On Wednesday I was forced to attend the Kentucky Bar Association Annual Convention to complete my "continuing legal education" credits. On the day some knuckle dragging white racist murdered 9 innocent black people in a church, I attended 2 civil rights-related presentations. You have likely seen both on TV.
The first was a presentation from James Kitchens, an older (born in '43) white lawyer/sitting member of the Mississippi Supreme Court, who was appointed to defend Byron de La Beck (who assassinated Medgar Evers) in his 3rd trial in 1994 (after 2 hung juries in '63 and '64).
The second was from Bryan Stevenson, a younger (born in '59) black lawyer/public service lawyer, who is the executive Director of The Equal Justice Initiative, an organization that engages in civil rights activitism including representing death row inmates, and author of "Just Mercy" - a book about an innocent young black man convicted of murder, and the current landscape of the vestiges of slavery, and the numbers of black men in prison, and a hopeful, redemptive "plan" to have the discussions and take the acts needed to "cure" racism.
I expected Kitchens to speak about legal issues in the Beckwith cases, but he spoke more about growing up and coming of age in segregated racist Mississippi, and how the vestiges of racism lingered even in the 90's at the times of the last Beckwith trial. He said he had only spoken publicly about these issues once before because they were too painful, but he had become convinced they needed airing. He rambled. It was clearly painful and difficult for him. He choked up multiple times. He grew up on a farm, surrounded by farms. White kids and black kids worked and played together. But as they aged, they quietly learned that they lived in 2 societies that would not/could not mix. Different schools. Different churches. Different businesses. Different rules. It wasn't discussed or challenged - it just was. Nobody thought about it. The grandparents of his 1950's youth were raised by folks who fought in and were still embittered by losing the Civil War. 1950's/1960's churches still PREACHED the "duty" to keep the negro second class "for their own good," as God intended, and care for them through religious outreach but not much else. They were intended to be subservient. His own preacher had traveled to South Africa and came back extolling the virtues of clear apartheid - good for the souls of all involved. But the racism that sustained this culture was not the soft racism we typically see now - it was a racism where if an old black woman did not stand to the side and look down to let a white child walk down the sidewalk, white adults nearby might immediately and publicly and physically remind her of her second class citizenship. A male black adult doing the same thing might be identified and later visited by the Klan for such a public display of equality. And in the elections in the early 1960's - as the civil rights movement moved more and more into the public debate - every single public official ran for office on the public platform of segregation in all things forever.
Even for me - a guy born in '58 and grew up on the Ohio River in Indiana and Kentucky, where North and South meet - it painted a picture of The New South that was more like a punch in the face than an academic exercise.
When Medgar Evers was shot, Kitchens was in college. In 1966, he returned home to register to vote. At the time, he could not just go to the Courthouse to register. The Clerk - by law, the only person capable of registering voters - was not going to work so he could live up to his campaign pledge to never register a black voter. Kitchens father had to call the guy at home and they had to meet the guy at 6:00 am at the courthouse on a weekend and "sneak" in to register. He voted against the guy the next year.
Kitchens said he threw up 3 times on the way home after being appointed to represent Beckwith. But he felt couldn't say no. Even the worst folks need lawyers and when a judge says "need YOU to represent this guy" you do it. But his worst fears were realized all around. The Klan didn't want him - thought he'd throw the case. Watched him and his family - even to the point where, during a meeting in Tennessee where Beckwith lived in the 90's, Beckwith casually dropped a comment about his daughter's car color, as in "my pals in Mississippi are watching." His lifelong peers would "compliment" him and wish him luck - they WANTED the murderer of Medgar Evers to get off.Even in the 90's, the desire for segregation was palpable, not gone. You could tell it hurt him. Like if a friend had done something you just couldn't accept, and you couldn't stand it, but you had to anyway.
He never said whether Beckwith likely did it, but said he did not get a fair 1994 trial. "The fix was in." The "right to a speedy trial" was ignored. Witnesses were dead. Spread out. Memories failied. Etc. But he said Beckwith would try and imply he was "in on" many things which he wasn't. When asked if he helped assassinate JFK, Beckwith said "well, have you seen him walking around lately?" And he claimed the only true Jews left on the planet were the British Royal Family. A nut job racist braggart with a salesman's persona wrecked with hatred.
I had seen this "grew up in it - didn't know it was wrong/crushed when I saw the light" meme in 2 ESPN 30-for 30 documentaries about Ole Miss teams. It is a powerful personal journey of redemption for people who had to go through it.
Stevenson was much better "prepared" - he had given his speech many times, and needed no notes. His basic point was that as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, 30% of black men in Alabama can't vote due to felony convictions, and we haven't really dealt with the vestiges of slavery yet, and we aren't having the kind of realizations/conversations we need to have to start again to try and fix this mess again. He makes his points with personal stories. To establish "where we are," he talks about a personal experience in Chicago, where a judge told him to wait outside until his lawyer arrived, assuming the black guy in the suit was NOT "the lawyer." To "establish" the impact of "proximity" (getting next to the people and problems), he talks about personal changes in his own experience arising from his "proximity" to murderers, racists, civil rights fighters, etc. To establish his point of "changing the narrative" he spoke about the need for more "recognition" of the problem He used the example of placing more historical markers where there had been slave sales, lynchings, etc., so folks can "see" the problem better. His main point - America has slipped from slavery to lynching and terrorism to Jim Crow to mass incarceration without confronting the legacy/core problem - which he says was white supremacy ("lots of countries had slavery - only the US had white supremacy".) (Not sure I agree with that, but I understand why he takes this position.)
One interesting/humorous point - he says we all act like civil rights was a 3 or 4 day process - "Lincoln freed the slaves, Rosa Parks sat down, King gave the "I have a dream" speech and we changed all the laws."But his serious point is - as the preachers say - more "convicting." Slavery lasted for 250 years, terror and Jim Crow another 200. People - PEOPLE - were humiliated every day of their lives.
His goal - "social justice." The legal system too often honors finality over injustice. (An appellate judge in Kentucky sitting just in front of began to pay close attention here.) "A fair trial" over "actual justice." He seeks to work through positive hope. "Even the worst can get better." His clients are better than their worst moment. So are the racists. He tells the story of a prison guard who mistreated him, then "saw the light" when he was the client's escort to a court hearing and heard "the other side of the story."
His closing was semi-religious - about "the courage to do the uncomfortable but right thing." He told of a "broken" client, realized he too was "broken" and asking “Why do we want to kill all the broken people?”
My takeaways?
On a day when 9 innocent black people were murdered for being black in a church, I saw two guys - one white, one black - working in different ways based on different experiences, trying to make our worst problem right. That's good.
But .... it makes me want to punch folks on this board whop toss around the "racism" claim in a cavalier manner over politics. That's bad on me AND bad on them.
I'm in the same generation as Stevenson. I'm in the same general profession as Stevenson. I'd like to buy him a cup of coffee and talk. I think he can teach me things and I know I'd like to ask him some things.
But 9 people are still dead. Who do I see about that?
The first was a presentation from James Kitchens, an older (born in '43) white lawyer/sitting member of the Mississippi Supreme Court, who was appointed to defend Byron de La Beck (who assassinated Medgar Evers) in his 3rd trial in 1994 (after 2 hung juries in '63 and '64).
The second was from Bryan Stevenson, a younger (born in '59) black lawyer/public service lawyer, who is the executive Director of The Equal Justice Initiative, an organization that engages in civil rights activitism including representing death row inmates, and author of "Just Mercy" - a book about an innocent young black man convicted of murder, and the current landscape of the vestiges of slavery, and the numbers of black men in prison, and a hopeful, redemptive "plan" to have the discussions and take the acts needed to "cure" racism.
I expected Kitchens to speak about legal issues in the Beckwith cases, but he spoke more about growing up and coming of age in segregated racist Mississippi, and how the vestiges of racism lingered even in the 90's at the times of the last Beckwith trial. He said he had only spoken publicly about these issues once before because they were too painful, but he had become convinced they needed airing. He rambled. It was clearly painful and difficult for him. He choked up multiple times. He grew up on a farm, surrounded by farms. White kids and black kids worked and played together. But as they aged, they quietly learned that they lived in 2 societies that would not/could not mix. Different schools. Different churches. Different businesses. Different rules. It wasn't discussed or challenged - it just was. Nobody thought about it. The grandparents of his 1950's youth were raised by folks who fought in and were still embittered by losing the Civil War. 1950's/1960's churches still PREACHED the "duty" to keep the negro second class "for their own good," as God intended, and care for them through religious outreach but not much else. They were intended to be subservient. His own preacher had traveled to South Africa and came back extolling the virtues of clear apartheid - good for the souls of all involved. But the racism that sustained this culture was not the soft racism we typically see now - it was a racism where if an old black woman did not stand to the side and look down to let a white child walk down the sidewalk, white adults nearby might immediately and publicly and physically remind her of her second class citizenship. A male black adult doing the same thing might be identified and later visited by the Klan for such a public display of equality. And in the elections in the early 1960's - as the civil rights movement moved more and more into the public debate - every single public official ran for office on the public platform of segregation in all things forever.
Even for me - a guy born in '58 and grew up on the Ohio River in Indiana and Kentucky, where North and South meet - it painted a picture of The New South that was more like a punch in the face than an academic exercise.
When Medgar Evers was shot, Kitchens was in college. In 1966, he returned home to register to vote. At the time, he could not just go to the Courthouse to register. The Clerk - by law, the only person capable of registering voters - was not going to work so he could live up to his campaign pledge to never register a black voter. Kitchens father had to call the guy at home and they had to meet the guy at 6:00 am at the courthouse on a weekend and "sneak" in to register. He voted against the guy the next year.
Kitchens said he threw up 3 times on the way home after being appointed to represent Beckwith. But he felt couldn't say no. Even the worst folks need lawyers and when a judge says "need YOU to represent this guy" you do it. But his worst fears were realized all around. The Klan didn't want him - thought he'd throw the case. Watched him and his family - even to the point where, during a meeting in Tennessee where Beckwith lived in the 90's, Beckwith casually dropped a comment about his daughter's car color, as in "my pals in Mississippi are watching." His lifelong peers would "compliment" him and wish him luck - they WANTED the murderer of Medgar Evers to get off.Even in the 90's, the desire for segregation was palpable, not gone. You could tell it hurt him. Like if a friend had done something you just couldn't accept, and you couldn't stand it, but you had to anyway.
He never said whether Beckwith likely did it, but said he did not get a fair 1994 trial. "The fix was in." The "right to a speedy trial" was ignored. Witnesses were dead. Spread out. Memories failied. Etc. But he said Beckwith would try and imply he was "in on" many things which he wasn't. When asked if he helped assassinate JFK, Beckwith said "well, have you seen him walking around lately?" And he claimed the only true Jews left on the planet were the British Royal Family. A nut job racist braggart with a salesman's persona wrecked with hatred.
I had seen this "grew up in it - didn't know it was wrong/crushed when I saw the light" meme in 2 ESPN 30-for 30 documentaries about Ole Miss teams. It is a powerful personal journey of redemption for people who had to go through it.
Stevenson was much better "prepared" - he had given his speech many times, and needed no notes. His basic point was that as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, 30% of black men in Alabama can't vote due to felony convictions, and we haven't really dealt with the vestiges of slavery yet, and we aren't having the kind of realizations/conversations we need to have to start again to try and fix this mess again. He makes his points with personal stories. To establish "where we are," he talks about a personal experience in Chicago, where a judge told him to wait outside until his lawyer arrived, assuming the black guy in the suit was NOT "the lawyer." To "establish" the impact of "proximity" (getting next to the people and problems), he talks about personal changes in his own experience arising from his "proximity" to murderers, racists, civil rights fighters, etc. To establish his point of "changing the narrative" he spoke about the need for more "recognition" of the problem He used the example of placing more historical markers where there had been slave sales, lynchings, etc., so folks can "see" the problem better. His main point - America has slipped from slavery to lynching and terrorism to Jim Crow to mass incarceration without confronting the legacy/core problem - which he says was white supremacy ("lots of countries had slavery - only the US had white supremacy".) (Not sure I agree with that, but I understand why he takes this position.)
One interesting/humorous point - he says we all act like civil rights was a 3 or 4 day process - "Lincoln freed the slaves, Rosa Parks sat down, King gave the "I have a dream" speech and we changed all the laws."But his serious point is - as the preachers say - more "convicting." Slavery lasted for 250 years, terror and Jim Crow another 200. People - PEOPLE - were humiliated every day of their lives.
His goal - "social justice." The legal system too often honors finality over injustice. (An appellate judge in Kentucky sitting just in front of began to pay close attention here.) "A fair trial" over "actual justice." He seeks to work through positive hope. "Even the worst can get better." His clients are better than their worst moment. So are the racists. He tells the story of a prison guard who mistreated him, then "saw the light" when he was the client's escort to a court hearing and heard "the other side of the story."
His closing was semi-religious - about "the courage to do the uncomfortable but right thing." He told of a "broken" client, realized he too was "broken" and asking “Why do we want to kill all the broken people?”
My takeaways?
On a day when 9 innocent black people were murdered for being black in a church, I saw two guys - one white, one black - working in different ways based on different experiences, trying to make our worst problem right. That's good.
But .... it makes me want to punch folks on this board whop toss around the "racism" claim in a cavalier manner over politics. That's bad on me AND bad on them.
I'm in the same generation as Stevenson. I'm in the same general profession as Stevenson. I'd like to buy him a cup of coffee and talk. I think he can teach me things and I know I'd like to ask him some things.
But 9 people are still dead. Who do I see about that?
