Joe Morgan, Jr

Joe Wilson Morgan, Jr. of Vestavia Hills passed away Wednesday, March 18th at the age of 72 as a result of complications from having suffered a stroke in 2014. He was born in Pine Hill, Alabama on November 26, 1942 to Joe Wilson Morgan, Sr. and Luna Gray Morgan (née McGilberry). When his father returned from serving in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War, the family moved to the Mobile area, which is where he went to Vigor High School in Prichard. After graduating from Vigor in 1960, he joined the Alabama National Guard, and completed basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. In 1961, he briefly worked for his father in construction, and then for the State of Alabama Highway Department while at same time serving as a National Guardsman. In the fall of 1961 he reported to Auburn University to begin classes, only to be forced to withdraw soon thereafter when his National Guard unit was placed on active duty at Fort Gordon, Georgia in response to the Berlin Crisis.

In February of 1962, he married his high school sweetheart, Mildred "Pete" Williams and the couple returned together to Fort Gordon until such time as the Alabama National Guard demobilized, and the couple was able to return to Prichard later that year. Their first of two sons, Joe Wilson Morgan, III, was born in March of 1963 in Mobile. In 1965, Joe was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant through the Alabama National Guard's Officer Candidate School program, then transferred into the regular U.S. Army, and posted to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There he was assigned to the 86th Signal Battalion, a unit that was then being organized for deployment to the Republic of Vietnam. The battalion sailed to Southeast Asia aboard the USNS Geiger (T-AP-197) in November 1966. Upon arriving in Vietnam, the 86th Signal Battalion supported the 25th Infantry Division at Củ Chi Base Camp northwest of Saigon. Lieutenant Morgan returned from his first tour in Vietnam in November 1967, and was stationed again at Fort Gordon, Georgia, where he then became an instructor at the Signal Officer Basic Course. His second son, Martin Kenneth Adrian Morgan, was born at Fort Gordon in May 1969. Just five weeks later, the family moved to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where Joe then attended the 39-week-long Signal Officer Advanced Course ahead of his return to the Republic of Vietnam. During this second tour of overseas duty, he served as the communications officer for the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) during the Cambodian Incursion of 1970. When he returned from Vietnam in July of 1971, he finally had a chance to return to college through the Army's Bootstrap Program, which took him to the University of Tampa in Florida. He graduated in 1973 with a Bachelor's degree in Business, and the Army immediately sent him back to Fort Monmouth.

While in New Jersey, he enrolled in the Master's of Business Administration program at Fairleigh Dickinson University in the Fall of 1973, and then began classes at Seton Hall University School of Law in 1974. For three years, he attended classes three nights per week for law school and one night per week for his MBA, and nevertheless succeeded in both programs. He graduated in the top of his class from Seton Hall in 1978 with a Juris Doctorate and thereafter became a member of the New Jersey BAR, practicing in the towns of Little Silver and Red Bank while still serving in the U.S. Army. He left the military in 1980 and moved the family to northern Pennsylvania to assume the chairmanship of the Department of Business, Economics, and Computer Science at Mansfield State College. Missing his oldest son, who was at that time a student at the University of Alabama, Joe moved the family to Tuscaloosa in 1983. Already a member of the Alabama BAR, he established a practice in Homewood and eventually moved the family to the Birmingham area soon thereafter. During the 1980s and 90s, he made a name for himself practicing family and criminal law, and teaching property at Miles Law School in Fairfield. In 1995, he began practicing with his older son Joe Wilson Morgan, III, during which time he became particularly interested in appellate law. Later that same year, he welcomed the birth of his only grandchild Cynthia Joanne Morgan.

Through a career that included oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, Joe significantly influenced both criminal and family law issues in Alabama. He loved the law and was dedicated to his profession to such an extent that he provided pro bono representation to a meaningful number of indigent clients. Although he was preceded in death by his older son Joe Wilson Morgan, III, he is survived by his wife of fifty-three years Mildred "Pete" Morgan of Vestavia Hills, his son Martin Kenneth Adrian Morgan of Covington, Louisiana, his granddaughter Cynthia Joanne Morgan and her mother Cynthianne Harris Morgan of Chelsea, in addition to aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and friends.

The family will receive friends from 3-5 PM, Sunday, March 22, 2015, at Currie-Jefferson Funeral Home, Hwy 150 in Hoover. Service will be 10 AM, Monday, March 23, 2015, in the funeral home chapel. Interment will be in Jefferson Memorial Gardens, South.