abusive purposes will be removed from the State courts where they are pending. The sooner the bar and the officials of the South recognize that this is one country and that the Constitution of the United States is law everywhere in the United States, the sooner they will find themselves partners in the enterprise of American government. On all these matters, progress can be made in the long run only in the South and through southerners. That is as it should be, but there should be progress-great and heartening progress which will really make the Negro an equal in all the aspects of the administration of justice-the little homely, personal aspects which are so important, and in the impartial actions of all officials concerned-police, sheriffs, magistrates, as well as judges and jurors. This must not only be the fact, but the Negro must know it to be the fact and have confidence in it. Perhaps this is the millenium. But America, the land of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the land of liberty and the home of the free, cannot be content with less. Southern citizens, white and Negro, cannot wisely or in good conscience rest until these things are accomplished. In all of this, lawyers have a special responsibility. They are persons trained in the law, with presumably a special interest in justice. They are officers of the courts. Through their training and background, they are often elected to our legislatures, hold executive and administrative offices, as well as sit on the benches in our courts. Yet, too many of the members of the bar-it is not too much to say most of the members of the bar in the South— have been complacent about these things. Some have been concerned, but have felt that they could not speak up, a sad commentary on the situation which so distorts the administration of justice where racial factors are involved. In the hearings before the Commission, in which a number of lawyers of good will participated, it developed that there are only four Negro lawyers in Mississippi. Until just a few years ago, there was no place in Mississippi where a Negro could study law, and it is well known that the admission of Negroes to the University of Mississippi was accomplished only with the aid of military force. There are still no Negro graduates of the University of Mississippi Law School. There are no white lawyers in Mississippi who will ordinarily handle a civil rights case. Much the same is true in other states in the South. For this situation, the dominant groups in these States are responsible. The lawyers, there and elsewhere, bear a special responsibility. In his address as President of the American Bar Association in August 1965, an able and public-spirited lawyer, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., spoke of the importance of safeguarding fair trial and of the "diminishing minority which still uses violence and intimidation to frustrate the legal rights of Negro citizens." He went on to urge that "the courts and legislative halls, rather than the streets, must be the places where differences are reconciled and individual rights ultimately protected." Appealing as this is, does it really get to the bottom of the problem? Are there any basic legal questions in this area which have not already been settled in the legislative halls or in the courts? The difficulties arise not because of doubts about the law-about schools, about voting, about public accommodations, about facilities in transportation, about juries, about employment-but because of persistent failure to accept and follow and apply and be governed by the clearly applicable law, and to administer the law fairly and without discrimination. The Negro, and his supporters, march in the streets not because the law is not clear, but because it has not been followed. He knows from long experience that a resort to the courts will far too often result, initially, in delay, frustration, injustice, and denial of clearly defined rights. It is small comfort to him that three years later he will get justice from the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice-true and real justice—should be dispensed by voting registrars, sheriffs, the police, school boards, district attorneys, justices of the peace, and the others close at hand who represent the authority of the State, and who use their au thority far too often to perpetuate a system of social control, which may represent what has been regarded as the southern way of life, but which is wholly inconsistent with rights established by valid Federal power as a part of "the supreme Law of the Land." Thus the key to the greatest domestic problem of this country may well be found in the administration of justice by southern peace officers and in southern courts. The problem is by no means exclusively a southern problem, but it is more deep-seated and more pervading there. Not until justice can truly be found close at home, from officers of the law and local magistrates, can it be rationally expected that Negroes in the South, and their supporters, will present their cause in the courts rather than in the streets. The sad fact is that the streets have long been the only place where they could ordinarily get any sort of an effective hearing. Of course these matters should be gotten off the streets; but this can only be done when the administration of justice is not so deeply polluted at the source. The lesson which these hearings drive home to me is the crucial importance of doing what we can to change the atmosphere in southern courts and the approach of southern law enforcement officers. As Daniel Webster said, in his funeral oration on Mr. Justice Story: "Justice, Sir, is the great interest of man on earth." And as Thomas Erskine said at the trial of Thomas Paine, "The choicest fruit that grows upon the tree of English liberty" is "security under the law; or, in other words, an impartial administration of justice." When the ordinary southern Negro has confidence in his local peace officers and in his local courts, when the people of the whole country can have confidence in southern justice at the grass roots, then the Negro, and others interested in equal rights for all citizens, will surely present their grievances to the courts and stay off the streets. This is the great challenge to the lawyers of this country, and particularly to the lawyers of the South. "The place of justice is a hallowed place," as Francis Bacon said long ago. There is no justice without true equality, not only in court but in all law enforcement procedures. Too long have we too casually accepted a system in this area which too often, sometimes even unconsciously and unintentionally, has in fact been grossly discriminatory. When southerners, and particularly southern lawyers, can accept and face this deplorable fact, and begin to work, openly and assiduously, to correct it, we can have real hope that this situation will change to the great benefit of the South and of the Nation. U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1965 O-788-917 |