- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. History professor Jeff Norrell talks in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama, across the street from the 16th St. Baptist Church, about demonstrations there in 1963. He remarks on the children and student participants in the demonstrations and the confrontations between demonstrators and police in early May. He talks about what Birmingham is like in 1987, what the park and the church represent, and how downtown Birmingham has changed. Part two. Mr. Norrell recalls cases heard at the old Birmingham federal courthouse, like Steele v. Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, and the Birmingham College case. He also talks about attorney Arthur Shores, the rise of African American political power in Birmingham, and voting rights cases from Birmingham. Part three. Mr. Norrell discusses the Confederate Flag on the Birmingham courthouse and what it represents to different people. Other topics include Gomillion v. Lightfoot, gerrymandering in Tuskegee, and the importance of Tuskegee. Footage of Birmingham. At 16:22, Reuben Davis footage begins. Mr. Davis speaks about living in Birmingham before and after desegregation and the New South.
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- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights activist and history professor John Hope Franklin did historical research for the Brown v. Board of Education cases. He wrote opposition papers, vetted briefs for historical accuracy, and answered history questions from the lawyers. He describes the slow development of state segregation policies and laws, the 14th amendment and schools, the political climate regarding race issues in the late 19th century, and the suppression of African American voters in the South. Part two. Mr. Franklin describes the suppression of African Americans in the South via state legislation. He talks about the elaborate disenfranchisement of African Americans using restrictions regarding real estate, literacy, voting, etc. He mentions Plessy v. Ferguson, the Oklahoma State Constitution of 1915, and the cases about election primaries during the 1920s. Part three. Mr. Franklin contends that the irregular application of Jim Crow laws allowed the system of segregation to be challenged. He says that Brown defending attorney John W. Davis, like other complacent segregationists, expected to win the Brown case because he believed that everybody accepted the naturalness and permanence of a separate society. Mr. Franklin discusses Charles Houston and his legacy. Mr. Franklin tells the story about segregation in higher education in Oklahoma. Part four. Mr. Franklin recounts his participation in the Lyman Johnson case. Franklin says that Brown was a reaffirmation of the national ideal of equality, but like the framers of the 14th amendment, the Supreme Court escaped having to enforce the ideal. Mr. Franklin tells about his experiences as a field researcher in 1934 for the Fisk University/Charles S. Johnson study of the tenancy of African American cotton farmers in Texas and Mississippi.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Footage of exteriors of houses (and William Elwood) until 8:55. Then civil rights attorney Fred Gray discusses Alabama lawyers, Arthur Shores, and becaming a lawyer in order to try civil rights cases. Gray had to go to law school outside of Alabama as African American schools in Alabama didn't offer what he wanted. He taught himself Alabama state law while in Ohio. Gray describes developing strategies for his civil rights cases. He also talks about the Montgomery bus boycott. Part two. Mr. Gray recalls his 1954 defense of an African American juvenile arrested on Montgomery bus (before the Rosa Parks arrest). Gray talked to Rosa the day before she was arrested and represented her in court. Mr. Gray remarks that Montgomery bus cases like Browder v. Gayle were the first major application of Brown's meaning. Gray describes the difficulty of registering African American voters because registrars would go missing, even after the courts ordered them to register African Americans. To avoid the impact of African American voters, Alabama redrew Tuskegee boundaries to include only white people. Mr. Gray explains Tuskegee gerrymandering and Gomillion v. Lightfoot. Part three. Mr. Gray goes over details of Gomillion v. Lightfoot, recalls how Tuskegee Institute was no longer within the city of Tuskegee because of the new boundaries. Mr. Gray discusses Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, a school discrimination case that managed to include all public schooling in Alabama. Gray explains how litigating the rights of students in order to end segregation also meant dealing with the rights of teachers. Although the Alabama African American teachers associations weren't part of the original suit, they joined the case. Part four. Mr. Gray acknowledges the Bicentennial of the Constitution in 1987, and he discusses how the Constitution was not written to include African Americans. It is the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and various civil rights acts that make the Constitution a living document for African Americans. Gray talks about the Tuskegee Civic Association and gives a lot of credit to local banker Allan Parker. Mr. Gray also covers rehearsing the Gomillion case and the immediate result of Gomillion.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Judge Constance Baker Motley recalls her childhood and education, including her first experience with Jim Crow. The Gaines case in 1938 influenced her to become a lawyer. Clarence Blakeslee, a white philanthropist in Connecticut, paid for her law school tuition. She joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1945 as a clerk. She discusses the legal strategy to target southern graduate schools with enforcement of the Gaines decision. Part two. Judge Motley recalls the NAACP Legal Defense Fund campaign to address the lack of adequate graduate and professional schools for African American students in the South. She discusses the background of several higher education cases, including the 1946 Sweatt case in Texas and the Sipuel case in Oklahoma. The next step in the strategy was to bring suits in elementary and secondary education. Five of these cases culminated in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. She also reviews the immediate history of civil rights following the Brown decision. Part three. Motley describes the grassroots revolution for civil rights after the Brown decision as a surprise to the legal strategists at the NAACP. New laws on the state level reasserting discrimination were also an obstacle for Motley and her NAACP colleagues. In 1961 she represented James Meredith in his fight to enter the University of Mississippi; she also represented Charlayne Hunter Gault and Hamilton Holmes in their fights to enter the University of Georgia. She recalls the first case she ever tried in 1949 in Mississippi. Part four. The judge shares her memories of the early days of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, especially hearing stories by Thurgood Marshall about Charles Hamilton Houston and William Hastie. She heard Houston and Marshall argue the restrictive covenant cases at the US Supreme Court. During this visit to Washington DC, she and her African American comrades were not allowed to stay in DC hotels. She recalls the important cases devised or tried by Houston. Part five. Judge Motley lists the many changes since the Brown decision.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one: Civil rights attorney James Nabrit discusses childhood and segregation in Augusta, Georgia. He covers his law practice in Texas and how he fought to have one Democratic primary instead of two (one for whites, one for African Americans). He left Texas because Mordecai Johnson wanted him to come to Howard University. There, he taught in the law school and became dean, then secretary of the university, then president. He recounts how the news of Jack Johnson’s boxing victory in Augusta, Georgia was greeted by the taunting and burning of an African American man who was celebrating. Part two. Nabrit recalls how the civil rights struggle developed and touches upon African American economic development. He details his preparation for civil rights cases. He declares that winning court cases is not the same thing as achieving civil rights victory. Part three. Nabrit talks about Charles Houston and his contributions. Houston tried cases, met with people, spoke out, organized people. Houston is the one who connected all the lawyers together. Nabrit acknowledges the contributions of the lodges, like the Elks, the Moose. Nabrit elaborates on work he did on behalf of President Lyndon Johnson, like serving at the United Nations as deputy ambassador. Nabrit explains why he worked on Oklahoma civil rights cases. Part four. Nabrit extemporizes on ways to work the legal system. Part five. Stills of photographs. Part six. Mr. Nabrit had to work every summer while in school. His father would not give him money because Nabrit chose to study law instead of becoming a preacher. He discusses his appointment to the United Nations and President Lyndon Johnson. Unidentified woman at 11:46 talks about the background of Mr. Nabrit and why Elwood interviewed him. Still photographs at 13:30, many of Nabrit with various US presidents and officials.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil right attorney Juanita Mitchell gives a brief history of the life of Charles Hamilton Houston. She describes Houston's legal case to admit Donald Gaines Murray to the University of Maryland School of Law. Houston used the equal protection clause from the 14th amendment against states that did not admit African American students to their schools. Ms. Mitchell gives a vivid account of this court case. Houston encouraged Maryland lawyers like Mitchell to use the US Constitution to sue Jim Crow out of Maryland laws, which they did. Part two. Ms. Mitchell describes what it was like to be African American in the South during the era of Jim Crow. She recounts living in the African American ghetto in Baltimore during the 1930s. Ms. Mitchell, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1931, worked for the NAACP. She recalls lynchings near Baltimore and how the NAACP tried to organize African American citizens to write to their government representatives to outlaw lynching. Part three. Ms. Mitchell remarks upon the inspiring character of Houston. She tells the story of W. Ashby Hawkins' successful legal argument in 1913 against Baltimore's new municipal segregation residential order, which was like Apartheid. She talks about the heroism of her mother, who served as president of the NAACP. She also talks about the civil rights work of her husband, Clarence Mitchell, especially concerning the Fair Employment Practice Committee. Part four. Because the NAACP could not get tax exempt status for work being done by lawyers, the Legal Defense Fund was started, with Thurgood Marshall at its helm. Ms. Mitchell remembers filing case after case in Maryland led by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She recalls working with Robert Carter and Jack Greenberg. Ms. Mitchell got her law degree because Houston suggested she do so, and she was the first African American student to write for the law review at the University of Maryland School of Law. She describes what it was like in Baltimore during and after the Brown court case, especially on the day the decision was announced. Part five. Ms. Mitchell remembers the funeral of Houston in 1950. She gives her opinion of why people don't know about Houston. She believes that the civil rights movement really began with Africans jumping off slave ships.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Joseph Rauh talks about his clerkships to the US Supreme Court for both Justices Cardozo and Frankfurter. He discusses the 1941 Executive Order by President Franklin Roosevelt, called the Fair Employment Act, which Rauh wrote. During World War II, he worked as Gen. MacArthur's secretary and in the Lend-Lease Administration. He recalls the founding of the Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. He tells anecdotes about working with A. Philip Randolph. Part two. Mr. Rauh remembers, during the 1940s, African Americans and whites could not eat together in a restaurant in Washington DC. The District was a segregated city until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise. Mr. Rauh talks about his acquaintance with Charles Hamilton Houston. Mr. Rauh describes Houston's work in the Steele case. He explains the new civil rights platform adopted at the 1948 Democratic Convention. Part three. Mr. Rauh comments on President Truman's civil rights record. He states that the best US President for civil rights is Lyndon Johnson and the worst is Ronald Reagan. Mr. Rauh credits Charles Houston with the first use of the argument of state action in discrimination cases. He recounts his dealings with NAACP lobbyist Clarence Mitchell, especially their efforts in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Mr. Rauh recalls President John Kennedy, when proposing what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964, pointing out the irony that Alabama Sheriff Bull Connor did more for civil rights than anybody else. Mr. Rauh tell stories about civil rights champion President Johnson working to pass legislation. Part four. Mr. Rauh describes the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its effects on the nation's history using the example of the defeat of Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987 primarily by Senators elected by African American constituents from the South. The first meaningful civil rights legislation since Reconstruction was the Act of 1964. Mr. Rauh suggests reasons for why Charles Houston is not well known.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights activist Modjeska Simkins discusses her childhood in South Carolina and the influence of her grandmother, who was a slave. She tells vivid stories of her family's ordeals with slavery and post-Civil War freedom and discrimination. Part two. Ms. Simkins shares stories about her family's experience with racial discrimination. She talks about people using the Bible to support their prejudices and why she quit the church. She explains the power structure among rich white people, poor white people, and African Americans. She recalls when NAACP lawyers like Thurgood Marshall would come down to South Carolina to try a case and stay in her house because they couldn't stay in any hotels. She tells how African American schools didn't have buses or fuel for heat. Part three. Ms. Simkins talks about her education. She recalls encounters with the Ku Klux Klan and her fearless attitude toward the Klan. She returns to a discussion of the power structure in the South, both when she was a child and in 1985. She expresses her opinion of Robert Bork. Part four. Ms. Simkins talks about her work with the NAACP. She talks about the salary case, transportation case, and the vote case in South Carolina. Her home was the center of South Carolina civil rights legislation in a way because out-of-town African Americans could only stay in private homes. The militia was called out in South Carolina; she remembers cannons on Statehouse grounds. She chats about Judge J. Waites Waring and Thurgood Marshall.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Charles Todd Duncan discusses his involvement with the Brown v. Board of Education cases when he worked in the law office of Frank D. Reeves. He did much research on the history of African American codes. He was straight out of law school and was mainly a helper and errand-runner on the case, but he likes to remember that he was the one who personally physically filed the Brown case at the US Supreme Court. He mentions Charles Black. Mr. Duncan talks about Brown's impact, as well as what it didn't affect. Part two. Mr. Duncan helped out on the Brown case at the New York City NAACP Legal Defense Fund offices. He participated in strategy and decision-making sessions there and describes what these sessions were like. He recounts how the five Brown cases were chosen to take to the Supreme Court for very specific reasons.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Judge Higginbotham asserts that the United States Constitution was not revelant to African Americans when it was written except to further enslave them. Judge Higginbotham offers a legal history of the colonies and slavery. Slavery was not codified until 1660, Virginia was the mother of slavery, and Virginia law in the early 1800s made it illegal to teach African Americans to read and write. Judge Higginbotham talks about Charles Coatsworth Pinckney, Judge Ruffin, and how America's success was only possible via slave labor. Part two. Judge Higginbotham's history lesson continues. The 14th amendment was intended to take racism out of American society via due process, but it became the primary instrument to help corporations and everyone else but African Americans. Plessy v. Ferguson codified the separate but equal doctrine, which extended discrimination from trains to just about everywhere else, as the Supreme Court had said it was “reasonable” to do so. The warped interpretation of the 14th amendment impacted women as well. The US Constitution was also originally meaningless to women. Higginbotham discusses Justice Harlan's dissent in Plessy. Part three. Judge Higginbotham explains that Brown v. Board of Education was brought about by earlier cases. Brown was the ninth inning victory compared to all the work that had gone before in civil rights, including Gaines v. Missouri, Sweatt v. Painter, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma. Higginbotham discusses Collins Seitz, first state judge to order desegregation of a school. He also talks about Charles Hamilton Houston, William Hastie, Thurgood Marshall, and Howard University Law School. Part four. Judge Higginbotham recalls the Marian Anderson incident in Philadelphia in 1939. He also discusses the extension of legal strategy in civil rights cases beyond education into employment and voting rights, as in Smith v. Allwright. Higginbotham details the extensive pattern of violence in the South and the manipulation of the voter registration process. For example, registrars would ask African Americans for absurd qualification information, such as the number of gallons of water in the ocean. Judge Higginbotham recalls cases about labor unions, railways, housing rights, restrictive covenants in the 1940s, and fair housing in 1968. Part five. Judge Higginbotham's advice to young people: don't try to save the entire world, try to save the people next to you. Higginbotham discusses Powell v. Alabama, the Scottsboro case, Brown v. Mississippi, and John W. Davis.