from WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made of the 1920s and 30s at Lincoln University, a short drive north of Baltimore.

Lincoln University was at the time, mostly black school that was attaining a reputation for being the black Princeton following the end of slavery.

Most higher education institutions over the following decades went on to assume that African-American students could not attain the academic success that white students could.

In response, a series of mainly black colleges and universities emerged and this week on connections, we're going to have multiple conversations about the history and the legacy of HBCUs.

Well, here's one.

At Lincoln University, a student named Thurgood Marshall was studying with a deep interest in the law.

Every summer, Thurgood would go home to Baltimore and have dinner with his father, arguing passionately about where they disagreed regarding the American justice system.

Occasionally, the neighbors would hear those arguments.

Those historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, became the engine for black education in a country that did not value or prioritize black education.

Lincoln University prioritized eloquence the capacity to be persuasive, to debate, to argue positions.

Thurgood Marshall absorbed those skills and built a legal career that became legendary and essential to this country.

From Lincoln, Marshall went to the Howard University School of Law and the new documentary, Becoming Thurgood America's Social Architect, airs on ITV and PBS tomorrow night.

The Little Theater held a special screening this past Thursday.

The documentary follows the life of Thurgood Marshall, and it notes that Marshall is the rare example of a Supreme Court justice who was more famous for his work before joining the court.

Marshall helped create the model for the modern and civil rights firm.

As the documentary notes, the notion of a legal firm working entirely on civil rights really did not exist before Thurgood Marshall.

He became a leading figure in the movement to end racial segregation in public schools.

Marshall had a remarkable record in arguing cases that went to the Supreme Court 32 civil rights cases, he argued before the Supreme Court.

He won 29 of them, including the hallmark 1954 Brown v board, which rejected the doctrine of the doctrine of separate but equal.

If you could not attend the screening at the little last week, we hope you'll have a chance to watch the documentary tomorrow night.

Joining us this hour to discuss the legacy of Thurgood Marshall.

Sean Nelms, University of Rochester vice president of community partnerships.

Also a member of the board of WXXI and moderated that panel discussion on Thursday.

Nice to see you back here.

See you, Evan and Vann White, Rochester City Court judge and a man who has brought the museum with him.

I got it.

I have to tell you, this is a day that if you're just listening, you need to get on YouTube, because, Vann, you've brought a lot.

But the receipts is so the receipt.

Here's one example.

If you're watching on YouTube, this is an actual old sign, a restroom sign from a railroad station that designated as was typical during the period of Jim Crow.

White folks went to one bathroom, and black folks or colored folks, as they were called at the time, went to another bathroom.

If you are watching on YouTube as well, you might see some of the wider shots here.

There's newspapers, there's clippings.

There is.

What's the book that you have in front of you?

Well, well, there's a really great book, that I. Oh, there's we put in by I called the Little Library in the seventh Judicial District.

By the way, I'm going to plug this.

The seventh Judicial District has what we call a little library.

You know what the library is, but we have it in the courthouse.

First of its kind.

You get free books because the connection between illiteracy and crime is significant, is proven.

But this is one of the books that you can get out of that little library.

We have children's books as well, but this is one of my favorite books because it describes Thurgood Marshall, as you indicated, much of his career that inspired me occurred before the Supreme Court.

Yeah.

And one thing that that you missed, in his educational biography, is that he actually applied to Maryland Law School and was rejected because of his race.

That's how he ended up at Howard, and he ended up suing.

And one of those cases we talk about Maryland in terms of discrimination.

So, so extremely powerful work.

Before he got on the bench, all these, original, state of the, newspaper articles that I have here highlight the little Rock decision and, the context in which, Thurgood Marshall and others found themselves in the 50s and 60s.

And what's that?

The leather bound book that you've got right there.

I don't know if your your viewers can see it.

Can I hold up here?

So again, if you're watching, I got to be very careful.

Very careful.

You look at that 1868.

Now everybody thinks of discrimination in schools as a southern thing.

Make sure you don't lose that bookmark, because I want you to read for me a page title.

Ten people think of southern states when they think of discrimination.

What's that say?

Title ten.

That's a New York state statute.

You want me to read this?

Yeah, just the first part.

Title ten of schools for colored children.

That's all you need to read in New York state.

In New York State.

You know, again, we want to think a little rock.

We want to think of, you know, the South, you know, all of the discrimination that was happening in the south of the Mason-Dixon border, but in reality, the United States, this is just the reality of it was built on this system of discrimination.

And even when slavery disappeared, Jim Crow was necessary to maintain that social structure.

And that's why Thurgood Marshall is deemed to be a revolutionary, because he rejected that notion that you should do the thing that you and I reject today, which is you can't separate people because of race.

Well, Plessy versus Ferguson said you could and that he was fighting that system before he got to Brown.

So there's so much I want to talk about here.

And, we're going to talk about some of the specific cases, even outside of Brown v board.

There's a lot of legacy in history that I think it's important to understand.

It should be a great hour if you feel like you know a little bit about Thurgood Marshall, but maybe you don't know the full story, but I wonder, Sean Nelms you mean you moderated that panel on Thursday?

How much do you think the general public today appreciates and understands Thurgood Marshall?

You know, I first of all, I want to thank Vin White for being here, judge.

I mean, he has the knowledge he has a museum.

He has a history.

So I'm here as a listener as much as I am a participant out.

So thank you, man.

You know, I think that the general audience understands and appreciates, his contributions to our, our great American democracy.

But I think they under appreciate or perhaps don't aren't aware of what it took to get there.

Like most of his legacy happened before he was, named to the Supreme Court bitch.

He risked his life, the lives of his family.

If you watched the film becoming Thurgood, it's an amazing documentary.

I encourage you to watch it tomorrow night.

He even recounts do the voice of his son, I believe, on the moment in which he was going to be lynched because he was fighting a civil rights case, in the South.

And so I think what the film illustrated to me is that his true appreciation of American law is what drove him to advocate for those throughout the entire, a nation in his impact was so, well, revered that he actually went over to the continent of Africa and set up law there as well to support some of the liberation of those countries.

So not only was he an American icon, he was an international, ambassador.

And as the film suggests repeatedly, he was a social architect.

He was about building systems, not for himself, but for the vibrancy of this great nation.

And we tend to think about history through the lens of our own time, so we can miss the context or, context of events or trends or, you know, what things were like.

We, we kind of think about, how are things now, how do I know them to be?

And I want to ask you a question about that.

Judge White, the documentary notes, that is, Thurgood Marshall's career was blossoming.

Two very different things were happening.

Bigoted white prosecutors looked at Marshall either as the enemy or a kind of of a curiosity they hadn't seen, you know, talented black lawyers who were allowed to practice the way that he was having success.

And the black community viewed him as a kind of saint.

There was this prevailing mentality that whenever something was unjust, this idea was like, don't worry, Thurgood is coming.

Don't worry, Thurgood is coming.

And now, certainly it's impossible to know what kind of social progress and change would have happened without Thurgood Marshall.

Certainly, I don't want to imply that there never would have been the successes, the changes.

Maybe eventually.

But do you ever think about that?

What would have where would we be if Thurgood Marshall had not had the career that he had?

I, you know, clearly Thurgood Marshall, did not receive his due in terms of all the work.

You know, they once, Johnson appointed him the first African-American.

And that's what everybody wanted to talk about.

But he had a body of work before that, even on the bench, that people don't realize.

But I despite all that work which is laid out here, in in other places, people need to understand that there were other people working, mightily on behalf of people of color that were being treated unfairly, an attorney who still comes to mind and I can't remember his first name, and I apologize.

Great guy gray.

Fred Gray, I think, is his name Fred Gray?

He actually represent Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.

And, the the victims of the Tuskegee experiment.

And now you don't know his name, but Fred Gray is one of many, many attorneys, particularly of color, that represented people during this very difficult time of, of American history.

And, by the way, I don't want to get political, but people talk about the African-American museum in Washington, DC, and it reflecting as it does and appropriately on a certain difficult part of American history.

Well, King once said, you can't appreciate the beauty of a thing unless you understand its context.

Perhaps at one time when it was ugly.

We can really appreciate the beauty of America.

When you hold up that sign that says colored versus white, because it makes us understand the resilience of a people, of a nation that was able to change its view of people of color.

It also, to your question, none of this would have happened without the courage of people like Thurgood Marshall and Fred Gray and all those other attorneys that were out there.

I got to tell you, one of the reasons he is my idol is not because he was the first African-American Supreme Court, but the courage to I don't I don't think we have any understanding about the courage that it would take to do what he did.

Well, I'm glad you bring that up, because one particular detail in the documentary stood out.

He would take on these cases in places where he knew he was almost certain to lose southern courtrooms, mostly white courtrooms.

These are his family called them road games, and that must have taken tremendous courage.

Did you know?

It's difficult, but I can't help but reflect on my career as a as a civil rights lawyer before I got on the bench.

And, you know, I can only really begin to, have some sense of what it was like.

Because when I sued a major corporation in this community decades ago, I was receiving death threats.

We're going to take those coons that you represent.

Coons is what they said.

Just what they said.

And we're going.

That'll be the last day.

You see them as the letter that I got.

And the FBI was never able to identify anybody.

But I will tell you that in a strange way, I felt as a civil rights attorney.

And there are others like me, many others that are out there trying to live with this legacy because as it's not just that it changed America and its institutions, but it created Thurgood Marshall as a as a life example, created a whole cadre, a whole series of lawyers and, and, and politicians and government servants who could stand up to injustice, and sort of set the benchmark.

So when, when I tell you when I, when something like that would happen and it happened more than once to me, I kind of felt like this was, what I should be doing because that's what he did.

And I think if more people had a sense as to the courage, the sacrifices that these, people made, lawyers and civil rights advocates and so forth, I think America could find a way to the peace that I think, quite honestly, that we desperately need.

And I talk about, peace and talk about racial peace.

Well, and, you know, on that on that note, I mean, it's 2025 and I have this email from a listener that it really probably applies.

On Thursday, we're gonna have a conversation with, more specifically about the legacy and value of HBCUs.

But I'm going to read it today.

I'll probably read it Thursday as well.

Tim emailed to say, Evan, I can understand the need for HBCUs in Marshall's day in 2025.

Colleges and universities cannot legally block black students.

If a student has the merit, they can get into Princeton to Harvard anywhere.

Is there still a need for HBCUs?

What do you think, Sean?

No.

You know, so interesting.

People often use the word merit to, to assume that, going to an HBCU means you don't have the merit to get into, Princeton or Harvard or Yale.

These are choices that people make these days to support these institutions.

Around the same time of, of Thurgood Marshall's in the middle of his Supreme Court decisions, that the famous ones that we always talk about, Pablo Ferrari was, was writing pedagogy of the oppressed.

And he said, education is never neutral.

It's either used as an instrument to, to liberate or to domesticate in control.

And what HBCUs did for Thurgood Marshall and the other attorneys at Lincoln and Howard University and all the wonderful HBCUs across the country, was to teach them how to how to be liberated, how to think from a liberated standpoint.

I had a self-confidence to go out and to create, change, not just social change, but change that create a generational, confidence in themselves, generational wealth, etc.

and, and that's what HBCUs really did.

Yes.

It started out as, as the only option, but it quickly built, those folks who were the social architects of the civil rights movement and many individuals who are who are, fighting against injustice, today.

And so, yes, HBCUs are incredibly important today.

It's important for some and for some individuals.

And it's not just all black students.

It's a very integrated, community.

If you go to any HBCUs, it's it's not it's not a monolith.

And quite frankly, black folks aren't monoliths.

They come from all different socioeconomic backgrounds and different orientations, religious backgrounds.

And so they're they're they're they're are they serve a valuable purpose.

They are a viable option in as students, they're often make choices to go there even when they, get accepted into some of the most prestigious, institutions and universities.

And so, so when I hear people talk about, if you can get in with your own merit, it's as if those and that's and that's the, that's the that the, the person who wrote ins perspective.

But I hear that often like there's a diminishing value to HBCUs from those who've never experienced it or don't understand its value.

Can I just reflect on the experience?

I did not go to a historically black college or university, but my wife went to Fisk.

My daughter, my youngest daughter, went to, Hampton.

And, so I have some sense and, and my older sister is, I think your title is vice president of admissions or something to that effect.

She's going to kill me if I didn't know that.

But at Clark Atlanta University, and I can tell you in my experiences of whether going to college orientation at Hampton, college orientation just six months ago at Clark Atlanta University, which, by the way, will be participating in, the seven judicial districts College and career fair in the courthouse.

We're having a college and career fair.

Clark Atlanta University will be participating along with 25 other vendors.

But in my experience, like going to my wife's reunion at Fisk, not having gone to a historically black college, I can tell you there is a difference I can't speak to.

I don't I won't address the issue of whether there's a need for or not, but I can tell you this.

It's a totally different environment.

If you are young and black, growing up in America, as I did in as countless other people listening to this know that the experience, even in my generation, could be difficult, and finding yourself in an environment where you were the minority, was challenging.

I, I, I was blessed, no, no complaints about it.

My parents, when I was ten years old, we moved out town of Brighton.

I grew up in a very affluent white community, over by Pittsford Plaza.

Having gone to Fisk, Hampton and Clark Atlanta University, I can tell you the way in which you are embraced, by your your fellow, students, by staff members.

How my sister, as an administrator spoke to the parents at the orientation day was totally different than when I went to Suny at Albany.

You know what I'm saying?

So I can't speak to whether there is the need for this.

But I can tell you this.

It's an environment that you are embrace that.

The students there in the faculty feel like it's home.

I mean, you're a young man still, but when you were in school, like you said that, did you feel like an outsider when you were in school?

Like, thinking back to Brighton High School is great education.

I'm glad my parents did it, but black students would go.

You talk about isolation.

We would go into the cafeteria and we would have the with the black folks.

We sat and no one was forcing that polish.

It wasn't any Jim Crow.

But there's a sense of isolation that I think sometimes is self-imposed.

But what about in Albany?

What about Albany?

No, because Albany was a more inclusive lot of students from New York City.

I went to law school in Washington, DC.

That law school that I went to made a concerted effort, with notwithstanding what this writer is saying to you, made a concerted effort to diversify its law school campus.

So I felt included there.

Well, I want to draw on some of what Vann brought here.

And the headline in that middle paper.

So for those who are watching on YouTube here, Sean, if you can hand over.

So one of the things that the documentary tells us is that Thurgood Marshall had one, I don't know if regrets the right word, but he said there was something the mistake that he made was he had this career practicing, and he won a lot of cases that we've been talking about.

He want some.

I mean, I'm in the second half.

We're going to talk about voting rights.

So he knew what it was like and how tense it was.

But he was not prepared.

Post Brown v board for the backlash.

He said he should have anticipated the white backlash even more.

So you get this situation where the students little Rock happened and I mean he's had he he could have been more prepared for that.

It was painful and powerful.

And it was an indication that progress is a kind of a nice, snug word, but it's not a straight line.

Even when you win in court, it doesn't produce norms, change, acceptance, etc.. We saw that at little Rock.

You taught across country.

You saw it in Rochester when white parents didn't want students going to school in Charlotte, didn't want black students going to school and chill out and throw rocks at busses.

I mean, it happened probably in every district across the country where integration was happening.

I bring this up to ask you, Sean Nelms, the same kind of thing.

And I was wondering, given other times in your life, in your career as a young man, as a grown man, that you felt like an outsider, you felt like I mean, absolutely.

I think I think, anytime you grow up in a country that was founded, by, you know, as a, as two law, to separate its people, I think people grow with, growing spaces where being separate, but equal quote unquote is acceptable.

I mean, you really think about when what am I criticisms about the film.

It's a very small criticism is that it's in black and white.

The reason why I said that on the panel is that, you know, Justice Marshall passed away in 1993.

Many of the, the news articles and the and was like was in the lifetime of our parents and our grandparents.

These these aren't like conversations from 200 years ago.

And as much as we tried to say, oh, that was yesterday, it wasn't a lifetime of my parents.

It was a lifetime of your parents.

And for us to just kind of assume that individual, during that time just had a change in thought because of policy, because the law is foolish in the film.

And I want to give the give the documentary away, but I really encourage the audience to listen to, because I think I did an amazing job of bringing that to Rochester, but also having a panel discussion.

Thurgood Marshall reflected on the scariest moment of his life is when he would wake up in cold sweats because of the postcards that were being sent to him of, people being lynched.

And it wasn't just the lynching that that made him afraid.

It was watching the white kids standing, imposing next to the hanging bodies and some of the images they showed of young kids smiling.

Yeah.

You know, because they were making postcards out of these lynchings.

Yeah.

And I thought about that and said these lynchings were taking place in the 60s and 70s and 50s and 40s.

Right.

Which means the likelihood of that young person that was smiling in that postcard being alive is more likely than not.

And so we still have individuals who were raised, like Thurgood Marshall in the home that was that thought law and policy, but liberate individuals.

There are also people walking among us who said, no matter what the law says, no matter what policy says, we have the God given right to demonize some individuals in our community while also promoting our own sense of self.

So those opposing viewpoints and perspectives are very much alive today.

So no, it doesn't surprise me that individuals, could walk through life and feel isolated.

It doesn't surprise me that individuals may choose to go to an HBCU or a PWI, but dumbly white institution because it's where they find the most comfort.

It's where they're able to be liberated mentally in ways allowed in the focus on their studies, and that focus on the social ills of society.

We're talking to Sean Nelms, University of Rochester vice president of community partnerships, Vann White, Rochester City Court judge.

And we're talking about the legacy of Thurgood Marshall, the change in progress that happens in a country like ours, and some of that legacy that is depicted in the new documentary, Becoming Thurgood America's Social Architect, that is airing on ITV and PBS tomorrow night.

We hope you see it after we take this only break, we're going to come back with our guests, and I want to talk about some of the other cases that aren't brown the board.

I mean, look, we could talk about Brown v board and we're going to keep talking about that.

But, Marshall's legal record is so rich and powerful and, I still think there are echoes.

Today, we're going to talk about some of those other cases that you might not be familiar with.

I will also welcome some of your feedback.

If you've got it.

It's 844295 talk.

If you want to call the program 84429582552636.

If you call from Rochester 2639994, or you can email the program connections at skywalk.

Coming up in our second hour, the story of another documentary, this one called Remaining Native, takes a look at the story of a 17 year old runner in rural Nevada.

Q Stevens, one of the great runners in high school in the American West.

He wants to go to Oregon.

He wants to compete at the highest levels in college.

But he wrestles with his own identity.

His own great grandfather had to run away from an Indian boarding school.

We're going to talk about the film Remaining Native next.

Our support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Carrie Ola, center, proud supporter of connections with Evan Dawson, believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Carrie ola.org.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson, so I want to talk a little bit about a story that, I think, you know, I don't know if I, I'm sure I knew a little bit about case.

I always think about Brown v board when I think about Thurgood Marshall.

But it's the case in Texas of Smith versus.

All right.

So in Texas, like in a number of states, mostly southern states, the Democratic Party at the time would run these all white primaries.

So in most southern states, whoever won the primary was going to win the general election.

And in the primary, the law limited who could vote literally by race.

So that meant effectively, black candidates and voices and voters were excluded.

You know, Boss Tweed famously said about 100 years ago, I don't care who does the voting as long as I do the nominating, you know, meaning I get to control the primary, I get control who runs and who votes there.

And then, of course, then we'll have an open election in the general after all that limiting was going on.

So the Supreme Court rules in 1954, eight one against this practice, and within a decade after that ruling in 1954, black voter registration in Texas increased five fold.

However, the one dissent was Justice Owen Roberts, nine years earlier.

A similar case, and I'm sorry, that was 1944.

Brown v board was 54.

Tex Smith versus all right was 44 back in 1935, the court ruled a very similar case, and they ruled that a political party could discriminate because a political party is a private organization.

In other words, the court said that states can't discriminate based on race, but a country club can, a restaurant can, a diner can, and a political party can.

And Justice Owen Roberts then says nine years later, now that the court was reversing this after Thurgood Marshall wins the case, Justice Roberts said now the court is becoming too activist, that the court is too willing to overturn precedent.

Precedent should be hallowed ground.

And the court, the Supreme Court, would soon be viewed as just a short term issuer of opinions, easily changed and overturned, he said, to become a laughingstock.

He said that that, that Casey Smith was all right would get overturned.

He was wrong about that.

But I wonder, you know, judge, when he says, look, we can't just be an activist court.

We got to we got to honor precedent.

We're not honoring precedent.

We can't just overturn everything.

Well, what do you think?

I think that's a gun that shoots out of both barrels.

I mean, it can hurt, people who have a particular cause and also help people on the other side of that.

I mean, you you you see, judges who who might have taken that position previously with respect to the Supreme Court are not hesitant these days.

And I'm not going to comment on those decisions.

But there's a willingness now, as you've seen, to overturn precedent.

I mean, and you I don't need to list the litany of cases that have come out of the Supreme Court.

So I think, to be fair, though, that the nature of our judiciary, particularly its decisions, come out of supreme courts.

That's the nature of it.

I mean, this is nothing new.

I mean, Plessy versus the board of Plessy versus Ferguson was overturned by, Brown versus Board of Education.

So it's it's not this is not unusual.

And sometimes the political winds do cause changes to happen at that level.

We like to think of our judiciary as immune from all that.

But the reality is they suffer.

We, I guess, suffer from the same human condition that we all do, which is we all have biases, prejudices.

And the hope is, though, that our constitutional framework provides some level of consistency.

And even in the cases that you've seen overturned as of late, they lasted for decades just by way of example, not related to the subject, but Roe versus Wade lasted forever.

You know, maybe not, but, I just I tend to look at it very fairly and balanced that this is the winds have blown both ways and have hurt people, depending your perspective on both sides of the aisle.

Yeah.

I mean, if if Smith was all right, in your view, represents two activists to court, then does Roe v Wade, I mean, is it two activist to court if you don't like the decision?

And is it just a prudent decision to overturn precedent if you do like the decision, I think that's what ends up happening.

And I say I don't I'm not trying to be snarky.

I'm sure, you know, whatever your politics are, whatever your feelings are, as the non-lawyers in the room shine, we can look at the court on any given day and be like that court is too activist.

That court is very smart.

Depending on what your biases are.

Right?

Yeah, I get I am that as well.

I'm not as mature as Vanna White is in terms of age, but but I will say, you know, what's happening recently does feel a bit shocking.

It's not something that I would have expected.

I think when Thurgood Marshall showed in the first hour, you said he felt like he didn't prepare well after the decision, like what to do next?

I think because he believed that the law, once it's sides and bends towards justice, that it would always be that way, like we overcame the biggest battle and now we're going to move on.

To me into many others that that I socialize with.

It feels like we're moving into a direction that, is starting to erase all of the foundational work of those architects, other social architects, actively hostile, actively hostile that that is forcing individuals to, to accept a democratic society that doesn't look and feel like anything that we've been promised.

But you grew up in this, in this country thinking that, yes, there are injustices.

Yes, there are bad things and bad actors.

But for the most part, the law will protect all of its citizens.

And there are many people who are starting to starting to question that.

If it's Roe v Wade, if it's, certain protections, it's gerrymandering.

Whatever those things are, it feels like we're moving into a space that feels very unfamiliar, particularly for those who didn't live through the civil rights movement, but that benefited from all the work.

The folks at Marshall and others did to to give us a solid foundation, to move forward.

If I if I may, there's a book that I would suggest to the audience.

It's by, Steve Phillips is how we win the Civil War, securing a multiracial democracy and ending white supremacy for good.

And the reason why I chose that book for today is because the film talks about white supremacy in the context of law and trying to break that.

But this book, was very informative because it talked about the intentional practices that some lawmakers may, after the end of the Civil War and after the Emancipation Proclamation, to to get to a place of where we are now, like it's been a long they played the long game.

How do we create within the southern states, within states, throughout the country, these laws that eventually will return us back to a separated country.

And so that book was almost like the blueprint.

And and Steve argues that if we're not educated enough back to that liberated quote earlier, if we're not educated enough, we're going to repeat the past, because we're going to do so through policy and law and so watching this film, becoming Thurgood and thinking about that text really resonated with me and made me think about what is my responsibility, to try to become a social architect for change within Rochester, within our own community.

And that's a challenge, I think, that many of us are trying to figure out, how we fit into that space.

If it's like van having a museum that educates folks about the history so it's not erased if it's others trying to make sure that our public school systems are balanced across all spaces, not just, you know, where you see a large majority of people of color, like what is our individual role in society to make sure that we preserve the things that are just and fair, even when we disagree with them.

But I think we can always agree on humanity and some of the decisions that we're seeing, I believe, are an attack on humanity related to some of what Vann said about his own school experience.

I want to take a phone call from Courtney who wants to weigh in in Rochester.

Hi, Courtney.

Go ahead.

Hi, Evan.

How are you doing today?

Everybody good?

Yeah.

Great.

Again, I've been on your show talking about, discrimination, as a disability.

And was just listening and, yeah, I, I, I went to Brighton High School.

I'm a little bit younger than van, but, had a very similar, experience as a as a black student.

And not long ago sat down with a number of, black alumni from Brighton High School and we're talking about a particular, guidance counselor.

And we had all discovered that we were all told by the same guidance counselor that, we essentially weren't fit for college.

And, so many of us have gone on, not just a complete one one degree, but several degrees.

And I was very fortunate to, to be able to, be accepted at Wellesley College.

Didn't go to an HBCU, but, chose to go to a women's college for many of the same reasons that black students choose to go to HBCU.

So, I think that they're incredibly important, and I'm not really, certain.

Well, of course I'm certain.

Why there to be an about, you know, the importance of HBCUs?

But what I also wanted to say is that I'm really excited listening to the conversation about Thurgood Marshall.

And I will say that he really influenced a lot of my behavior, not as an attorney, because I'm not an attorney, but just as an individual.

When you're talking about what's the responsibility of of individuals.

As far as, really promoting justice, I had the opportunity to read a book written, by Taylor Branch, called America in the King Years.

And he spends a pretty good amount of time, focusing on Thurgood Marshall, and the early years of the NAACP and discussing cases, little known cases.

And not only that, he talks about, the plaintiffs, and the courage that it took not only of Thurgood Marshall, his legal team and the NAACP, but of plaintiffs, who were willing to come forward in the Jim Crow South, which was essentially you being willing to give up your life.

And that influenced me, in a way that led me to become a plaintiff here in Rochester, against a large corporation.

And September 3rd marked, the 15th anniversary of a class action, that was brought forward by myself and a number of black named plaintiffs, against the major corporation, which brought about, some pretty significant, changes, in terms of, Racial discrimination, and practices that are exclusionary not only to, black employees, but to employees of all stripes.

So I think that even though we talked about Thurgood Marshall, and civil rights movements, the actions of the 40s and 50s in the 60s, they definitely resonate, well into 2025 and will continue to do so beyond.

Yeah.

So that's I just wanted to share that.

Courtney.

Thank you.

Thank you for the phone call.

Nice to hear from you.

And, you know, there's a lot there.

I want to ask both of our guests to respond to some of what Courtney had to say, along with the comment from, a viewer on YouTube.

Dell, who wants to weigh in on this?

I mean, when Courtney talks about the class actions and the suit she's been involved with, that is not in the 1960s or 50s.

She's over the last 10 or 15 years.

Right.

And Dell is asking, thank you so much for this.

As I listen to these stories, I'm both deeply inspired and deeply disappointed.

I wonder what the panelists think of the legacy of Marshall in the wake of the erosion we are seeing right now.

So I go back to the beginning here, and if you're watching on YouTube and I hope you are again, Van White, Judge White brings this sign, and I'm holding up a sign that you said this comes from a train station, but this could have been found almost anywhere, anywhere in America for many, many decades.

And the sign just says restrooms.

And there's a sign on one side pointing to white and another side pointing to colored.

This sign was in the separate but equal area.

And the reason I bring this up again, I think about Dell's question for both of you is that I think probably I spent a lot of years thinking, you know, we're we're done with this, and we are done with this formally, legally.

And I'm not implying that there's a huge number of Americans would like to go back to this, but it's it's more than I thought.

It's more than I would have guessed a decade ago, for sure.

And so Dell's asking about progress and erosion.

Courtney is bringing up modern fights.

You know that we're not in the quote unquote civil rights era, but are now.

And I think, gentlemen, I think there's a lot of white people.

I'm not speaking for white people.

I'm not the voice of God.

But I think there's a lot of white people who very sincerely, very authentically think I wasn't alive during this.

This wasn't me.

This is not I would never want this.

I would never want restrooms.

I would never want separate but equal.

I would never want segregation.

That's not me.

Don't penalize me for the sins of the past.

We're past that.

You know, kids can go to school anywhere they want to go to.

They can go to college where they want to go to.

We're not perfect, but we're so much better.

We've had so much progress.

Don't.

And and don't be so obsessed with identity.

We're better than that.

Let's move forward.

And let's judge people based on who they are as individuals.

I think a lot of white people would hold this very sincere belief shining.

We probably heard it on this program after the mass shooting in Buffalo that you and I talked about.

Right.

So so what would you say to people who hold that, that feeling?

I don't think anyone should feel personally responsible for something you want wonder part of, but I think they also have to acknowledge that, that the lessons that were learned and the, microaggressions or, you know, outward aggressions that were formed then had been passed down to generation.

Generation.

They be me.

They may be less apparent to some, but I'll be honest with you.

There are there are folks of color who really don't want to be under the same, unfair conditions that our great grandparents and parents were part of either.

So, so on one hand, no one wants to feel guilty, but on the other hand, no one wants to still feel penalized.

And I think that the way to get through this is to do exactly what van is, is done today is to let's bring history, make history alive.

And when I hear this, this attack on American history, it's American history.

And trying to minimize, its active presence today so that we can just kind of push through it.

I it actually delays what we where we could be as a society.

So when you think about Rwanda, you think about Germany, you think about other international spaces where you had, division among people.

The way to get through that is to talk about it is to address it is to not highlight those individuals who are part of that division.

So I thought we are moving forward.

When we took down some of the Confederate statues and in places, particularly those that represented individuals who just spewed hatred, and to here in the first six months, we're going to start we're going to start putting those bags back up.

I mean, back up.

It's it's it's a nod to an unwillingness, an unwillingness to to move forward.

And I think that's that's an incredible point.

So no, I don't think anyone should feel guilty.

I also don't think anyone should still feel harmed because of the laws and policies that were put in place in the 40s and 50s and 60s and before then, still have a strong hold over certain communities within within society.

And you feel that Judge White here?

It's all about context.

That sign that you just held up.

My father, my grandfather, my grandmother, they originally hailed from Memphis.

They read that I was raised by a man and a grandfather that read that sign and was whose life was controlled by that.

We all know the power of parenting.

You know, there's no doubt that who I am at home, who I am in the neighborhood, who I met, who I was at school, who I am in the courthouse is impacted by the men and women that read those signs.

So context is important.

So when somebody says, oh, this time is past this, no, I was raised by a man who who believed that his life was controlled by his race.

He was able to overcome that.

And let me use this opportunity to talk about the other side of that sword.

Yes it is.

The ugly part is, Doctor King would say, of our history, but we can really appreciate the progress of our nation when we look at people like Sam White, Sean Nelms who have overcome challenges.

So I, I don't think that by looking at these news articles and looking at that sign that the conversation ends with how bad it was, it naturally also continues on to a conversation about, well, wait a second now, van white has a GMC 1956 transit bus.

Same making model bus.

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.

We call it the Civil Rights Museum on Wheels, and his son says the idea here is to give people context.

And context is not just talking about the bad part, but when you talk about Rosa Parks, Fred Gray, who is an attorney who is still alive, Thurgood Marshall, and, and Fannie Lou Hamer and all those courageous people you have to talk about the positive things of that context, courage, resiliency.

These are all American characteristics that these people who happen to be people of color showed with such great strength.

So I, I when I'm in that bus or when I show that sign, it doesn't it's not negative to me.

It shows that my father, his father, all those folks that we looking at hold up are heroes.

Not just black heroes, but American heroes.

And then one other thing I want to say about context, you know, we talk about the court system, Supreme Court, what it should and should not be doing.

Let us not forget, we work in a democracy, a system of government.

We have three levels of government executive, judiciary and legislative.

So when Thurgood Marshall, I'm not familiar with that quote, was commiserating on, you know, I didn't know how bad it was going to be.

Well, he was relying on there.

He should have relied on other branches of government to step up.

So Eisenhower did step up of all people.

Eisenhower stepped up.

Truman stepped up even before, Brown versus Board of Education and integrated the forces.

So, this context that we find ourselves in is no different.

We have three levels of government.

Maybe some would feel that the judiciary is not doing what they need to do, or that the executive branch is not doing what it needs to do.

But we have a legislative branch and and all that stuff that was going on in the 60s.

Who was, the executive branch that fixed it after King and the Thurgood Marshall did all it did.

A white Southerner from Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson, we discussed that at the at the museum as well.

So my point is, if you look at America in its broader context, we have a system that supports not just the court system doing what it should do, but other branches of government.

So I have not lost hope because I know that there are other branches of government that can impact the lives of people that maybe feel they're being discriminated against.

There are private entities, as Sean says, people can go and do their own thing.

You don't have to just wait for your legislator or your president or your congressperson.

You can go and open up your own museum, lead a school district, and try to right the wrongs because, you know, schools are more segregated now than they were when Brown versus Board of Education was issued.

So the challenges say that, again, schools are more segregated now than they were when the time of Brown versus Board of Education was, was, when the decision was rendered.

So there's work, great work to be done not only by the three levels of government, but by you.

You're listening.

If you know a child can't read the way they need to, and it's it's impacting their lives as a parent, read to your child as a neighbor.

We know this, right, Sean?

That whether a child's reading proficiency at third grade determines whether they graduate on time, read to the child, give a book to a child.

So it is not just what Supreme Court Roberts justice is doing or not doing.

It's not just what President Trump is doing is what are you doing to live the legacy of Thurgood Marshall and all those people that made sacrifices?

Our guests are too modest to do this, but they're both published authors.

And you can read those books, one day, your child especially, but, let me let me get back to your phone calls.

Bob in Brighton.

Hi, Bob.

Go ahead.

Hello.

I only caught part of this, and I will be looking later to catch the whole thing.

The comment about the film being in black and white, I can very much relate to.

I, I was seven years old when Brown versus board.

Decision came down.

I moved to Rochester in 1969 when I was 22.

I worked for Tom fry and a senior staff assistant when Tom was county executive, but he was very involved in change and knows about new about first hand stones from the cemetery.

Oh, yeah.

And Charlotte.

Yep.

And I first walked into City Court and, in 1970, looked at justice for all.

And in the court, everyone was white except defendants and their families.

And there were certain people who cleaned the Hall of Justice and Public Safety building.

And then I want to talk or mention Attica and go back, and, and Gary.

Craig.

Yeah.

1971 I stood outside the walls of Attica on September 13th.

Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the day prisoners took over the prison on the 13th is the day the state troopers and others, killed so many people by gunfire.

So I. I don't know what else to say in certain ways.

Yes, there have been changes, but there is so much more that's needed to be done.

I agree with what I heard.

Waiting to talk on the phone.

We need to look at each other and look at ourselves and ask what we can do.

Bob, I got to jump in and just thank you for that phone call, and I'm glad you bring up Attica.

I was thinking about that in a strange way, Bob.

I was connecting the conversation with Gary Craig last week in his thoughts about Attica 54 years ago.

We briefly we're talking about whether the average person walking down the street in Rochester would know about what what happened in Attica.

And it's a lot fewer now than ten years ago, 20 years ago, certainly 30, 40 years ago.

Right.

That's why I asked Sean Nelms.

You moderated a panel on Thursday.

What do you think the average person walking down the street now knows about Thurgood Marshall?

Well, 50 years ago it was a lot.

Now, you might have to talk to a lot of people before you get anybody who knows very much about Thurgood Marshall.

And it wasn't that long ago.

Vans, right.

These are major, major events, major developments that have happened connected to number one people still alive today, but certainly our family members.

But at the same time, every year that passes, you know, more and more graves go on attended and that's that.

We need to keep that in mind.

And also keep in mind that these laws didn't didn't just protect the dignity of black folks.

It expanded protections to women and to people with disabilities.

And I mean, it's it's the law itself is applied when applied correctly, protects the dignity of all humans.

And I really encourage people to watch this film, tomorrow night.

I know what time it is tomorrow night, but tomorrow night or not, it's exciting.

And because I'll tell you this, it does something.

It does something to me that just made me reset when I described Thurgood Marshall as a social architect for, for for this great society, it emphasized that he didn't do so because he wanted to be in the spotlight, that he invest his time and energy and talents into building the legal defense fund, educating those individuals to go out and do the real work.

His time at Lincoln.

There's a part in the film when they were going to bring in black professors from link, to Lincoln and Thurgood Marshall and others said, I don't know if that's a good idea.

I'm not certain that we will get the the best education.

And in that moment, he realized that that anyone living through Jim Crow create this type of sense of self-loathing.

And it was in that point where he and others decided to really invest in what it means to be a proud person of color and to contribute to society and someone who's going to be a defender, of not just for people before, but for all.

And so to the extent that you watch this film and you think about it, not just Thurgood Marshall as a figurehead, but the impact and the risk that he took along his journey, if we can just apply an ounce of those principles to our daily lives, I think our society would definitely be a much better place.

We won't let laws and policies move us back in a different direction.

Becoming Thurgood America's social architect.

Thank you, Sean Nobles for the prompt.

Tomorrow night, 10 p.m. on ITV.

It's streams live on the sky and PBS apps 10 p.m. tomorrow.

Please see it then.

Got about 30s left.

Tell people how they can find out.

There's a lot more history that you want to share.

Yeah, yeah.

If you want to learn more about that history, that context, you can go to WW, CFC, rl.com.

That's the center for the Study of Civil and Human Rights Laws, which happens to be I was very blessed all those cases that I sued people for having, being bigoted employers, hospitals, I rolled it into this particular building, which happens to be the home of Susan B Anthony's lawyer.

It's a historic landmark property.

So go there, learn about your history.

How do they get on the bus?

They get on the bus just by going that website.

I've gone to schools.

We've gone as far as Florida to educate people on civil rights.

The Civil Rights Museum on wheels, by the way, my wife, who, you know, Bridget Birch White, plays Rosa Parks on occasion on the bus.

And kids love it.

Awesome.

I hope that listeners, you not only had a chance to listen this hour, but you've been watching on YouTube and you see the incredible stuff that Judge White brought very generously collected this stuff, brought it here.

Thank you for keeping this history and education alive.

Great to really just say this.

The reason why I do that is because justice cannot just be served from the bench.

It's got to happen in the community.

Thank you, Judge Van, why is Rochester City Court Judge Sean Nelms, University of Rochester vice president of community partnerships.

Thank you.

Thank you to support public media, support public radio because it's because of folks like Evan and the crew behind the glass there that we can educate ourselves and liberate this community.

Thanks for more.

Coming up.

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