- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- 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.
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- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Robert Carter recalls his childhood, his education, Howard Law School, and Charles Hamilton Houston. He says that he wasn't seriously confronted by racial discrimination until he went into the Army. Part two. Mr. Carter names three of his most important cases before the US Supreme Court: McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, Brown v. Board of Education, and NAACP v. Alabama. He says that Brown is important because it implied that African Americans were equal to whites in all walks of life, and it gave African Americans a feeling of freedom like they never had before. NAACP v. Alabama is important because it made use of the First Amendment in a civil rights argument. Gomillion v. Lightfoot led to Baker v. Carr. He recalls it was his idea to use psychologists to show that segregated education was detrimental to African Americans, and the Prince Edward County case was the first time a state tried to counter this argument. Part three. Mr. Carter discusses the Prince Edward County case. He says that Virginia and North Carolina were the most vigorous in their legal defense in civil rights cases. Carter used local Virginia lawyers to sustain the cases the NAACP had going (Spotswood Robinson, Oliver Hill, Samuel Tucker). He also talks about the NAACP v. Button case. He gives advice to young people. Part four. More about young people; still pictures of Carter; New York CIty footage.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker recites lyrics to an unknown song and talks about patriotism. At 13:30, Tucker and Elwood go for a walk. Part two. Stills of Tucker family photographs. Interview begins at 7:30 in Tucker's law office in Alexandria, VA. Subjects of discussion include Tucker's mother and father and Parker Grey school alumni. Part three. Tucker talks about his own education, his elementary school teachers, especially teacher Rozier D. Lyles and the naming of the Lyles Crouch elementary school. Mr. Tucker started the program for adult night classes at the Parker Grey elementary school.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Samuel Tucker reviews his education, his experiences as a young lawyer admitted to the bar in 1934, his service in the military as a young man, and his experience as one of the first black Civilian Conservation Corps officers. Mr. Tucker became involved in the civil rights struggle with the Alexandria Library Sit-in, and he gives the basics of this event and the subsequent court cases about it. The solution, to build a separate library for black people, was not satisfactory to Tucker. Part two. Mr. Tucker talks about his childhood education. He reviews the Petersburg Library case, as well as Baker v. Carr, Wright v. Rockefeller, and the Burnett case. He recounts the case he argued in front of the Supreme Court that had the most impact, Green v. New Kent County. He says that the second most important theme in civil rights cases is reapportionment. Another civil rights issue fought in the courts concerns criminal cases like Hampton v. the commonwealth, about the death penalty for rape used only on black men who raped white women. Part three. Mr. Tucker recalls the Martinsville Seven case, concerning death penalty cases where confessions were not voluntary and representation was not adequate. He discusses what local counsel means and the role of the local community lawyer.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker recalls the Negro national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and the song, “We Fought Every Race’s Battle But Our Own.” Poor picture quality begins 4:00. Tucker talks about attending a meeting of civil rights attorneys from across the country in Atlanta, Georgia right after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Tucker recounts becoming a lawyer and why he chose that profession. He never went to law school but passed the bar at age 20. Part two. Tucker discusses his first cases, particularly a murder case. He then goes into detail about his pivotal involvement in the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In and its outcome. Part three. Mr. Tucker's brother, Otto, joins the interview. They talk about the library sit-in and the consequent court cases. Part four. Samuel Tucker recalls Charles Houston counseling him about the library sit-in case. Mr. Tucker also imparts advice to young law students. Part five. Tucker argues that the Brown v. Board of Education decision didn't mandate immediate desegregation, so it took years of court cases make it happen slowly. He also discusses civil rights in 1985. At 7:00 there is footage of brothers Samuel and Otto Wilbert visiting the Alexandria Library. At 9:50, interview with William Evans begins. There is no sound until 11:54. Evans discusses his participation in the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Dr. Walter Ridley discusses his experience at Howard University, Virginia State University, and the University of Virginia. When he was admitted to the University of Virginia in 1950, Colgate Darden stated that Dr. Ridley would have access to all university facilities. Dr. Ridley said that he did not feel out of place at the university and if people did not want him there, he was not aware of it. He also mentions Mordecai Johnson at Howard University, Carter Woodson, Charlie Thompson and George Ferguson. Part two. Dr. Ridley discusses his part in the integration of the African American Teachers Association with the white National Education Association. He recalls how the janitors and custodians at U.Va. told him they would protect him while he was a student there. Ridley was the first African American person to get a doctorate from a southern university. He recounts stories from his career in education. Part three. Dr. Ridley discusses his family and educational history. He comments on his time spent at the University of Virginia, the non-violent approach to obtaining civil rights, and the achievement of excellence.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker argues that the Brown v. Board of Education decision didn't mandate immediate desegregation, so it took years of court cases make it happen slowly. He also discusses civil rights in 1985. At 7:00 there is footage of brothers Samuel and Otto Wilbert visiting the Alexandria Library. At 9:50, interview with William Evans begins. There is no sound until 11:54. Evans discusses his participation in the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In. Part two. Civil rights activist William Evans recounts the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In, details of the circumstances, the hearings, and the other men involved.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A
- Summary:
- Part one. Law professor Jack Greenberg's class discusses executive governmental determination of states of emergencies, such as in South Africa during Apartheid and in the United States during Japanese-American internment in World War II. In 1987 states of emergency are called regularly in South Africa to detain people without reason in the name of public safety, to maintain the status quo, and to suppress the majority. Part two. What happens to democracy when the government alone has the power to declare a state of emergency? The class discusses the use of states of emergency as a way to suppress people and deny rights, preventative detention as an abuse of human rights, and using the courts in South Africa to fight the injustices of the states of emergency. Part three. How much does a democratically elected government insure adherence to human rights? The class also talks about the rights of the white minority in a future democratic South Africa. Part four. Examples of transitions to democracy.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Higginbotham, A. Leon (Aloyisus Leon), 1928-1998
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney and professor Jack Greenberg talks about his involvement with the NAACP civil rights defense fund. He recalls his work on a Japanese citizen relocation rights case. He discusses important cases in civil rights law and his involvement in two of the five cases that constituted Brown v. Board of Education, the Delaware case and the Kansas case. Part two. Mr. Greenberg remarks he does not believe Southern society would be integrated if it had been left up to the states; it would be like South Africa and Apartheid. He mentions major cases litigated in Virginia, including the Davis case, the Prince Edward County case, and the NAACP v. Button case, wherein the Virginia General Assembly tried to put the NAACP out of business by making it illegal for it to function. Civil rights cases were filed purposefully in federal court because federal judges were insulated from state politics somewhat; there wasn't the problem of being reelected. Mr. Greenberg contends that the federal courts made civil rights possible. Part three. Mr. Greenberg recalls that Virginia's attempt to destroy the NAACP was really about a small group of Virginia lawyers, like Spotswood Robinson, Oliver Hill, Samuel Tucker. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York relied on law school academics, legal scholars, and social scientists. Interview ends at 3:30. Footage resumes with Judge A. Leon Higginbotham being interviewed while walking around Columbia University. Mr. Higginbotham talks about Greenberg and Columbia Law School's impact on civil rights struggle
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Higginbotham, A. Leon (Aloyisus Leon), 1928-1998
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Louis Redding recalls his family, childhood, and going to Brown University. Part two. Mr. Redding tells his family’s history at Brown. After Harvard Law School, he returned to still segregated Delaware to practice law. Immediately, he tried to abolish separation based on race in courtrooms. He discussed the Parker case, its background, African American admission to University of Delaware, and Judge Collins Seitz. Part three. Redding says that he would not have filed the Parker case if he didn't know that Judge Collins Seitz would get the case. In Gebhart v. Belton, the public school case, Redding used testimony from psychology and sociology experts about how separate but equal was inherently detrimental to African American children. He also comments on Jack Greenberg, Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, and the day the Brown v. Board of Education decision was announced. Part four. The day the Brown decision became public, Redding heard the news on the radio while driving and crashed into the car in front of him. Mr. Redding discusses the Burton case, Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, William Hastie, William Robert Ming. He also tells how John W. Davis, the lawyer defending separate but equal, wept during arguments in front of the Supreme Court in the Brown case. Part five. Charles Hamilton Houston. Advice to young lawyers. At 9:00 until end, still photos.
- 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.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Alice Jackson Stuart recounts her experiences as the first African American student to apply to the University of Virginia. When Donald Gaines Murray applied to University of Maryland School of Law, Ms. Stuart (who already had a bachelor's degree from Virginia Union University in 1933) spoke with family friend and Murray's lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston about helping to advance integration of higher education by provoking a legal case via her application to the University of Virginia graduate school of education. Part two. Ms. Stuart recalls different events that occurred during litigation of her case during 1935 and 1936. She explains that when the Virginia General Assembly passed a bill awarding scholarships and living expenses to minority students to attend out-of-state schools, she applied to and then attended Columbia University for her master's degree. She talks about other important Virginians who benefited from the bill, including Spotswood Robinson. She also discusses her teaching career. Part three. Ms. Stuart talks about witnessing a lynch mob, which ended in the killing of African American taxi driver Lee Snell, at Bethune-Cookman University where she taught. She also discusses teaching at Howard University, the Richmond public school system, Rutgers University, and Middlesex County College in New Jersey, among other career accomplishments.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. J. Clay Smith talks about Charles Hamilton Houston as the architect of the modern civil rights movement. From 3:50 to 10:40, footage of Houston and William Hastie portraits. From 10:40 to end, Alvin J. Bronstein interviewed in his office. As a young lawyer Mr. Bronstein traveled south in 1964 for Freedom Summer. He was sent to St. Augustine, Florida to work on a law suit that would force hotels to serve African Americans. He then went to Mississippi and stayed for five years as a trial lawyer in Macomb where there had been 37 church bombings. He set up offices around the South as part of the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee funded by the ACLU. In 1968, civil rights cases in Mississippi had changed from defense of African Americans to cases advocating for rights. Part two. After Mississippi Mr. Bronstein went to Harvard for three years, then down to New Orleans, where he set up a training program for young African American lawyers. In 1972, he started the ACLU National Prison Project after the Attica prison riot. Mr. Bronstein describes what happened at Attica State Prison in New York. He explains the connection between civil rights and prisoner rights movements. He discusses what prisoner rights are or should be, the state of prisoner rights law in the mid-1980s, the death penalty, and incarceration rates. He says that poor people and people of color make up the prison population, and incarceration is not cost-effective. Part three. Mr. Bronstein recalls Judge Harold Cox in Mississippi referring to African Americans as chimpanzees while in court; the same judge presided over the trial of law enforcement officers for killing Chaney, Schwerner, Goodman in Mississippi in 1967, and he expressed outrage at the defendants and said the guilty verdict rendered was the proudest moment of his career. Lolis Elie, Nils Douglas, and Robert Collins were lawyers who practiced together but couldn't take the same taxi or eat in the same restaurant; now, these lawyers are highly placed judges in Mississippi. Mr. Bronstein says that Scandinavian countries have the best example of an incarceration system and that allowing prisoners to maintain contact with families is an important part of rehabilitation. Mr. Bronstein discusses a famous case called Battle v. Anderson.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Attorney Oliver Hill reviews Virginia's policy of Massive Resistance, the General Assembly's Boatwright committee and Thompson committee, Virginia courts and judges, and the people placement board. At 11:20, Anne Hobson Freeman talks about her new book on the law firm of Hunton and Williams in Richmond. The firm represented the school board of Prince Edward County in 1951 when students there sued the district for integration. Part two. Freeman relates the history of the Hunton and Williams Law firm in Richmond, Virginia, especially pertaining to the 1951 Prince Edward County integration case and Richmond integration cases. She states that the firm employed lawyers whose opinions fell on both sides of the integration issue. She also discusses several of the firm's lawyers individually.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Professor Beulah Johnson reviews being a teacher in Tuskegee, Alabama, living in a segregated society, what the "black" part of town was like, voter registration, her involvement with the NAACP, what the New South is, the Reagan Administration, and teaching history properly. Part two. Mrs. Johnson details the Tuskegee Civic Association, gerrymandering, the importance of economic power, William P. Mitchell, and community involvement meetings. She also recalls the African American boycott of businesses in Tuskegee when whites refused to vouch for potential African American voters. Part three. Shots of Beulah Johnson's Tuskegee house and neighborhood. At 3:40 change to William Elwood interviewing Mayor Johnny Ford outside Tuskegee municipal building about the impact of the Voting Rights Act, Gomillion v. Lightfoot case, Fred Gray, and being mayor for 15 years. At 12:05 change to Elwood interviewing civil rights attorney Solomon S. Seay, Jr., in Montgomery about Seay's background and education, his military service experience, and watching the top Brown v. Board of Education lawyers practice the case at Howard Law School.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Charles Morgan remembers Freedom Summer of 1964 and recalls hearing when Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were missing. Mr. Morgan says that the system of justice in the South did not work against African American individuals, it worked against all African Americans as a group. He explains how all parts of justice system work together and how public interest lawyers succeeded in changing the law on jury cases in the South. Part two. Mr. Morgan believes that you must integrate colors, creeds, cultures etc., or change and understanding will never happen. Mr. Morgan points out that there were no African American prisons in the South before the Civil War because all African Americans were imprisoned [by slavery]. The civil rights movement was a revolution in the sense that it changed the entire structure of law and altered much of American life. Voter registration wasn't the law until around 1900, and America still hasn't recovered from the fact that fewer people vote because of it. Part three. Mr. Morgan reviews the history of the impact of slavery, segregation, and population centers. Southern legislatures around 1900 were not based on population, and cities were underrepresented. Mr. Morgan talks about Baker v. Carr, Reynolds v. Sims, Gray v. Sanders. Sims was about reapportioning the Alabama state legislature, and Sanders was about reapportioning the congressional districts, where the phrase "one person, one vote" was first used. Television helped to confront all Americans with the problems of the South. Part four. Morgan quotes Congressman John Lewis, "Whatever happened to the civil rights movement? It got elected." Lewis suffered 40 arrests and multiple skull fractures. At 2:48, footage of Washington, DC.
- 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, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Footage of Montgomery, Alabama. At 8:00, Judge Dolores R. Boyd interview begins at her home in Montgomery. Part two. Judge Boyd offers opinions on the so-called New South, desegregation versus integration, the still-unrealized aspects of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, and accessing the civil rights movement via churches. Part three. Judge Boyd discusses her childhood role models, her school experiences, and the need for appreciation of African American culture. Part four. Ms. Boyd believes African Americans are struggling to keep what they have earned over past few decades. She says there is racism, especially because of economic disparity, and the law is critical to determining society's values. At 9:28, footage of Boyd at her office.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorney Donald Watkins talks about Montgomery’s challenges, like the Confederate Flag flying on the Alabama Capitol. He also covers George Wallace, the continuing fight for civil rights, the teacher accreditation exam case, and achieving parity in society via the law. He remembers an African American custodian at the University of Alabama law school, Remus Rhodes, who taught the first African American students there how to use the library and how to form study groups. Part two. Watkins continues discussing Remus Rhodes, the custodian who became mentor to the first African American students at University of Alabama law school, as well as civil rights law history. At 11:30 minutes, footage of rural road and neighborhood.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Drewary Brown talks about social and economic life in Charlottesville during the civil rights era and in 1987. Mr. Brown walks down the Mall in Charlottesville. At 12:37, interview with Florence Bryant in front of Jefferson School in Charlottesville. Ms. Bryant discusses the work of the NAACP on behalf of teachers. She mentions J. Rupert Picott, Aline Black, and Melvin Austin as instrumental in helping African American teachers get equal pay in Virginia in 1940. See also reports her involvement in desegregating schools in Charlottesville. She regards Charlottesville as a leader in desegregation.