 Good afternoon, and welcome to the William G. McGowan Theater here at the National Archives. I'm David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, and I'm pleased you could join us for today's program, whether you're here with us in the theater or joining us through our Facebook or YouTube channels. Before we hear from Judge Richard Gervel about his new book, I'd like to alert you to two other programs coming up soon in this theater. On Thursday, May 23rd at 7, Pamela Nadel will be here with her new book, America's Jewish Women, a History from Colonial Times, to today. And on Tuesday, May 28th at 7 p.m., Henry Louis Gates Jr. will discuss Stony the Road, Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow. His book about the struggle by African-Americans for equality after the Civil War. Check our website at archives.gov or sign up at the table outside the theater to get email updates. You'll also find information about other National Archives programs and activities. And another way to get more involved in the National Archives is to become a member of the National Archives Foundation. The Foundation supports our education and outreach activities. Visit its website, archivesfoundation.org, to learn more about the Foundation, and join online. Count the stories live within the billions of pages at the National Archives. Some of them personal, and perhaps of interest only to family members, and some have reverberated across our society and had the power to change history. Sergeant Isaac Woodard's story is in the second category. Documents in the Harry Truman Presidential Library and here previously undisclosed FBI and Department of Justice files helped our author retell that story. The responses to the appalling injustice of Woodard's beating and blinding led to the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces in the 1954 Brown School desegregation decision. In a review in the New York Times, David Blight writes, Gurgle's book is a revealing window into both the hideous racial violence and humiliation of segregation in the period immediately after World War II and the heroic origins of the legal crusade to destroy Jim Crow. In un-exampled courage, Judge Gurgle relates stories of injustice and adds to our own knowledge of our civil rights movement in America. Richard Gurgle is a United States District Court judge who presides in the same courthouse in Charleston, South Carolina where Judge Wadey's wearing one of the central figures of the book once served, a native of Columbia, South Carolina. Judge Gurgle earned undergraduate and law degrees from Duke University, Duke. He was in private practice in Columbia before being nominated to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2009. With his life, Belinda Gurgle, another Duke grad, he is the author of a previous book in pursuit of the Tree of Life, A History of the Early Jews of Columbia, South Carolina. Judge Gurgle and his work have been featured on PBS, NPR, in the New York Times and the Washington Post among other outlets. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Richard Gurgle. Well, it is a pleasure to be here at the National Archives and to share the story of un-exampled courage because here in Washington, important aspects of this story took place. Further, I'm honored to tell the story at the National Archives because the agency's diligent staff both here in Washington and at the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri played such a critical role in locating documents that help document and tell this story. And for anyone who's done a great deal of research, what you know is that you go and you make some general request to a highly skilled and devoted archivist about what you're looking for and what you end up getting is suggestions, well, perhaps you need to think about this idea or that idea or let me show you a document you may not know exists and that is exactly what happened both with the National Archives staff in Washington as well as at the Truman Presidential Library. So I do, and I mentioned in my, in the book itself, in my acknowledgments and I say so again here today, thank you for the incredibly devoted and professional staff of the National Archives. Now let me now share with you the story of unexampled courage. As the clock struck 7 p.m. on August 14, 1945, President Harry Truman assembled the White House Press Corps in the Oval Office. The abulient president standing behind his desk informed the reporters that earlier that afternoon the Japanese government had surrendered, bringing an end at last to World War II. The reporters spontaneously burst into applause and then raced for the door to share this historic announcement with the rest of the world. Thousands gathered in Lafayette Square across from the White House to celebrate and soon there were calls, we want Truman, we want Truman. The president went on to the North Portico of the White House to deliver a few remarks. This is a great day for free governments in the world, Truman announced. This is the day that fascism and police government ceases in the world. The great task ahead is to restore peace and bring free government to the world. But beneath the veneer of America's grand self-image as the bastion of freedom and liberty was a stark reality. African Americans residing in the old Confederacy lived in a twilight world between slavery and freedom. They no longer had masters, but they did not enjoy the rights of a free people. Black Southerners were routinely denied the right to vote, segregated physically from the dominant white society as a matter of law and relegated to the margins of American prosperity. Racial violence and lynchings festered just beneath the surface, ready to explode at any moment. And this image was called the lynching flag and it flew from the national headquarters of the NAACP in New York the morning after each lynching in America. And tragically in the first half of the 20th century, this image was seen commonly in New York as the association hoisted the flag each morning after one of these tragic events. Black Americans living in other regions of the country outside the South had their own challenges. As the nearly 900,000 black veterans returned home after the end of World War II, they quickly realized that little had changed and they began demanding their rightful place in America's free government. Seen from today's perspective, the American triumph over Jim Crow segregation and disenfranchisement might seem to have been inevitable. The collapse of morally indefensible practices wholly inconsistent with the United States Constitution. But in 1945, with black Southerners almost entirely disenfranchised, white dominated southern state governments resolutely committed to the racial status quo and the federal government largely a passive bystander. There was no obvious path to resolving this great American dilemma. Something had to be done, but what and by whom? My book on example courage details the long overlooked story of the beating and blinding of Sergeant Isaac Woodard, a battlefield decorated African-American soldier by the police chief of Batesburg, South Carolina on the day of his discharge from the military and while still in his dress uniform and the transformative impact of this incident on President Harry S. Truman and United States District Judge J. Waitest Waring of Charleston, South Carolina. Horrified and inspired by the injustice of this brutal event, President Truman would launch a civil rights program culminating in the ending of segregation in the armed forces of the United States and Judge Waring would issue landmark civil rights decisions including his great 1951 dissent and Briggs V. Elliot that would become the model for Brown versus Board of Education just three years later. Late in the afternoon of February 12, 1946, Isaac Woodard boarded a Greyhound bus in Augusta, Georgia after discharge hours earlier from nearby Camp Gordon and was traveling to Columbia, South Carolina, the capital of South Carolina and then to his hometown of Winsborough where he was the rendezvous with his wife after several years of separation. During one of the frequent stops along the way Woodard approached a white bus driver, the white bus driver and asked if he could step off the bus to relieve himself. At the time interstate buses did not have restrooms and Greyhound drivers were instructed to accommodate such requests. Instead, the bus driver cursed Woodard telling him, I ain't got time to wait and ordered him to return to his seat at the back of the bus to the apparent astonishment of the bus driver. Woodard cursed him back and stated, talk to me like I'm talking to you. I am a man just like you. The stunned bus driver told Woodard to go ahead but at the next stop in Batesburg, South Carolina the bus driver now no longer concerned with staying on schedule departed his bus in search of a police officer to have Woodard removed from the bus and arrested. Woodard soon found himself confronted by the police chief of Batesburg, Lynn Woodshaw who responded to Woodard's efforts to explain himself by striking him over the head with his blackjack and escorting Woodard off to the town jail. On the way Woodard was repeatedly beaten with Shell's blackjack ultimately driving the end of the baton into both of Woodard's eyes. The sergeant was then thrown in a semi-conscious state into the town jail for the night. When he awoke the next morning he realized he could not see. Later that morning Woodard was taken to the town court and convicted of drunk and disorderly conduct. Accounts of Woodard's beating and blinding were reported in the black press and received nationwide attention when Orson Welles focused on the incident in his weekly radio program on ABC Radio. Mass meetings were organized in black communities across the nation to protest Sergeant Woodard's treatment. And a benefit concert for Woodard in New York City headed by Joe Lewis and featuring such luminaries as Count Basie, Cab Calloway, and Nat King Cole played to a sold out audience of 23,000 and in this image obviously Sergeant Woodard is in the center and to our left looking at the picture is Joe Lewis then the reigning heavyweight champion of the world. Meanwhile, other black veterans returning to their homes in the rural south confronted other incidents of racial violence including racially inspired murders. No state prosecuted those involved in any of these incidents. On September 19, 1946 a delegation of civil rights leaders met with President Truman in the White House deeply distressed by this wave of racial violence. Prior to the meeting Truman staff advised him that despite his desire to respond to the concerns of civil rights leaders there was little he could do as president to address these incidents. Criminal prosecutions by the federal government for civil rights violations in the south were fraught with problems. Most notably all white juries were deeply unsympathetic to civil rights cases and of course the reason the juries were all white is that juror lists were drawn from voter lists and African Americans were routinely disenfranchised in all of the southern states. Because jury lists were drawn further Congress was under the control of powerful southern committee chairs who were determined to block even the most modest civil rights legislation including making lynching a federal crime. As the meeting opened civil rights leaders urged the president to call Congress back into session to address the spreading violence against African American veterans. The president expressed sympathy but lamented there was little he could do because the lack of public support for new civil rights legislation. Leading the group was Walter White and looking in our image here he would be the gentleman to our right to the right of President Truman to present Truman's left. Walter White had been the head of the NAACP the executive secretary for over a decade he was the most important civil rights leader in the country and for political purposes for Truman Truman's most important supporter in the civil rights community. It was apparent to Mr. White that the president did not appreciate the gravity of the situation. White changed the discussion by sharing with President Truman in detail the blinding of Isaac Woodard. As the tragic story unfolded Truman sat riveted and became visibly agitated with the idea that a uniformed and decorated American soldier had been so cruelly treated. Abandoning the advice of his staff Truman stated my God I had no idea it was as terrible as that we have got to do something. The following day Truman wrote as Attorney General Tom Clark and shared with him the story of the blinding of Isaac Woodard noting that the police officer had deliberately put out Isaac Woodard's eyes. Truman made it clear that the time for federal action had now arrived. He further indicated he intended to appoint the first presidential committee on civil rights to propose a new agenda to address America's serious racial problems. Three business days after Truman's letter was delivered to the Attorney General the Department of Justice announced the prosecution of Batesburg Police Chief Lynn Wood-Schull for the deprivation of the civil rights of Isaac Woodard. Meanwhile the Department of Justice prepared the necessary documents to organize the first presidential committee on civil rights. Truman charged his committee in his first meeting on January 15, 1947 to be bold and to attack the root causes of America's deep-seated racial problems. He held the committee's first meeting in the cabinet room to emphasize the importance of its work. In less than a year the Truman Civil Rights Committee issued a landmark report to secure these rights which graphically detailed America's profound racial challenges and proposed groundbreaking policies and legislation including the ending of segregation in the armed forces of the United States. Truman embraced publicly the proposals of his Civil Rights Committee and on July 26, 1948 in the midst of his reelection campaign. He issued executive order 9981 mandating the integration of America's armed forces. And I will note here, this is a article, a headline in an African-American newspaper Chicago Defender of course highlighting President Truman wipes out segregation in armed forces. My son seeing this presentation is his dad look at the headline right below it posse bent on lynching searches woods for prey. This was America tragically in 1948. The successful desegregation of the military which Truman implemented before he left office marked the beginning of the end of Jim Crow in America. The Justice Department's efforts to prosecute Lynn Wood Shull and the District Court in Columbia, South Carolina produced in the short term a predictable result. An all-white, all-male jury acquitted the police chief after only 28 minutes of deliberations. The case was tried before United States District Judge J. Wade is wearing a Charleston patrician whose father was a Confederate veteran and multiple generations of soldiers. Prior to the trial, Judge Waring was personally skeptical about the federal government's prosecution of a local police officer but his views changed when he heard the highly credible testimony of the blinded sergeant who described his arrest and vicious beating at the hands of Chief Shull. As Shull supporters cheered his acquittal, few noticed that Judge Waring's wife, Elizabeth left the courtroom in tears. Judge Waring joined his wife later that evening and both were traumatized by the trial over which he had just presided. The Shull trial forced the judge and his wife to stare directly into the southern racial abyss a view which would forever transform both of them. Waring later described the Shull trial as his personal baptism of fire in his Michigan-born wife's baptism in racial prejudice. The Waring's returned home after the Shull trial resolved to learn more about issues of race and justice which the Waring's had previously thought little about. These were not subjects which could be openly discussed among white Charlestonians of that era. The Waring's decided to undertake an interactive study. Each evening after dinner Elizabeth would read a portion of a selected work to allow the judge to rest his eyes after a day of handling his judicial duties. The couple would then discuss what they had read often while driving around Charleston in the evening a favorite pastime. Many have asked me what did they read and what they read were books that many of you may have remembered from the study days. W.J. Cash, Mind of the South, Gunner Myrtle, The American Dilemma. American Dilemma was a study funded by the Carnegie Foundation immediately after World War II to make an in-depth candid assessment of the racial problems of the United States. In Swedish economists and social scientists, Gunner Myrtle was selected to head the study. Over 40 scholars participated in the study including Ralph Bunch and Dr. Kenneth Clark. The book was 1400 pages long. It is an amazing document and after the Elizabeth and W.J. Waring had read night after night the 1400 pages. For them there was no turning back. As Judge Waring's new views on race and justice emerged, George Elmore, a black businessman, filed suit in the Federal District Court in Columbia in 1947 challenging the South Democratic Party's all-white primary. Elmore was represented by Thurgood Marshall, the 39-year-old Chief Counsel of the NAACP who was already developing a reputation of almost the legendary proportions as a skilled litigator and legal strategist. South Carolina political leaders were united in their determination to preserve the white primary notwithstanding clear United States Supreme Court president holding such white primaries unconstitutional. Waring understood that any decision recognizing the right of majority citizens to vote would produce potentially hostile and possibly violent, a violent public reaction. But Waring concluded that his choice was either quote, to be entirely governed by the doctrine of white supremacy or to be a federal judge and decide the law. He went to his wife and he told her, Elizabeth, we are about if I rule the way I believe I need to rule our lives will never be the same. And she by this point a convert herself to the issues of race and justice says I'm with you from start to finish. On July 12, 1947 Judge Waring issued his decision in Elmore v. Rice declaring the white primary unconstitutional. Waring ended his order by declaring it is time for South Carolina to rejoin the union and to adopt the American way of conducting elections. The groundbreaking nature of the Elmore decision was immediately appreciated by the leadership of the NAACP. In a private note the Thurgood Marshall, William Hasty who would later become the first black federal judge in American history stated, I have read the South Carolina opinion three times and I still don't believe it. In many respects I think it is your greatest legal achievement. But the segregationist would not give up. Soon a new party rule was adopted allowing blacks to vote in the party primary so long as they would pledge their support to racial segregation. A new suit was filed and on July 16, 1948 Judge Waring summoned all 93 members of the South Carolina Democratic Party's executive committee to his Charleston courtroom for an emergency hearing. Waring denounced their efforts to defy his earlier ruling in Elmore and explained that a federal judge faced with contempt could impose a fine or a jail term. He wanted those present to know if there were any future violations of his order there would be no fines. Thereafter African Americans by the thousands began to register to vote in South Carolina. The response of South Carolina's white supremacist was thunderous. Death threats written in oral were constant. A cross was burned at the Waring's residence and bricks were thrown through their living room window. At no time in American history had a federal judge faced such violent public reaction. Time magazine described Judge Waring as the man they loved to hate and also noted that he was proving to be a person of cool courage. If the purpose of the unprecedented vilification of Waring was intended to cower him, it did not work. Instead he continued his study and reflection on race injustice in America and became convinced that the foundation of Jim Crow segregation, the Supreme Court's 1896 decision and Plessy v. Ferguson were legally, historically and morally wrong. Waring then approaching 70 years of age and likely retirement resolved a player role in overturning the separate but equal doctrine. Waring developed a plan to place a school desegregation case onto the docket of the United States Supreme Court. Firmly convinced that a majority of justices would overturn Plessy if they directly confronted the issue. He noted on his trial docket a case from Clarendon County, South Carolina Briggs v. Elliott which sought to equalize the facilities and the district's profoundly unequal black and white schools. This was a classic Plessy v. Ferguson claim. When the plaintiff's attorney Thurgood Marshall appeared at the Charleston courthouse on November 17, 1950 for a pretrial conference for his case to begin in just a few days he was advised the judge wished to see him in his office. I'm sure Mr. Marshall thought what have I done? After being ushered into the judge's office wearing told Marshall he said told him I don't want to try another separate but equal case bring me a frontal attack on segregation. Marshall responded this is on our agenda judge it's just not tonight we don't think this is the case we don't think this is the time Judge wearing responded telling Marshall this is the case this is the time. Marshall urged the judge to think practically noting that any decision by him overturning Plessy would be reversed by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia wearing explained that since a challenge to public school segregation contested the constitutionality of a state law he would request an appointment of a three judge panel in which he would sit this would bypass an appeal to the Fourth Circuit Marshall responded that the plaintiffs would lose two to one wearing agreed but noted that any appeal to the Supreme Court and he says third good that's where you want to be wearing's plan was bold even brilliant but conflicted with the highly successful litigation strategy of the NAACP they carefully built one legal precedent on top of another never trying to get ahead of the Supreme Court a few minutes after this dramatic encounter wearing convened during trial conference in Briggs and publicly pressed Marshall and whether he was prepared to challenge the constitutionality of public school segregation Marshall stated that he was and agreed to dismiss his pending lawsuit and refiled Briggs as the first frontal attack on public school segregation in American history although Marshall agreed to dismiss his original complaint he needed to obtain the consent of his clients regarding this new legal strategy Marshall had a real concern about the safety of his clients they took such a bold step in their rural and impoverished community and he sent his top assistant Robert Carter who would later be a United States District Judge to Summerton to discuss the change in legal strategy Carter told a large crowd assembled at St. Mark's Church in Summerton that those agreeing to join the new suit could expect to lose their jobs and suffer other forms of retaliation Carter told them there was no shame or embarrassment if the plaintiffs felt they could not participate further but the NAACP felt that the time had come to confront segregation head on an elderly gentleman at the back of the church and stated we were wondering how long we would take you lawyers to figure this out and quote with only two exceptions all of the original Briggs plaintiffs chose to join the new suit the newly filed Briggs case was tried in the Charleston federal courthouse in May 1951 before a three judge panel which included judge wearing in prior years civil rights cases in the South were sparsely attended by members of the black community lest they be identified as members of the NAACP or challengers to the racial status quote but on the morning of May 28, 1951 as the sun rose in Charleston African Americans lined up at the federal courthouse and down Broad Street as far as the eye could see hoping to observe what many thought might be the most important case in American history judge wearing observed the massive crowd from his office window later describing the scene as a breath of freedom my dear friend Jonathan greener noted South Carolina artists has painted this scene which depicts the opening day of the trial of Briggs v. Elliott and if you notice in a window you'll see judge wearing staring out into the crowd those in attendance in the courtroom were not disappointed by the performance of Thurgood Marshall and his trial team the trial included the testimony of Dr. Kenneth Clark a social psychologist who had done groundbreaking research on the effects of segregation on black children using black and white dolls the crowd was also entertained by Marshall's devastating cross-examination of the state's key witness who was ironically named many joke that Thurgood Marshall quote sure loves to eat crow and one observer referencing the state's renowned attorney Bob Figg stated Mr. Figg got his law degree when he finished school but he just got his baccalaureate address from Thurgood Marshall as wearing predicted the majority of the panel ruled that South Carolina's laws mandating segregated schools were lawful under the Plessy Doctrine bearing fully aware he was writing a dissent for the ages wrote an elegant and brilliant attack on the foundations of segregation in America he concluded by finding segregation and education can never produce equality and it is an evil that must be eradicated segregation and education adopted and practiced in the state of South Carolina must go and go now segregation is per se inequality written in June 1951 wearing also praise the Briggs plaintiffs who he was fully aware had suffered severe retaliation for their participation in the case noting quote they have shown unexampled courage in bringing and presenting this cause in the phase of the long established and age old way of life the state of South Carolina has adopted and practiced and lived in since and as a result of the institution of human slavery wearing dissent was the first challenge to public school segregation by a federal judge in the 55 years since Plessy some have asked how judge wearing a United States district judge could presume to overrule existing United States Supreme Court precedent in Plessy Ferguson judge wearing did not believe that he was doing that the year prior to his great dissent the Supreme Court decided three important civil rights cases one involving a separate but not equal law school in Texas that title that case was sweat the painter another involved a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma George McLaurin who was allowed to enter the school by the classroom and that image was in the record in the in the United States Supreme Court and the third involving a challenge to segregated dining cars on interstate trains Henderson versus the United States and all three of those cases the plaintiffs won in unanimous decisions some commentators asserted that these civil rights cases civil rights victories represented a further whittling away from Plessy Dodson but judge wearing reading these decisions together concluded that they stood for the proposition that separate could never be equal wearing viewed his dissent as stating explicitly what he believed the Supreme Court had already ruled implicitly in early 1952 some six months after the great dissent wearing announced his retirement as a and moved to New York City exhausted by his isolation and ostracism in his home community of Charleston wearing followed closely later school desegregation cases from Virginia, Delaware and Kansas all which were consolidated before the United States Supreme Court with Briggs under the name Brown versus Board of Education and all the other school desegregation cases involving 14 different federal and state judges only waitest wearing he concluded that public school segregation even if the facilities were equal violated the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution. On May 17 1954 the Supreme Court handed down unanimously its landmark decision in Brown versus Board of Education the court explicitly cast aside the separate but equal doctrine and adopted the per se rule that all government mandated public school segregation was unconstitutional first advanced by Judge Waring in his Briggs dissent among the other actions in Brown was the reversal of the majority opinion in Briggs v. Elliott Judge Waring was always philosophical about what he called the unpleasant repercussions of his civil rights decisions in an oral history late in life wearing observed taking the whole thing in balance I think I'm enormously fortunate because you don't often in life have the opportunity to do something you really think is good I think a great stroke of fortune came down my alley the other penalties don't amount to anything they're all set but what I think is a really important contribution to the history of our country a little over a year ago as I completed an example of courage I visited the town of Batesburg and retraced the fateful path of Isaac Woodard from the bus stop where he was removed from the Greyhound bus and arrested to the store front and around the corner where he was beaten and blinded and to the location up the street where the town jail and court once stood joining me on this solemn walk was the mayor of Batesburg and the town attorney both of whom had only recently learned of the Woodard beating and blinding from me on June 1, 2018 the town attorney filed a motion to reopen the case of the town of Batesburg versus Isaac Woodard to overturn his criminal conviction that motion was granted expunging the Woodard conviction and several months ago the town of Batesburg dedicated an historic marker candidly telling the story of the blinding of Isaac Woodard members of Sergeant Woodard's family traveled from New York for the ceremony and the mayor publicly apologized on behalf of the town for the tragic events of that fateful evening February 12, 1946 Unexample Courage is a story that deserves to be told with all of its pathos its brutality and its redemption of the American system of justice thank you very much and I would be glad to answer any questions anyone might have yes sir thank you for bringing this history to us and the importance of it can you talk about any discussions that occurred from the words of Sergeant Woodard he did not receive justice in his time but did he have anything that what was occurring from what he experienced come out of that that he came to peace with if there was any statements that he made that's a good question let me trace a little bit about what happened to Sergeant Woodard which is an important part of this story Sergeant Woodard I mentioned had been released from the Army about five hours before he was beaten and blinded and when he was taken to a VA hospital and he was irreversibly blinded and the staff there was to apply for disability for him but because he had already been discharged from the Army he was not eligible for full disability benefits seems crazy today but that was the story even though he was still in uniform so when he was discharged he went to his parents home they had moved like many African Americans from South Carolina in the Great Migration they had moved to the Bronx and he joined them there and was basically dependent on his parents he was 26 years old blinded he did acquire some training as a blind person and he operated for a while a new stand a local new stand in New York City and he struggled there's no question about it there was a period where this became he was a living survivor of Jim Crow of racial violence and for a time he did travel NAACP had a speaking tour and he did earn some money doing that and also that concert with Joe Lewis raised enough money they bought him a house they had enough money they raised to buy him a house in 1961 Congress changed the law and said until the soldier arrives home he is a member of the service and Isaac Woodard thereafter had full disability benefits he bought a he later would buy a VA home he took some of the money he had accumulated and earned and he became a landlord he rented properties he had his nephew who I've come to know very well would go collect the rent for him and he lived a sort of middle class life now that's the financial end of it the family tells me that initially he was very bitter understandably very bitter and at some point he just told his family I can't live with this hate I've got to let it go and they remembered him thereafter a spirited person there was an interview I got these records from the VA of a social worker interviewing him in 1964 and he was described as very pleasant until she asked him what happened and she said it was a source of tremendous personal pain to talk about it so and here's the really among the tragedies of this story he never knew his impact on President Truman and Judge Wehring that he had inspired both of them to act and out of that came the desegregation of the military in Brown versus Board of Education a remarkable legacy but he never knew that I will tell you that the family has taken enormous pride in this I had a talk in New York where I know 30 or 40 Woodard family members came to the Brooklyn Historical Society and when the town of Batesburg erected the monument and did the public apology I'd say about 15 to 20 Woodard relatives traveled from New York so the family has gathered some peace but unfortunately Sergeant Woodard never knew this story yes sir Judge Gergel, my name is Cliff Zatz and I'm a member of the Duke Law School Class of 1979 well you and I graduated together we sure did, it's wonderful to see you again good to see you we did both of us I was struck as I read about the way that Judge Waring engineered Briggs versus Elliott today I think we would hear demands for recusal cries of judicial activism here is a federal judge calling the attorney for one side into chambers ex parte communication telling him what lawsuit to bring and indeed telling him beforehand here is how I rule did you find any evidence that he had any qualms or hesitation about this and do you think that sort of thing happened again today? well first of all the standards for judicial ethics in 1951 are very different today nobody would ever get back into my chambers once that would never happen and that has tended to evolve in a rigid way that existed in 1951 I don't think there's any question though this is very aggressive on his part and there were efforts to try to disqualify him not from Briggs there were no motions about disqualification in the Briggs case but in his voting rights decisions he had given some public speeches denouncing the efforts to prevent African Americans from voting and that was he denied their motions and his decision was affirmed by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals it was fully aired there's a whole story about the Fourth Circuit's support of judge wearing through many of these decisions and the court ruled John Jay Parker writing for the court who was the chief judge there's a whole story about I'd be glad to talk about Judge Parker but he wrote he says having zeal for the Constitution is not a basis to be disqualified I do mention in the book that he would have been far better served not they've had that discussion with Marshall and there are ways to do it we all judges know my dear friend and colleague Judge Child and Michelle Childs is with me here today we know that if we think some issue needs to be addressed sometimes the lawyers don't raise an issue that really needs to be a threshold issue or something that needs to be addressed you can do that publicly just summon them back to your office to do it so he's a little ham-handed about that and I said at one point in the book I said you know he didn't pitch a perfect game but he but he pitched a masterpiece so he didn't quite get that part right and he's like blazing a path here that no one had ever gone that is the judge you're talking about activists these civil rights judges there would be others Frank Johnson Judge Wisdom, Tuttle on the Fifth Circuit there'd be other J. Skelly Wright Morelings that would come later but in 1948 there was nobody but Wade is wearing so he didn't get it alright but he certainly set a model that I think all of us can admire and particularly his courage thank you for the question yes any other any other questions? I very much enjoyed your book I've been a civil rights lawyer for 50 years and mostly with the federal government did the the federal government play any role I know that they participated in Brown but prior to that other than the effort to prosecute the case did they play any role in the school cases at that time? they really didn't just the department were you in the civil rights division? after Bobby Kennedy and that whole tradition out of the Department of Justice the brightest lawyers in America and I imagine you were among those that was the hardest job to get in America was to come out of a law school and get a job in the civil rights division and became a really honored position and honored tradition that was not true in 1946 and I detail and as you know I do detail and considerable calling out the individuals and the conduct that the prosecution of Lynn Woodshaw by the Department of Justice was completely incompetent it was half hearted the president could have ordered it but everybody went through the motions they did not thoroughly investigate the case they did not even get the medical record which would have proven that the officers defense his defense was Isaac would attack me and I hit him just once the examination of the medical records and the serious injuries he had and the nature of the injuries one could have disproven that that his account that they took the end of the of the black jacket and pushed it into both eyes was clearly true and one part of my of my efforts was I located the medical records that was not easy to get records and I gave them to a renowned forensic pathologist who then reconstructed the pattern of injury so the answer is that but for President Truman pushing the prosecution really in response to this meeting there were very few prosecutions they were largely unsuccessful Judge Wehring later in life was asked about the Woodard efforts of the Department of Justice you know I really couldn't believe they didn't call critical witnesses there was several eyewitnesses who did not actually testify and he said but you know they could have had 20 eyewitnesses and it wouldn't matter to that jury it just didn't matter so that tradition we all think about of this robust highly competent prosecution of civil rights cases was something in the 1960s phenomenon I know that before the Civil Rights Division was created 1957 I think there was a civil rights unit in the criminal division there was in fact there were seven lawyers for the entire country and they had 1500 to 2000 complaints a year handled by seven lawyers and they depended on the FBI to investigate and the FBI was notoriously unsympathetic to civil rights investigation so it was a very tough and historian who is working on the biography of Bobby Kennedy told me that until the Civil Rights Division got its own investigators they never really made progress and that was one of the things that happened in the 60s any other questions well it's been truly a pleasure thank you for joining me here and letting me share the story of an example of courage thank you folks there is a book signing one level up in the archives book store the books are at the cash registers we'll see you up there in just a few moments