Good evening.

I am Ted Ayres.

70 years ago, on May 17, 1954, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Earl Warren, delivered the court's opinion in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka.

Warren stated, As a person with a law degree and as someone who spent almost 40 years giving advice to public universities, I have always maintained that the Brown decision wa one of the five most important decision ever handed down by the court.

I continue to hold this opinion and I thought it appropriate that we honor that opinion with our show tonight.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

Initially, I would be terribly remiss if I did not mention the Brown v Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka.

It was to this Monroe School that Linda Brown was required to travel for her elementary education rather than her neighborhood Sumner School.

The building is well maintained and the exhibits are thought provoking and informational.

As one of the eight sites on the Kansa African-American History Trail, this National Park Service facility is very well worth your time and energy.

Our first book tonight is Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King.

The book is subtitled Thurgood Marshall, The Groveland Boy and the Dawn of a New America.

In excruciatingly painful detail, King tells the story of the Groveland boys, four young black man accused of rape by a 17 year old white girl in 1949 in Lake County, Florida.

I bring this book to you because of its historical importance and because of the information it provides about Thurgood Marshall, who, as an NAAC lawyer, argued the Brown case.

Marshall was the grandson of a mixed race slave.

By the mid 1940s he was engineering the greatest social transformation in America since Reconstruction.

With his far reaching triumphs in the landmark cases he argued before the Supreme Court, Marshall redefined justice in a multiracial nation and became, as one civil rights pioneer described him, the founding father of the New America.

Our next book is A Time to Lose by Paul Wilson.

I consider it to be one of the most important books I have ever read.

If you could look at my copy you would see that it is filled with highlighting and notations.

Wilson wrote this book published by the University Press of Kansas.

Because, “If the story of the losers is to be told the time for telling is at hand.

And I, by reason of longevity, am to be the teller.

In his closing reflections, Mr. Wilson made a very important point.

Law and litigation do not supply all the answers to human problems.

Litigation provides a means to determine and enforce what the law requires.

The resolution of human conflict requires more.

Understanding compassion and mutual respect.

When I checked, this book is still available from the University Press of Kansas.

Our last book is Brown Board, edited by Leon Friedman.

This is really more of a reference book as it provides background information about the case and then sets forth a complete record of the proceedings before the court, includin exchanges between the justices and the lawyers.

Referring to Mr. Wilson, his concluding statement to the court was as follows: I found this boo to be of significant historical and legal relevance.

That's our show.

Our book tonight were selected to honor and commemorate the 70th anniversary of the decisio in Brown v Board of Education.

Goodnight and see you next time.