Washington ? The American Bar Assn. picked a black former big-city politician Tuesday to break a 125-year string of white presidents.

Dennis Archer, a past Michigan Supreme Court justice and two-term mayor of Detroit, was elevated to president-elect of the 408,000-member association. He pledged to emphasize diversity in the group, which is still mainly white 60 years after a ban on black members was lifted.

The new president-elect of the American Bar Assn., Dennis Archer, addresses ABA's annual meeting in Washington. Archer on Tuesday became the first black in line to head the nation's largest group of lawyers. He will serve as president for a year beginning in August 2003.

“Today is the beginning of a new chapter,” Archer said as his wife of 35 years, Trudy, wiped away tears.

The Archers were joined by Cecilia Marshall, the widow of Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

Archer, a native of 1,500-resident Cassopolis, Mich., grew up in a home with no indoor plumbing and took weekly baths in a metal tub. His father had a third-grade education and couldn’t find good work after he lost an arm in a car accident.

Archer started working at age 8 with odd jobs like setting up bowling pins and caddying at a golf course.

He said a professor encouraged him to crack into the “white” bar 30 years ago and he decided “it is better to work from within than on the outside, throwing bricks and stones.”

Black lawyers who had been kept out of the ABA founded the competing National Bar Assn. in 1925. Archer headed that group in 1983, while also working his way into leadership jobs for the ABA.

The ABA elected Alfred P. Carlton of Raleigh, N.C., president on Monday.

Archer was selected to succeed Carlton in August 2003 and will serve as president for one year.

“I am saddened that it has taken this long,” said Arkansas Appeals Court Judge Wendell L. Griffen of Little Rock, who is black. “I am hopeful that we will be able to replicate that, that the doors will also be opened in law firms and law schools.”

While its ban on black members was in place, the ABA checked to make sure applicants were white. There was an effort to run out several black lawyers after they slipped through the application process in 1912.

The ABA ended the ban in 1943, but black membership stayed small.

In 1986, the group began a drive for black members, pressing for “full and equal participation” of minorities and females. There is evidence of the group’s work. At the association’ six-day meeting, which ended Tuesday, there were multiple discussions about recruiting black lawyers and keeping them in the profession.

Also at this year’s meeting, the group chose another black lawyer Robert Grey Jr. of Richmond, Va. to follow Archer as president in 2004-05.

“The ABA has acknowledged our history. People wish it weren’t so. Many of us are embarrassed by it. But those sentiments have opened up hearts and minds to more inclusiveness. This is a different ABA,” said Martha Barnett of Tallahassee, Fla., the second female ABA president, who served from 2000-01.

The ABA does not ask members to list their race, but it’s estimated that less than 3 percent of the group is black, a reflection of the mostly white legal profession. Archer said Tuesday that he will reach out to encourage more young minorities to try law as a career.

During his year as president, Archer will work almost full time for the group, meeting with leaders all over the world about issues like legal representation for people facing the death penalty.

“It is mind-boggling to find myself where I am today,” Archer said in an interview.

“You start thinking of the sacrifices that have been made. So many lawyers couldn’t go into the courtroom or use the law library because they were people of color, indignities they had to experience.”