High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Aloyisus Leon Higginbotham, Jr. (February 25, 1928 - December 14, 1998) was a prominent African American civil rights advocate, author, and federal appeals court judge. Higginbotham was the seventh African American Article III judge appointed in the United States, and the first African American judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He served as Chief Judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals from 1990 to 1991. He used the name "Leon" informally.