Answering the Call: An Autobiography of the Modern Struggle to End Racial Discrimination in America
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Answering the Call: An Autobiography of the Modern Struggle to End Racial Discrimination in America
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Overview
Answering the Call is an extraordinary eyewitness account from an unsung hero of the battle for racial equality in America—a battle that, far from ending with the great victories of the civil rights era, saw some of its signal achievements in the desegregation fights of the 1970s and its most notable setbacks in the affirmative action debates that continue into the present in Ferguson, Baltimore, and beyond.
Judge Nathaniel R. Jones’s groundbreaking career was forged in the 1960s: As the first African American assistant US attorney in Ohio; as assistant general counsel of the Kerner Commission; and, beginning in 1969, as general counsel of the NAACP. In that latter role, Jones coordinated attacks against Northern school segregation—a vital, divisive, and poorly understood chapter in the movement for equality—twice arguing in the pivotal US Supreme Court case Bradley v. Milliken, which addressed school desegregation in Detroit. He also led the national response to the attacks against affirmative action, spearheading and arguing many of the signal legal cases of that effort.
Answering the Call is “a stunning, inside story of the contemporary struggle for civil rights . . . Essential reading for understanding where we are today—underscoring just how much work is left to be done” (Vernon E. Jordan Jr., civil rights activist).
“A forthright testimony by a witness to history.” —Kirkus Reviews
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781620970713 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New Press, The |
| Publication date: | 07/19/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 322 |
| Sales rank: | 280,838 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Call
Early one morning in 1985 I stood in a cemetery in Craddock, a township near Port Elizabeth, South Africa, paying my respects to four black antiapartheid activists murdered by that country's security police. We held hands in a circle while the widows and their neighbors sang mournful South African songs as they grieved the loss of their loved ones. None of them had ever seen a black judge. The singing and sobs that pierced the morning silence were suddenly broken by a widow, who with a choking voice spoke up. She fixed her tearful eyes on me and asked if there was something I could do to bring about change, adding, "It is so very hard here."
I walked over to her very slowly, stalling for time to compose myself and come up with an appropriate response. As I took both of her hands, I said that as an American judge, I lacked legal jurisdiction in South Africa, but perhaps she could gain inspiration from what America had done about injustice. I told her of slavery and of murders, kidnappings, disappearances, and the denial of basic human rights, just like what they were experiencing. I emphasized that change came, if at times very slowly, and that change was certain to come to South Africa. I mentioned Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and the three constitutional amendments that led to the changed legal status from slaves to citizens. And even this transformation did not ensure equal rights, and thus black and white people in America came together to fight Jim Crow laws, just as they were doing in South Africa against apartheid. Before my appointment to the federal court, I had worked for many years as chief legal counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), so I was aware of the twentieth-century crusade in the courts to get laws changed and to obtain the right to vote. I assured the widows that black South Africans would win their rights too. That was the message of hope I left with those grieving women at the grave site of their martyred husbands, and it is the message I continue to deliver everywhere. But despite my hope, and this hope is based upon nearly nine decades of living, I am not oblivious to the ups and downs of American history — the struggles, triumphs, setbacks, and travails. My hope is not without frustration. I have attempted to address issues of racial inequality and injustice throughout my life.
In 1909, the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the NAACP was founded. The organizers were a noted set of white and black individuals. A select few of the white founders included social reformers William English Walling (New York), Jane Addams (Chicago), Henry Moskowitz (New York), and Mary White Ovington (New York); philanthropist J.G. Phelps Stokes (New York); journalist Lincoln Steffens (Boston); educators John Dewey (New York) and William I. Thomas (Chicago); and newspaper editor Oswald Garrison Villard (New York). Among the most noted black founders were anti-lynching crusader Ida Wells-Barnett (Chicago); scholar W.E.B. Du Bois (Atlanta); and religious leaders Reverend Francis J. Grimké (Washington, D.C.) and Bishop Alexander Walters (New York). On February 12, 1909, these men and women of different races and faith traditions signed and published The Call, imploring Americans to discuss and protest the racial problem and to renew the struggle for civil and political rights. Conscious of the irony that the centennial of the Great Emancipator, President Abraham Lincoln, coincided with a time of black voter disfranchisement, newly emergent segregation laws, and racial violence including lynching, they wrote that if Lincoln could come back to life and see America, he would find that "the Supreme Court of the United States, supposedly the bulwark of American liberties, has refused every opportunity to pass squarely upon this disfranchisement of millions by laws avowedly discriminatory and openly enforced in such a manner that the white man may vote and black men may be without a vote in their government."
The founders of the NAACP depicted the poignant image of a disheartened Lincoln who returned to "see the black men and women, for whose freedom a hundred thousand of soldiers gave their lives, set apart on trains, in which they pay first-class fares for third-class service, and segregated in railway stations and in places of entertainment; he would observe that State after State declines to do its elementary duty in preparing the Negro through education for the best exercise of citizenship." The conditions described in The Call concluded with this profound truth: "Silence under these conditions means tacit approval. The indifference of the North is already responsible for more than one assault upon democracy, and every such attack reacts as unfavorably upon whites as upon blacks."
I was born in 1926, a mere seventeen years after The Call in 1909 and the founding of the NAACP. The short span of time between The Call and my birth is a grim reminder of the racial climate in the nation and what my parents faced in their early years and at the time I was born. As a teenager, I was fortunate to have a mentor, Youngstown's NAACP leader J. Maynard Dickerson. One of the many gifts I received from him was knowledge of the NAACP. It was Dickerson who introduced me to the organization's founding documents and motivated me to become a civil rights activist. When I first read The Call, the force of its message had an unforgettable impact upon me. I felt summoned to respond and have been striving to do so during the course of my life. Particularly gripping to me were its concluding words: "Hence, we call upon all the believers in democracy to join in a ... discussion of present evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewal of the struggle for civil and political liberty." I was indeed fortunate to witness legal and legislative efforts that led to the overthrow of legal Jim Crow. Not only was I able to be a witness to much of the change, but I was also fortunate enough to stand on the shoulders of legal giants Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, William H. Hastie, Robert Carter, and many others, in answering The Call of 1909.
Thus, for me, answering calls for racial justice has not been confined to a specific time in the past or the history of a particular organization, but has been defined by the imperatives that guided my life. As I enter the twilight of my life, I offer this chronicle of the steps I have taken in an effort to advance the baton of justice handed to me by forebears who were much more surefooted and fearless than me in answering the Call. With the distance yet to travel to bring justice to all Americans, I implore others to accept the baton and continue the race. Comparing the world of 1909 with the current state of the nation is a measure of the success of those who committed themselves to answering the Call. Yet it is no time for celebration because storm clouds are gathering that threaten to dampen the methods by which significant changes took place. One need only look at what is happening to the gains brought about by Brown v. Board of Education and the Voting Rights Act to understand that strong and unrelenting efforts have been unleashed to place the nation once again under what NAACP leader Roy Wilkins once described as the "smothering blanket" of states' rights.
During the decades following The Call, the failure to address the denial of equal education and employment opportunities to black Americans, the corruption within the criminal justice system and a jurisprudence distorted by the virus of racism since slavery have created the lingering social alienation we see around us today.
Persons and groups who feel alienated make up the ranks of those who often defy authority. In the violent reaction that erupts in cities, social dynamite — the existence of which the nation has been warned about — ignites.
Disparities between the haves and have-nots, consistent attacks on the programs designed to close the gaps between the advantaged and the disadvantaged, repeated stereotyping of minorities and the poor — all serve to deepen the frustration and anger that permeates many communities.
In reciting these realities I do not mean to disparage the sincere efforts made by many to remove the dry rot that various forms of bigotry have strewn across our country. It is only to urge that a greater effort be put forth to understand what triggers the violent reactions that occur in such places as Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, when an unarmed Michael Brown was killed by a police officer; or when Eric Garner was strangled to death by New York police during an encounter over selling cigarettes; or the chilling shooting in the back of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina; or the killing of Eric Courtney Harris by a reserve deputy sheriff in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Add to those tragedies the killing of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in a park in Cleveland, Ohio, within seconds of the police alighting from their patrol car. To many it seemed as though an epidemic of police killings of black men were taking place with no effective official response. That belief was given credence when grand juries refused to indict police officers, and a judge in Cleveland acquitted an officer of a manslaughter charge that resulted from a chase of two unarmed motorists whose car was riddled with 137 gunshots. However it was the arrest and death of twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray while in Baltimore police custody that led to the worst civil disorders since the 1960s.
An important lesson learned — though it has taken a long, long time — is that preventative steps are required to reduce the likelihood of violent eruptions; failing that, learning how to positively respond when they do is essential. A model response was crafted in Cincinnati following civil disturbances in 2001, when Susan Dlott, a federal judge, took the lead in consolidating the claims of civil rights violations into a single case and then guided their resolution through a court-approved consent decree. That put the force of federal judicial power behind significant civil rights reforms with respect to police behavior toward citizens.
In the wake of the Baltimore disturbances, the new attorney general, Loretta Lynch, visited several cities to discuss the Cincinnati model. Cleveland and Baltimore invited the Department of Justice to investigate and review police practices. The Cleveland report called for comprehensive reforms backed up by a consent decree. The mayor welcomed the report and agreed to the consent decree, which will be overseen by the veteran chief judge of the federal court, Solomon Oliver, an African American.
That these corrective responses are built upon the foundations laid by the Kerner Commission of 1967, for which I served as assistant general counsel, gives me hope that there are answers to The Call of 1909 in 2015.
My travel to South Africa during the apartheid period was an extension of my lifelong efforts in America to respond to the Call to advance the struggle for "civil and political liberty." Racial and political events during recent years, even with the election of an African American as president of the United States, impel me to record my efforts over nearly seven decades of my life to answer The Call of 1909. And to urge, in the commanding words of James Weldon Johnson's historic "Lift Every Voice and Sing," that "we march on 'til victory is won."
CHAPTER 2My Early Life
My parents, Nathaniel Bacon Jones and Lillian Isabelle Brown Jones, moved to Youngstown, Ohio, from the farming communities of Bedford County, Virginia, where they were born and grew up. Bedford County is located along the James River and at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The relations between blacks and whites in those communities were non-contentious, largely because the rules governing behavior were clearly understood. The families, black and white, tacitly, and at times humorously, acknowledged their kinship owing to the racial intermixture that resulted from the exploitation by the slave owners whose names we were given. Throughout the Bedford County region one today finds the names Sledd and Brown and Jones.
As is true of nearly all African Americans, slavery was a part of my past. My maternal great-grandfather, Edward Sledd, was born into slavery in Virginia in 1819. He married Ann Rice, who too was born into slavery in 1830. Each was born of a slave parent and an owner. Together they parented seven children, including my maternal grandmother, Ellen Sledd Brown, who was born in 1873. She was the only grandparent I recall ever meeting. Her siblings were: John, born in 1865; William, born in 1867; Marshall, born in 1869; Ephraim, born in 1875; and James, whose birth year was1878. My great-grandmother Ann Rice Sledd gave birth to her last child at the age of forty-eight.
The 1880 census classified my great-grandparents as mulatto and the 1910 census had a similar classification for my maternal grandmother, Ellen Sledd Brown, whom we affectionately called Gransy. It did not take a reference to the census classification for me and other kin to recognize the intermixture of racial bloodlines. My kin came in all complexions and hues. Gransy had beautiful light-brown skin and a most endearing smile, warm embraces, and a soft and caring voice. I was fourteen years old when Gransy died. I still have vivid memories of her visits to our Rockview Avenue home in Youngstown, after the long ride from Virginia on the Greyhound Bus or on the B&O Railroad.
We had no automobiles with which to meet her at the Greyhound station, so my mother took the streetcar downtown to await her arrival. When they returned to our streetcar stop, we would be gathered at the corner to help carry the suitcases up the hill to our home. Inevitably, in addition to the suitcases would be boxes tied with twine containing hams, bacon, and other items from their farm in Big Island, Virginia. The meats were from hogs my grandfather Joe Brown raised and salted down. The only trip I took to Virginia during my grandfather Joe's lifetime was when I was about a year old. My mother told me he regarded me as underweight and pleaded with her to allow me to stay in order for him to "fatten me up." My grandfather also assured her that he could straighten out my "bow legs." She declined his request. I often wonder what life would have been like for me had I remained in rural Virginia.
My paternal grandparents, Joseph H. Jones and Malinda Jones, were born in Bedford County, Virginia — he in 1852 and she in 1859 — and married a few days after Christmas in 1875. They too were former slaves. After their marriage, they produced nineteen offspring, eight of whom were listed in the 1900 U.S. Census: James, born in 1879; Frank A., 1886; Lettie, 1890; Josephine, 1892; Elva, 1894; twins — Etna and Edna — 1894; and my father, born in 1899. I set forth this family background in partial rebuttal to a statement a white high school teacher of mine in Youngstown made to a group of black students. His view was that families who came north were unstable — lacked roots, stability, and character. Little did he realize the extent of the insult he was directing at us or of the strength of the bonds that tied those who uprooted and relocated in the North with relatives who remained in the South. I have resented that teacher's remarks all of these years. It was not easy for my parents to pull up stakes, leave their loved ones, and move, with an infant daughter — my older sister, Eleanor — to the city of Youngstown, where they would be strangers. Shortly thereafter my mother returned to Virginia to give birth to my brother, Wellington. In the midst of their efforts to adjust in this new environment I was born in Youngstown on May 13, 1926, and two years later, my younger sister, Allie Jean, arrived, increasing our family to six.
My parents migrated north so that their children could have better educational opportunities and my father could seek out better-paying jobs. The schools in Big Island and Bedford County, Virginia, were segregated and in every respect inferior to those white children attended. My mother — who went to the fourth grade in the segregated school of Big Island, and then only a part of the year because of the requirement that they work the farm — often told me of her struggles to get to her one-room school after farm chores and returning to more chores at the end of the day. I have had the opportunity to see the school my mother attended, on a site next to the family church, Rose of Sharon, on Big Island. I was struck by the one-room schoolhouse and the realization that a large number of children were crowded into that small building for instruction at all grade levels. My parents did not expect to find a utopia in Youngstown, but the prospect of jobs made the other risks worthwhile. My parents did not, however, anticipate the pervasiveness of Northern segregation and discrimination that they found. Still, they urged other Virginia relatives to follow us to Youngstown, and several did.
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Table of Contents
Foreword by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham,
Preface: Why This Book?,
1. The Call,
2. My Early Life,
3. Becoming a Civil Rights Activist,
4. Family, Marriages, and Faith,
5. Political Solutions to Racial Tensions,
6. Cutting My Teeth as NAACP General Counsel,
7. Desegregation and the Road to the North: Shifting Legal Strategies — from Plessy to Sweatt to Brown,
8. Beyond De Facto/De Jure: The Northern School Desegregation Cases,
9. The Road to the Court,
10. Continuing the Struggle, on the Bench,
11. Beyond the United States,
12. Beyond the Bench,
13. Life After the Bench,
14. Justice Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Double Cross,
15. Obama: Election Reflections,
Acknowledgments,
Appendix,
Notes,
Index,