Monday, Jan. 29: UC Berkeley programs on Civil Rights history : Indybay

This colloquium is wheelchair accessible, free and open to the public.

The Institute for the Study of Social Change presents:

Extending the Promise of Brown v. Board of Education:

Integration Efforts in the North During the Civil Rights Era

Monday, January 29, 2007

3:30 - 5:00pm

ISSC Conference Room

2420 Bowditch Street (at Haste)

Lewis M. Steel

Of Counsel to Outten & Golden LLP

Waldo Martin, as respondent

Professor of History

University of California, Berkeley

Co-sponsored by the African American Studies Department, History Department and the Center for Latino Policy Research

Abstract

When the United States Supreme Court struck down laws mandating racial segregation in public schools in Brown v. Board of Education, some observers thought of it as a decision directed at Southern states. The NAACP had no such illusions about the scope of the racial divide in America. In the 1960's, Lewis M. Steel spearheaded the NAACP's efforts to integrate the North East and Midwest. Mr. Steel, who went on to a distinguished career in labor litigation, will reflect upon his role in this momentous struggle and the successes and setbacks that lawyers and the Civil Rights Movement faced as they sought to extend the promise of Brown.

Speaker Bios

Lewis M. Steel is Of Counsel to Outten & Golden LLP. For many years he has focused primarily on class action employment discrimination cases. Mr. Steel is presently representing a class of African-American and Hispanic employees who are suing the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation for racial and national origin discrimination in promotions, pay, and assignments. Before joining Outten & Golden, Mr. Steel was on the legal staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1964 to 1968 under General Counsel (now Senior United States District Court Judge) Robert L. Carter. At the NAACP he tried and argued northern school desegregation cases, demonstration cases and employment cases, including Ethridge v. Rhodes, 268 F. Supp 83 (D.C. Ohio 1968) which established that public entities were obligated to insure non-discrimination on public construction projects.

Waldo Martin is Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Martin teaches courses on the Civil Rights Movement, African American History, and Race Relations. He is the author of numerous publications including The Mind of Frederick Douglass, Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents, and Civil Rights in the United States: An Encyclopedia, which he co-edited with Patricia Sullivan. Professor Martin has also worked as an academic advisor for the acclaimed TV series "Biography of America" sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Recommended Readings

Robert L. Carter with John Hope Franklin, A Matter of Law: A Memoir of Struggle in the Cause of Equal Rights (New Press, 2005).
Lewis M. Steel, "Nine Men in Black Who Think White," New York Times Magazine, October 13, 1968.
Lewis M. Steel, "Separate but Unequal by Design," The Nation. Feb. 5, 2001.
Michael Meltsner, The Making of a Civil Rights Lawyer, especially pp. 99-136 and 165-169 (University of Virginia Press, 2006).
Derrick Bell, "Reinventing Brown v. Board of Education," in What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said, Jack M. Balkin ed., (NYU Press, 2001).
Jonathan Kozol, The Shame of a Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (Crown, 2005).
Tina Deal with The Cincinnati Board of Education, 399 F 2d 55 (6th cir 1966)
Tina Deal, 419 F 2d 1387 (6th cir 1969).
San Antonio v Rodriquez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973)
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974).

This colloquium is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided. For wheelchair access, call 642-0813 before the date of event.

For more information, please contact Dr. Christine Trost, Institute for the Study of Social Change, 510-643-7237; ctrost@ berkeley.edu.

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Institute for the Study of Social Change

University of California, Berkeley

2420 Bowditch Street

Berkeley, Ca 94720-5670

Tel: 510.642.0813

Fax: 510.642.8674

Monday, Jan. 29: UC Berkeley programs on Civil Rights history

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