Interview with Jack Greenberg

2006 (Creation date: 1985-07-10)

Elwood, William A; Higginbotham, A. Leon (Aloyisus Leon), 1928-1998

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

Greenberg, Jack, 1924- (Interviewee); Elwood, William A; Higginbotham, A. Leon (Aloyisus Leon), 1928-1998

African Americans -- Civil rights -- History; African Americans -- Education -- History; Discrimination in education -- Law and legislation -- United States; School integration -- United States -- History; Segregation in education -- United States -- History

William A. Elwood Civil Rights Lawyers Project

Robertson Media Center

English

Road to Brown : the untold story of "the man who killed Jim Crow."; William A. Elwood Civil Rights Lawyers Project

Source footage for the documentary, The road to Brown : the untold story of “the man who killed Jim Crow” (California Newsreel, 1990), about the life of Charles Hamilton Houston, his crusade for civil rights, and the events that led to Brown v. the Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared the doctrine of separate but equal to be illegal.
Title supplied by cataloger.
Recorded at New York, New York.
Creation/Production Credits
Digitized by: Cincinnati, Ohio : The PPS Group, 2006.