William Lewis Burke Jr. (born 1948) is an American historian, lawyer, academic, editor, and author. He is a distinguished professor emeritus at the Joseph F. Rice School of Law at University of South Carolina (USC). His work focuses on American history, law, and race relations.
He has authored books on law, history, race relations, and African Americans. He co-edited a book about American judge Matthew J. Perry in 2004. Burke's 2017 book, All for Civil Rights: African American Lawyers in South Carolina, 1868âÂÂ1968 is about African American lawyers in South Carolina from the Reconstruction era until 1968. It was described as "definitive" by Hyman Rubin in The South Carolina Historical Magazine. He has appeared on C-SPAN.
Burke was a professor at the Joseph F. Rice School of Law at University of South Carolina (USC) from 1982 to 2015; a chairman for the clinical legal studies department at USC from 2002 to 2015; and was an affiliate faculty for the African American studies department at USC.