Serving the State of North Carolina with Justice

Judge Cressie Thigpen, Jr. of the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

Staff Reports

Judge Cressie Thigpen, Jr. of the North Carolina Court of Appeals has a straightforward judicial philosophy: He believes in the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of North Carolina. He believes in the rule of law. He believes in dispensing justice fairly and without favoritism. He believes that every person has a right to have his/her day in court.

Judge Thigpen was appointed to the Superior Court bench as a Special Superior Court Judge by Governor Michael Easley and served in that position for more than two years before being appointed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals by Governor Beverly Perdue. While serving on the Superior Court bench he earned the reputation of an impartial and hardworking judge, fair and courteous to all who appeared before him. He tried to make jurors feel at ease and tried to insure that litigants who represented themselves were given a fair shake.

The first African American president of the North Carolina State Bar
Association, Thigpen worked to increase the number of women and African
Americans serving on its committees. He served on the board of trustees
of UNC Chapel Hill for nine years, and on the board of trustees of his
alma mater, North Carolina Central University, for five years, three of
them as chairman.
Cressie Thigpen Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but grew up
in Greensboro, Raeford, and Fayetteville, N. C. He was graduated from
E.E. Smith High School where he played in the marching band and ran
track. His mother was a schoolteacher in her early career and later a
college librarian. His father was an entrepreneur, an artist, a painter,
a farmer and, ultimately a teacher.

He enrolled at Winston Salem State University and transferred to North
Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University) at the end of
his freshman year. While at NCCU he majored in Business Administration
with a minor in Spanish. He was selected as one of six students from
UNC, Duke, and NCCU for a summer’s work in Central America with the
Peace Corps.

After graduating from NCCU he joined the Peace Corps and was sent to
Mysore State, India, where his job was to teach farmers how to grow
sorghum and other grains. Afterwards he returned to the U.S., worked a
year at Prentice Hall Publishing Company, and then went to Rutgers
University Law School. Upon graduation from law school, Cressie returned
to North Carolina and went to work at the Durham Legal Aid Office.

After passing the N. C. bar exam he opened a solo practice in Raleigh
for two years, at which point his friend Dan Blue joined him. They
formed the law firm later known as Thigpen, Blue, Stephens &
Fellers. Blue later became the first African American Speaker of the NC
House of Representatives.

During the first ten years of his practice, Thigpen practiced real
estate, domestic, criminal, and civil law; thereafter he concentrated on
civil litigation and business law. He also taught law for one year at
North Carolina Central University as an adjunct instructor.

Judge Thigpen’s philosophy of life, like his judicial philosophy, is
simple. Treat people as you would have them treat you. Look after the
very young and the very old because they are the most vulnerable in our
society. Believe in God. Faith, family, and friends are the most
important things in our lives. For 26 years Judge Thigpen was married to
the late Cynthia Cartwright Thigpen, with whom he had two sons, Omar
and Daren.