Chambers' firm, Chambers, Stein, Ferguson, and Atkins, became instrumental in the civil rights movement, influencing more landmark state and federal legislation in school desegregation, employment and voting rights than any other in the United States. The firm shaped civil rights law by winning benchmark United States Supreme Court rulings in famous decisions such as Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education , which led to federally mandated busing, while continuing the crusade to integrate public schools across the country. Chambers and his team also won in two of the Supreme Court's most monumental Title VII employment discrimination decisions, Griggs v. Duke Power Co. and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody .

Throughout the 1960s and '70s, Chambers' work to gain equality for African Americans, combined with the South's inflamed racial attitudes, resulted in frequent threats to his life. He recalls a time when his home was firebombed, his office torched and his own son's life was threatened. "I don't know how we escaped bodily harm, except by the grace of God," says Chambers.

Yet he endured these traumatic experiences, emerging as one of the most successful and admired civil rights lawyers in America. During this time Chambers' unfailing commitment to education continued with a term on the UNC Board of Governors and tenure as chancellor of North Carolina Central University.

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