Equal Justice under Law: An Autobiography FROM THE PUBLISHER
Constance Baker joined Thurgood Marshall's legal team at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in 1945 while still a student at Columbia Law School, at a time when women lawyers were uncommon. She was chief counsel for James Meredith in his legal battle to be the first black to attend the University of Mississippi; she argued ten cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and represented other leading civil rights figures, including Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1966, she was the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, over a firestorm of opposition. Equal Justice Under Law, the most detailed account to date of the legal conflicts of the civil rights movement, is also an account of Constance Baker Motley's struggle, as a black woman, to succeed; it is a moving recollection of a life lived with great courage and responsibility.
SYNOPSIS
This wise and affecting memoir is the inside story of the great efforts leading up to the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the fight to implement it-and its implications for affirmative action and black poverty today.
A black woman who moved in the corridors of power in the middle of this century, Constance Baker Motley has been a pioneer in both black civil rights and women's rights. As the key attorney assisting Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, she argued a dozen cases before the Supreme Court (winning all but one), and her representation of James Meredith in his bid to enroll in the University of Mississippi made her famous. Subsequently, as Manhattan borough president and a U.S. district court judge, she has fulfilled the highest aspirations of our legal and political system.
This book, the most detailed account to date of the legal conflicts of the civil rights movement, is also an account of Motley's struggle, as a black woman, to succeed, a record of a life lived with great courage and responsibility.
40 Black-and-White Photographs
Appendix/Notes/Index
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Motley has a remarkable rsumchief judge of the New York Southern Federal District Court, and the first black female Manhattan Borough president and New York State senator. More remarkable was her 20-year service as civil rights lawyer alongside the legendary Thurgood Marshall as a member of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. Key cases helped desegregate public schools and state universities, including the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954. One of 12 children from a relatively poor New Haven family, Motley studied at Nashville's all-black Fisk University then at Columbia Law School. Her account of the early legal work that helped lay the foundations of the civil rights movement makes interesting reading despite excessive detail at times. In contrast, she writes frankly about Marshall's temper, her disdain for certain judges appointed by President Kennedy, tensions with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy after opposing his political wishes in New York politics and slights by the white legal establishment in New York City. Even more important are Motley's reflections on what's happening today to the principles around which she dedicated her career. She is critical of the current Supreme Court's stance on affirmative action and does not hide her contempt for Justice Clarence Thomas. She argues eloquently for government vigilance in monitoring the unfinished struggle against racial discrimination. Photos. Movie rights to Marcia Paul, Kay, Collyer and Boose. (July)
Library Journal
A 1994 New Yorker profile turned the spotlight on Motley, whose remarkable career had proceeded with little notice from the public at large. Appointed a federal judge in 1966, the first black woman to achieve that position, Motley had been a member of the winning legal team for Brown v. Board of Education and dozens of other key Civil Rights cases in the 1950s and early 1960s. A New Haven childhood, an education at Fisk University and Columbia Law School, and a spell of state and city politics in New York are the other components of her autobiography. As chief counsel for James Meredith in the integration of the University of Mississippi and as one who knew Thurgood Marshall, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, and other giants, the author possessed splendid raw materials. Unfortunately, Motley's talent for memoir falls short of her gift for the law, and most readers will find themselves but sporadically engaged. Frequent stops to discuss legal points make her book suitable for law collections, and any women's studies or African American studies collection will be incomplete without it, but a better firsthand account of Civil Rights litigation for general readers is Jack Greenberg's Crusaders in the Courts (BasicBks., 1994).Robert F. Nardini, North Chichester, NH
Kirkus Reviews
Unfortunately, the impact of an autobiographer's writing style may not match that of his or her life. Insofar as that is the case here, however, it reflects Motley's amazing career (she is now a senior judge in US District Court for the Southern District of New York) as much as her colorless prose. Motley became a lawyer at a time when neither women nor blacks were especially welcome in the profession, and she worked with the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund at the outset of the civil rights movement, including laboring alongside Thurgood Marshall on Brown v. Board of Education. Her efforts in litigating civil rights cases included ten appearances before the Supreme Court. She briefly moved into politics and became the first black woman elected to the New York Senate and the first woman to serve as Manhattan borough president, then became the first woman appointed to the federal bench in New York. Indeed, the events themselves often carry the reader along; the drama of sitting on the speaker's platform with her son during Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech or tense moments on Mississippi roads with Medgar Evers matches that of any movie script. Tensions within the civil rights movement are also revealed when Motley discloses that she "thought he [Marshall] would have a stroke" when the advocate of moderate legal tactics learned of student sit-ins in 1960. She closes with a somewhat incongruous commentary regretting the dismantling of affirmative action and some uncharacteristically biting remarks about the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Motley considers Bush's action " the most cynical move made in the area of race relations since Plessy" that"dealt all of us black Americans a crushing societal setback in exchange for conservative votes." Not a great book in its own right, but certainly of interest for the student of the civil rights movement. (24 b&w photos, not seen)
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
A beautiful and compelling memoir . . . destined to become a classic (Coretta Scott King). — Coretta Scott King
Illuminates a crucial fragment of American history (Anthony Day, Los Angeles Times). — Angeles Times Los
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