' first association for black attorneys. Bedford was the first black attorney appointed as a municipal judge in Dallas, in 1966; he was the fourth black lawyer to join the Dallas Bar Association, in 1968, and was elected to the DBA's board of directors in 1984. In his later years, Bedford continued practicing law as a solo practitioner

A year after his death, Dallas lawyers and historians and family recently gathered on the campus of Prairie View A&M University to discuss the legacy of Dallas civil rights pioneer Louis A. Bedford, who was a 1946 graduate of the historically black college.

And in a fitting tribute after the conclusion of lectures about the man who became Dallas' first African-American judge in 1966, his alma mater's mock courtroom was named in honor of him.

Segregation in Texas forced Bedford to travel to New York, where he got a law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1951.