- 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.
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- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Historian William H. Harbaugh describes the irony of John W. Davis defending the separate but equal doctrine in Brown v. the Board of Education and explains why Davis took the case as its appellate lawyer. Harbaugh also comments on Thurgood Marshall's opinion of Davis. At 9:20 interview with engineer and business professor Louis T. Rader begins. Mr. Rader talks about his life and career, as well as his support of public education in the promotion of a successful business climate. During Massive Resistance, he protested closing Virginia public schools using the argument that businesses don't want to operate in a community with poor schooling. Part two. Mr. Rader recalls his support of public schooling in Virginia during Massive Resistance in order to sustain economic development within the commonwealth. At 5:30, interview with George R. Ferguson begins. Mr. Ferguson recounts the lawsuit brought by the Charlottesville NAACP to desegregate schools immediately following the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Court proceedings continued into 1958, when the judge assigned several black children to attend otherwise white schools in Charlottesville. The commonwealth then closed schools in Charlottesville under the policy of Massive Resistance. Mr. Ferguson describes how the Boatwright committee of the Virginia General Assembly harassed Charlottesville NAACP members.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola
- Summary:
- Part one. Judge Matthew Perry recalls his service in the US Army during World War II in Europe. His travels overseas allowed him to participate in a society without segregation. He discusses his upbringing and education, especially the segregation of higher education institutions. He decided to be a lawyer after seeing Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter try a case in Columbia, South Carolina concerning segregation in education. Part two. Judge Perry recounts the story of seeing Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter try a case to desegregate South Carolina University Law School. Perry's own law school alma mater, South Carolina State College Law School, was established in response to the above case. He practiced law in South Carolina until his 1976 appointment to the federal judiciary serving on the United States Court of Military Appeals. During his private practice, he fought to desegregate grand juries. Part three. Judge Perry talks about the state of the New South. He discusses how the law was used to institutionalize racism in America. He notes that it was also the law that was used to defeat the system. He goes over the legal strategy he and his colleagues used to integrate colleges and graduate schools in South Carolina. He talks about Briggs v. Elliott, one of the Brown v. Board of Education cases. Part four. NAACP Legal Defense Fund and NAACP General Counsel provided money and expertise to small, local lawyers all over the South. Judge Perry remarks on Baker v. Carr and various sit-in and protest cases like Edwards v. South Carolina.
- 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 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.
- Date:
- 2006
- Main contributors:
- Elwood, William A, Kulish, Mykola, Freeman, Anne Hobson, 1934-
- Summary:
- Part one. Civil rights attorneys Oliver Hill and S.W. Tucker discuss the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, including the meaning of "with all deliberate speed." They remark upon how long it took to desegregate schools. They comment on the policies of Senator Harry Byrd and President Dwight Eisenhower. Mr. Hill talks about his service in the military during World War II. Mr. Tucker also served, and he relates stories about how Jim Crow worked in the military. Discs two to five. Mr. Tucker and Mr. Hill recount stories of life under Jim Crow, including experiences with seating on trains and other forms of transportation, service at restaurants, taking the bar exam, race riots, and trying to reserve a bridal suite on a honeymoon. They also tell the story of Dr. Charles Drew. Part six. Mr. 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.
- 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.
- 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.
