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Part one. Students sit on The Lawn at the University of Virginia and discuss Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, James Nabrit, and Samuel Tucker. Each student explains why he/she got involved with the Elwood project. They discuss their own generation participating in the civil rights struggle. Part two. Students discuss differences among generations of black Americans. Part three. Students change location to William Elwood's house. Topics include the importance of education and the difference between overt versus subtle discrimination. Part four. Continuation of conversation in William Elwood's house about the status of black students at the University of Virginia and pressures on black students in 1985.
Footage of cocktail conversations during reception for Old Dominion Bar Association convention. Participants unknown. Footage of drive through Chicago to the Supreme Life Building, footage inside the building.
Part one. Civil rights attorney Oliver Hill recounts his childhood in Roanoke. High schools for African Americans there were at least 100 miles away, so he moved to Washington DC to go to Dunbar High School. He recalls knowing Charles Houston in the early 1930s while at Howard Law School. Hill discusses the difference between desegregation and integration. Part two. Mr. Hill examines his first civil rights cases, the most important being Alston v. School Board of the City of Norfolk. He discusses the differences between trying a case in front of Virginia federal court and Virginia state court. Part three. Mr. Hill explains the civil rights court case strategy to force the “separate but equal” doctrine to be observed, which would be expensive and difficult, so the only reasonable alternative would be to integrate. Mr. Hill observes that it was essential to eliminate the disparity between African American and white teacher salaries because the South needed to retain good teachers. He won the Alston case then went off to World War II. He describes what segregation in the Army was like. He also discusses taking the Morgan v. Virginia case, which was based on federal interstate transportation law, to the US Supreme Court. Part four. Mr. Hill thinks that the war retarded the growth of the civil rights movement. He recalls the Tunstall case concerning traditional African American railway jobs as firemen. He was also involved in one of the five court cases that led to Brown v. Board of Education, the Prince Edward County case, chiefly concerning equal education facilities. He talks about the judges involved in Prince Edward case. Part five. Mr. Hill continues to discuss the judges involved in the Prince Edward case, including Judge Sterling Hutcheson. Mr. Hill explains that 10 years after the Brown decision there was no integration in Prince Edward County because the Supreme Court didn't order desegregation. Hill points to Harry Byrd as the chief antagonizer in Massive Resistance; Hill says that if Harry Byrd hadn't opposed the Brown decision, integration would have happened much sooner in Virginia. Part six. A message to young people from Oliver Hill: we have to stop thinking of ourselves as colors or ethnicities or nationalities and start thinking of ourselves and each other as humans. Interview ends at seven minutes. Footage of Old Dominion Bar Association convention begins at 7:10, conversations among bar members and William Elwood, chiefly concerning Samuel Tucker.
Part one. Pictures inside and outside the Supreme Life Insurance Company in Chicago. At 11:26, Elwood interviews civil rights attorney Earl Dickerson in Dickerson's home in Chicago. Part two. Mr. Dickerson discusses his involvement with the National Lawyers Guild, the Smith Act and the Communist 11, and the Fair Employment Practices Committee. Part three. Mr. Dickerson recounts his association with the civil rights commission under President Truman. He also discusses being president of the National Bar Association. He talks about the Fair Employment Practices Committee during the early 1940s, his meetings with President Franklin Roosevelt concerning FEPC, not being invited back to serve on the FEPC, and his dealings in Birmingham as part of the FEPC. Part four. Mr. Dickerson talks more about the FEPC checking on Birmingham businesses. While president of the National Lawyers Guild during the 1950s, Mr. Dickerson had a run-in with Atty. Gen. Brownell. Mr. Dickerson also talks about knowing Charles Houston. Part five. Mr. Dickerson reminisces about Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois, the March on Washington in 1963, entertaining Martin Luther King Jr. at his home when King came to Chicago, and his peacemaking lunch with Elijah Muhammed, Philip Randolph, and Malcolm X. Part six. Mr. Dickerson describes the use of covenants to restrict African Americans from moving into white neighborhoods. It was his part of the Hansberry v. Lee case to prove racially restrictive covenants were unconstitutional. He also talks about the Squib case, his ideological influences, and his favorite literature. Part seven. Mr. Dickerson recalls how he went from Mississippi to Chicago as a lawyer and his inspiration to cure the defects of society. At 10:15, photos from Dickerson's life with some commentary.