i was halfway through it on my way over, and i downloaded a movable feast because i thought i should read that, too, and then i -- a friend of mine is writing a book a that's about to come out about seduction in the france, and that was in a pdf form. it hasn't been published yet, and she sent it to me. and the person whose apartment we were staying in had done a book about restaurants in paris, so i downloaded that. and then there were times i was going on a walk and i needed, i didn't want to carry -- my ipad is a little highwayier than -- heavier than i'd like. i have the older one. so i bought a paperback so i'd have something to walk around and sit in a café and read a little bit. when e got back, i realized i'd read about eight books, but i was going back and forth. and it was a very interesting experience. i'm not sure i want to do it

more than once a year, but it was different, and i loved it. and now i'm reading one novel at a time. but on my i ipad. thank you. >> thank you so much, gail. we still have a few minutes left and love to take any questions if any of you have them. please, step up to the microphone. .. we do get request because and people see us on c-span or whatever, they want us books

published in other parts of the the country independently and on a self-published platform generally linger on the shelf and don't find much of a market. but if it is by local author, you can come in and i get it. we are happy to be that place where they can.people to come by their book. >> i would like to ask about library acquisitions and how that is trending because for a lot of folks, 26 or even $12.99 is not something they can do on a regular basis but the library is where they can find a lot of books. but i'm wondering about per capita? with the exposure, my suspicion based on montgomery county library is that there are fewer books being purchased by libraries and therefore fewer books that are available. >> it has actually been quite a while since i have seen data about libraries and the acquisition trends in that

regard, but any others have any thoughts on that? >> i think libraries are mostly getting burned by the world. that there is a real debate going on with publishers about e-books and how to account for the kind of garment of e-books. there is just a general myth and worth mentioning in passing that e-books are free for publishers but the finished book is done. but there is a huge amount of back office stuff for instance grading systems by which a contract, and he times a library book is rented out. if it reaches a certain point there is discussion from some publishers that it has been lent out some he times it is almost the equivalent for some years been destroyed and you have to buy a new one. how does that work? no one has figured out. there are a lot of different systems and there are some big publishers who really are not this kind to libraries, but i think most people in the book

business grew up loving libraries and on the other hand, we cannot give away the books for a lot of reasons including the authors deserve to be compensated for them. >> it is such a huge market. i remember meeting with the publisher once and i said oh are you going out with your authors tonight? he said no i'm just taking the library himself because he said in a given year, if you get the buyer for all around the boston area they are going to buy more books than most of the independent bookstores he is dealing with so he was very smart. he sold a lot of books that way so we come back to the biggest effect on the marketplace. >> i was just wondering, i saw e-books changing the market for -- in the back catalog in particular because certainly one of the more frustrating things for a reader is books going out of print because there's just no

market for them. but the margin is lower for producing an e-book and so on. that is something where you see out-of-print books becoming more and more rare and they are just going to e-books? previously that it's been kind of the exclusive, i mean, you had to go go to a used bookstore whereas now it seems like it is more possible that these things -- continued to be available. >> is actually pretty great. they are available. anyway they're not and then the other can be compensated for those sales versus like a used book sale -- store. oaks are being resold in the author is not getting any more money when that book is resold so i think again the inventory of digital books is fantastic and it may allow for certain -- a lot of books are not paperback at all. you know, a lot of the books that we do as well have sold so few copies in hardcover that it

is not sensible for bookshops to order a lot of copies because they have limited space. so yeah i think it is pretty great. >> the other thing is the print on demand capabilities. i have several authors whose books would be out-of-print they could get the reversion, just immediately. they have left them in print with the publisher and go around the country doing speaking and there are places where they speak, they order the book, print on demand. it is a little bit more expensive than the book would be otherwise. it looks just like the book but it keeps them in business. my clients don't have to pay for a new cover, printing costs, paper costs or anything like that so they just keep it, rather than asking for the rights that they keep it with the publisher and order prints on-demand copies. it is very efficient. >> one more question. >> yeah, i assume google is going after things that the copyright has expired on and i was wondering, do they have

people physically in libraries copying things, because i found a pretty esoteric book of family history on google reader and i was really surprised. i just wondered, are individuals uploading things too or how does that work? >> it is an epic saga. this is a huge thing and it is too boring to get into but a sickly several years ago, google do deals with some of the major libraries in the world and scanned an enormous amount of content. that is the shortest way to explain it. [inaudible] >> i think they just did everything. it is google. they have every bit of information. it is an amazing effort that they did come an incredible amount of stuff. >> and then they were sued by authors and office guild and other people were the ones that were not out-of-print but there was a settlement announced a settlement has been abandoned. so there is more to come.

>> so what are they going after the ones of the public -- [inaudible] >> yes, they have. almost anyone you could find in the library anywhere. >> google is everywhere. >> thank you free questions and thank you for your attendance. i thank all the panelists and thank you to gaithersburg for having us. thank you for coming today. the keynote speech next door if you would like to hear matt and thank you to this panelist and keep watching c-span next week. i suspect you will see the mad hook expo. thank you. [inaudible conversations] that will wrap up our live coverage of the 2011 gaithersburg book festival and

gaithersburg maryland. you can watch a re-air of today's coverage at midnight eastern tonight. and for more on the festival visit gaithersburg book festival.org. >> next to me go brown megan looks at the civil rights movement in atlanta. and the differences between the activists who participated in it over three decades. this is a little over an hour. >> welcome. it is my great pleasure to introduce, tomiko brown-nagin, justice thurgood marshall distinguished professor of law, professor of history at the university of virginia. professor brown-nagin holds a ph.d. in history from duke university and a law degree from yale university where she was an editor of the "yale law journal." she received her b.a. summa cum laude from airman university. before joining the faculty at

the law school, professor brown megan practiced law in new york city and served as a law clerk to the honorable jane roth of the united states court of appeals from the third circuit and to the honorable robert l. carter of the united states district court for the southern district of new york. at uva, professor brown-nagin teaches constitutional law, to constitutional and social history and education law. she is considered one of the nations leading young legal historians and has written widely in the areas of legal history, education law and the supreme court's equal protection jurisprudence. her scholarship has appeared in some of the foremost law journals within the legal academy. in february of this year, oxford university press published professor brown-nagin's first book, "courage to dissent" atlanta and the long history of the civil rights movement. is socio- legal history about lawyers, courts and community-based activism during the civil rights era.

this highly anticipated work has already garnered widespread complaint. most notably from members of our community. the book features some of the lawyers who were integral players in the legal odyssey that ultimately led to the desegregation of the university of georgia and this will be the subject of her talk today. if you have questions at the end of her talk, please use the microphones down at the front to ask the questions. and at this time, please join me in welcoming professor tomiko brown-nagin. [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you so much for that kind introduction, and to all of you for coming out. it is an honor and a privilege to be here at the university of georgia, particularly in this 50th anniversary year of the

schools desegregation. i want to begin by of course thinking the american constitution society for inviting me to appear here particularly to ash wood johnson who organize this event. she has worked so hard on bringing this together and i appreciate that so much. i also want to recognize the co-sponsors of the event, including the georgia history department, the african-american cultural center, the institute of american -- african-american studies and graduate and professional scholars. thank you all. i'm thrilled to be here with you and i appreciate your support. now, i want to begin my talk with a question, and my question is, how many of you are familiar with the work of thurgood marshall? by a show of hands, how many of you know who thurgood marshall is?

okay, so i see most hands just as i would have anticipated. many many people know who thurgood marshall is. he was my childhood hero and the hero to many americans because of the singular role he plays in the legal history of the civil rights movement. of course, he famously litigated the case that desegregated the schools formerly, brown versus board of education and of course went on to become the nation's first african-american supreme court justice. because of his role in the legal history of the movement, the civil rights movement, many many books that are written about the legal history of the movement revolve around thurgood marshall and his conception of the quality. well, my book is different. it against with the question of,

what would the legal history of the civil rights movement look like if the work of thurgood marshall and the work of the supreme court justices weren't so central to the story? what would we see? who would we see? and, my book answers that question with this observation. if we move those familiar persons and institutions away from the center of analysis, we can see unsung lawyers and activists at the local level. people who contributed a lot to the social and legal world that we live in today, people who sometimes disagree with thurgood marshall and his conception of equality, people who we ought to remember just as we remember marshall. and, i say that because i think in remembering these people, we add depth to the history of the

civil rights movement. now, my work, my book, "courage to dissent" recalls the history of the movement in atlanta and of course, you all know that atlanta is a leading american history -- city today, but it was also really important during the civil rights movement because it was the home to a leading civil rights organizations, including the southern christian leadership council and the student organization, the students on non-violent coordinating commission. so what i would like to do is focus in particular on sncc and other ways of lawyers and activists who contributed, who are unsung and can surely did to the history of the movement. i take a bottom-up perspective on constitutional law.

and what i would like to do this afternoon is discussed three ways of unsung lawyers and activists, who i argue in my book can she be good to the civil rights movement in important ways. the first i want to emphasize is that all of these dissenters, and i style all of these people dissenters, have the same overarching goal of equality, but they had different priorities and tactics for achieving equality. in fact, they define equality in different ways. the first wave of dissenters were -- pragmatist. i call them pragmatist because they wanted to challenge jim crow but without destroying the social and economic capital that the black middle class had built

during segregation. soper were these pragmatist? well, they were some of the black college presidents in atlanta, many african-american teachers who were the lion's share of the black middle class and they also included a tea walden who was one of the south's first african-american lawyers. and here he is, a portrait of mr. walden. now, walden was the son of former slaves and sharecroppers. he studied at lenny university with wb -- w.e.b. dubois. he went on to graduate with honors from the university of michigan law school. he excelled at michigan while waiting tables for a local fraternity. he is little known today but walden really inspired a generation of african-american lawyers, including earning jordan, the counsel to

presidents who i am sure some of you have heard of. jourdan called walden so impressive. he said quote, i wanted to be a lawyer just like walden. i wanted to walk like him and talk like him and hang out my shingle on auburn street just like walden. above all else, pragmatists like walden and the black college presidents prioritized voting rights as attached to black power and here we see walden challenging the so-called white primary, the laws, the traditions of excluding african-americans from the vote in georgia and elsewhere. and here is the result of his activism. in 1946, after the fall of the white primary, blacks lined up all over the streets in atlanta

eager to exercise the franchise. and yet walden and other pragmatists were called accommodationist, uncle tom's. the question is why would that be? well, it was because he didn't challenge segregation in housing. instead he made deals with local whites to find housing for african-americans wherever he could. in the midst of a post-war housing crisis. and, this had the effect of maintaining the color line. and as a result, poor black neighborhoods remained intact, neighborhoods like the one where this woman lived, remained intact and really his decisions had the impact exacerbating segregation over time. he also was called an accommodationist and accommodationist because he never fully embraced school

desegregation. of course, a cheap way in which thurgood marshall conceived a quality. now, why would that have been? well, it was partly because he was interested in preserving the jobs of african-americans -- schoolteachers but also it was because he was worried that in desegregating schools, african-american students would not have a nurturing school environment. so, because of his skepticism of school disaggregation, he didn't file a case to desegregate the schools in atlanta until 1968, although he told thurgood marshall that he would file a case right after brown was decided in 1954. he also was slow and filing or caring for the prosecuting the uva case. walden was replaced as lead

counsel on the initial case to desegregate the university of georgia which was filed in 1952. he was replaced because the lds lawyers in new york thought he was too beholden to the white power structure to litigate the case aggressively. it fell to speaker motley and donald hollowell to litigate that case to fruition. in 1961, 11 years after walden initially started that fight but here you see horace ward, he was the initial plaintiff in the uva case and donald hollowell on the right, who litigated that case after walden was replaced as lead counsel. moreover, walden, another pragmatist, opposed the direct action taxes -- tactics of the ways of dissenters in my book.

now, the second wave consisted of street demonstrators and movement lawyers and here, a typical scene involving these demonstrators. they are squared off here in 1964 against the klan. these activists sought to achieve social and economic empowerment for black communities by desegregating public accommodations, by walking picket lines with the unions, by engaging and rent strikes and generally trying to reach the african-american community where it was. there are two lawyers, len holt and howard jr. who became allies of the student movement during the 1960s and my book spends many many chapters detailing the synergies between these lawyers in the student movement over the course of the 1960s. what i first want to do though

is give you a little background on the student movement itself, which initially burst onto the national scene in 1960 in greensboro, where blacks, college students requests really launched a revolution in southern race relations. the movement quickly spread, including two atlanta in march of 1960 and there we see some students who were engaged in one of these demonstrations. the students in atlanta, like all over this country, engaged in a year-long effort to desegregate public accommodations. now, for my purposes this afternoon i want to emphasize two points about the student movement. they are first. of the students turn to direct action partly out of frustration with the civil rights lawyers and was civil rights litigation,

the case of civil rights litigation. it was too slow for them. but too even if they pursued their new tactics, they didn't turn entirely away from the law. i want to read you a quote from john lewis that eliminates the nature of the students critique of a lawyer dominated movement. lewis said quote, we were all about a mass movement, an and irresistible movement of masses, not a handful of lawyers that oppose courtrooms but hundreds, thousands of everyday people taking their cause and belief to the streets. not so interested in lawyers. now it is important to appreciate the context of lewis' statement. he made it at a time when mainstream lawyers including

thurgood marshall were very negative on the sit-ins, very negative on direct action. the beginning of the student movement, thurgood marshall said to the students that the way to change america was through the courts, not in the streets. he told the students that they were going to get someone killed if they continued with their tactics. he told them that they were invading the property of life and in atlanta, people agreed with that assessment. so it is the context in which the students pushed back and said no. anyone can serve. we don't need to be mediated by lawyers and we are going to do our own thing. now, as it turned out, there was a problem. the students preferred tactics

often landed them in jail and so, they realize that realized that they desperately needed representation. they needed lawyers, because if nothing else, we know that lawyers can get you released from jail, right? so in the middle of their movement and their excitement about their political tactics, the students realize something that we all know, or at least we know or hope is true, and that is that lawyers, you can't live with them but you also can't live without them. so the students turn back to lawyers and they sought new allies in the bar and they realize that they could find allies who were interested in their tactics. and those lawyers are len holt and howard jr. who answered the call. now i want to tell you this about those lawyers. their approaches to litigation really illuminates i think the value of looking at the legal

history of the movement from the bottom up. the first lawyer that i will talk about is len holt, who collaborated with scores of community-based organizations in the south, including sncc and it's at land affiliates, the committee on appeal for human rights. now, len holt was charismatic. he was called the snake doctor. because of his style, he was a rabble-rouser. he was an activist lawyer and he was proud of it. and i think it really comes through in this photograph. we see hats and that very long sigar. he called it a clint eastwood kind of a style of sigar. quiet evocative of him. holt identified as a movement lawyer by which he meant, he wanted to catalyze social movements. he said the movement should lead

and lawyer should follow. his goal was to fortify purchase of the tory democracy. he wanted to use the courtroom as political theater. the interesting thing is that biography is a key to understanding why len holt chose this approach to lawyering. len holt had a -- attended law school at howard university during the 1950s. which was a golden age for the institution. this was when thurgood marshall and other lvf lawyers mooted their arguments, the argument that they would make before the supreme court at howard law school. imagine how excited this was to have thurgood marshall and all of these lawyers in the midst, especially for someone like len holt who wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. he was right there in the midst.

in an important way, it turned out that he had the privilege of fetching coffee and sandwiches for thurgood marshall and doing a little bit of legal research for those lawyers as well. imagine being so close to someone whom you admired so much. he was intent on going to work for lbs after he graduated from howard, but he did not do that. and why was that? well because he became very troubled by school desegregation strategy, how it played out in prince edward county virginia. the school board their clothes to school for five years rather than comply with a school disaggregation decree. and for all of that time local children did not go to school. len holt who was a virginia

lawyer had an office in norfolk, witness the impact of the school closings as he traveled back and forth throughout the state, going through prince edward county and he saw black voice in girls eight in nine and nine years old he said standing around doing nothing. these were the children of black agricultural workers, sharecroppers who themselves had not been as well-educated and len holt told me that he thought this was another lost generation. and he concluded that the school disaggregation litigation imposed extravagant costs on black communities and the naacp officials had not properly cared for their clients. he questioned the narrow focus on school disaggregation anyway, given the material deprivation

of these communities. so it was in this context that he developed this commitment to movement lawyering. he said that he would lawyer and a different way. he would put the objectives, the goals of the people first he explained. lawyers were no longer the central agents vying to achieve the goals of freedom and equality through their own special arena. off of course of law. their primary task was to find ways of helping the black people themselves and force a constitutional promises of freedom and equality. now, my book recounts how len holt pioneered the use of a tactic called omnibus civil rights views to set the -- facilitate the movement called desegregating public

accommodations consistent with the concept of movement lawyering. the omnibus civil rights action was unique in that it challenged segregation in many many venues all at once rather than on a piecemeal basis, and let me describe what i mean. a complaint of memphis complained filed in danville virginia revealed that it attacks segregation in the danville memorial hospital, the danville technical institute, the city armory, the city's housing projects and many other state-controlled entities. the idea here is that with this omnibus litigation, hold advance the students goal of freedom now. they were uninterested in waiting and challenging jim crow bit by bit. that was sufficient from their standpoint so by filing these suits, the students would be

able to have a lawsuit that would hopefully tear down jim crow much quicker. at the same time they would continue their protests in the street and battle segregation in two different flora. the student movement in atlanta filed one of these omnibus suits per se in 1951 and the complaints caption reflected the flare of the lawyers, the lawyers who filed on their own or without a lawyer. here were the captions. assam to examine much of the cancerous racial segregation that is festering within atlanta the students said. now, thurgood marshall probably would have left out the cancerous part, right? and they describe the city segregation policies themselves and equally provocative terms.

they called them quote, insulting, degrading, unnecessary, medieval, foolish and sacked it. and again you can imagine the thurgood marshall and other lawyers called it unconstitutional. but the thing of it was the students with their provocative style one, their case. 1952 the court in atlanta struck down all ordinances requiring segregation in city parks, theaters, arenas, public calls and other places of public assembly finding them unconstitutional under the 14th amendment. the students have filed this lawsuit amid continuing protests linking the political tactics and legal tactics just is len holt had imagined and as you can imagine, the students were very happy with len holt and the way in which he contributed to their

idea of what the movement should he. because of his support of the movement, he was beloved. merry king compared him to quote, an abolitionist on the underground railroad. james warman called him quote, far ahead of the conservative legal profession and stokely carmichael called him one of the great unsung heroes of the civil rights movement. certainly, len holt ought to be remembered. now, let's talk about howard moore jr. who was there on the left. howard moore jr. was general counsel, a native son of atlanta. he had been inspired to attend law school when thurgood marshall came to atlanta and wowed a crowd. moore said to himself, i can talk like that.

and so he could. but, howard moore, despite walden before him, horace ward and other ambitious african-americans, had to go out of state. that was because of the time he was excluded from university of georgia because of his race. he went north to boston university, and when he graduated, he came back to georgia. he really wanted to be a member of the georgia bar and the practice in his home state and city. he joined the bar in 1962, and when he -- when he did he was only the tenth full-time black lawyer practicing, not in atlanta but in the entire state of georgia. which might strike you as pretty incredible. those numbers by the way didn't improve very much until the

1970s. once he joined the bar, he went to work for donald hollowell, another legendary lawyer who was very important to the student movement. hollowell was moore's mentor although when they first met each other, it was an odd encounter. hollowell told moore that he was a lawyer, and moore said, when hollowell said that, that is old. actually he said something a little more colorful but fortunately he said to himself. the point is that black lawyers were very very rare and it was inconceivable that a black man could be a lawyer at that time. nevertheless, moore one on two make a charm and its impact in the law.

at sncc's general counsel he filed actions that spanned such areas of law so he litigated housing cases for impoverished clients. he was subjected to summary evictions. he got to know these clients because sncc, the students in the atlanta movement, worked with atlanta's ghettos, trying to help people who were poor find a way out of those conditions. the students helps people obtain social services, balanced budgets, all sorts of matters and moore handled related legal cases. he also worked on behalf of conscientious objectors who were anxious to avoid service in the vietnam war. he represented school disaggregation plaintiffs, at least until he became a critic

of school disaggregation. he handle criminal proceedings including capital cases. he filed first amendment actions on behalf of all manner of demonstrators. his roster of clients included stokely carmichael, cleveland sellers, angela davis, julian bond, some of the most prominent activist of the 1960s. moore had an empathic lawyering style which endeared him to his clients. he was called the lamb. one's neck volunteer called him quote a big lovable teddy bear. she said, moore held it all together for activists under pressure. howard moore had worked with me and trying to get myself together. i don't know what i would have done. this is a typical testimonial about how important moore was to the movement. he told me that he viewed the practice of law as a crusade for justice and he was quite rave, which made him a good fit for

his roster of clients, including julian bond. and there are mr. bond is. julian bond in 1965 was elected to the georgia house of representatives. after he campaigned on an anti-poverty platform in atlanta's poor communities, communities like the one you see pictured here. he has an adorable little kitty. and yet, when it came time for bonds to be seated his colleagues refuse to seat him. they refuse to actually swear him in. why would they have done that? well, because bond had endorsed sncc's statement opposing the hypocritical vietnam war, waged even though the government had not lived up to its commitment to democracy in the u.s..

bond had been called unqualified for public office. summit said he had committed treason with these words. he was asked to repudiate the statement. yet it is important to note that these requests came not only from -- but by the entire black establishment in atlanta. howard ormack recalled that the leadership in the black community was quote 100% against julian bond. now as i say that, bear in mind that as these actions were taking place in january of 1966, most americans still supported the war. dr. king would not publicly expressed opposition to the war until 1967, and so sncc was on the leading edge of antiwar sentiment. bond was under intense pressure,

but he stood pat. he said, i hope that throughout my life i shall always have the courage to dissent. and his supporters in sncc backed him up, saying what could be more patriotic than the expression of dissent in america, country born of revolution? this photograph is a picture of bond in the chambers where his colleagues were refusing to seat him. so, sncc argued that the right to express dissent was a keystone of democracy. members of sncc mobilized and supported him, and he eventually required to stand for re-election while he had an unseeded and his constituents backed him up.

they supported him. he was reelected. they remained loyal to him. in the meantime, howard moore filed a lawsuit challenging his expulsion and ultimately he won. moore in a team of lawyers prevailed. his activism there yielded an important supreme court decision upholding the first amendment rights of elected officials. which is one reason among many that surely howard moore jr. deserves to be remembered. and now, let's consider the third wave of dissenters who in my book are personified by welfare rights activist and a lawyer who represented them. now, third wave of dissenters really ring the book full circle, because just as the students have challenged the

first wave, these pragmatists, the third wave challenge the students. in fact, they challenged the entire society. but in my book, ethel mae matthews who is shown on the cover and in this slide, personifies this wave of dissenters. ethel mae matthews was the daughter of alabama sharecroppers. she arrived penniless in atlanta during the 1950s. she worked as a housekeeper. she lived in public housing, and she later found her political voice and the welfare rights movement during the 1960s. matthews and others like her, as she rose to -- they rose to challenge the second wave and others in the civil rights movement, made it clear that the

formal equality of the civil rights act of 1964 in the voting rights act of 1965 were not enough. they were not enough matthews and others that because jim crow had left a legacy of racialized poverty. and does, matthews and other women, mostly women and the welfare rights movement, waged protests for affordable housing and adequate income. they also were vocal critics of many politicians, including the new black lyrical class elected in the wake of the voting rights act of 1965 saying again the right to vote alone was not enough if the representatives were not responsive. matthews and others lobbied for a responsive political structure for accountability and listen to

her voice. she says quote, many of those who profess to want change don't care nothing about poor people. if they had for people at heart she said, they could make it better. they forget about you. they forget about who they are and where they come from. and there she is talking about the people who are elected by people like her. one of her priorities was school disaggregation. she filed a lawsuit to challenge the the atlanta public schools. she wanted school desegregation, and she met resistance, not only from whites but from blacks. now, recall that they pragmatists like a tea walden, had opposed to segregation in the 1950s, mostly to protect the black middle class, but also

out of concern for students. while it turned out that during the 1970s, the local naacp in atlanta opposed school disaggregation and for much the same reason. they decided to settle the school disaggregation case that was ongoing in atlanta in order to preserve the jobs of african-american african-american schoolteachers and principals. they were concerned about employment discrimination and also they were concerned that black students would not have a good environment and desegregated majority white schools. now, even as matthews challenged this perspective, prominent lax in atlanta's communities boarded the settlement. this included dr. benjamin named who had become the president of the atlanta board of education

in 1969. it included maynard jackson, who would become mayor of atlanta, andrew young supported the settlement, lots of african-americans, prominent african-american leaders. but this did not stop matthews and other women atlantis housing projects from pushing ahead. they challenge the settlement and they met to resist it up lonni king who was the head of the local naacp. he defended it with these words, among others. he said, if i had to choose between sitting beside liddy in a job that pays, i want the job. matthew shot that, quote, why should our children be pond for a few greenbacks? and thus, you can see that matthews and her neighbors were concerned about their children.

she knew, they knew that they would never be wealthy, but they did want the opportunity for their children to climb out of poverty and they thought that the way for them to do that was to get a good education. they associated racially mixed schools with that opportunity. so, they pushed ahead. they hired margie pitts haynes who was a lawyer associated with the aclu, to back them up in court, challenging the settlement. matthews confronted and other women confronted powerful lawyers in the courtroom and again i want to share matthews voice with you because i think it is quite powerful. she said in the courtroom, i represent poor people and i think their children need equal education as well as the rich

person's children. she continued, so i would ask court to let us poor people be in on the decision as black and poor people because we are the ones that live it. we are the ones that our children go to the ghetto schools. and she also said, you don't now how would make some other field when her children go all the way through 12th grade and come out, can't even spell her name. now, margie haynes did not win her case. but, even as i say that, i will emphasize that "courage to dissent" isn't just a winner's history. in fact i think it is important to write the history of societies losers. the voice of ethel mae matthews and her neighbors it seems to me is critically important, adding

to the legal history, especially of civil rights movements again because they insisted that we remember that jim crow and poverty were integral and left a legacy. now i will conclude by throwing out the larger lessons that i think one can learn from this bottom-up view of constitutional history of the civil rights movement. but i want to offer three possibilities. the first is this. it seems to me that decentering the supreme court doctrine and even legendary lawyers like thurgood marshall from the legal history of the civil rights movement opens up a much

broader, deeper and synthetic interpretation of civil rights history. one can really see how dynamic the movement was. it was so much more than a few marquee legal cases such as brown versus board of education. the lawyers whom i have spoken about, margie haynes pitts, len holt, howard moore, these are figures whom it is important to recall. they were created. they offer models of social change that are different and in important respects from the model that thurgood marshall embraced, and i say that in part because there is a literature, a political science literature that argues that civil rights lawyers were actually bill served by reliance on the courts, by affirmative constitutional litigation, and that is because it turned out

that the supreme court would not, or could not, enforce its own decrees. meanwhile, the movement was so focused on the law that it tended not to mobilize politically. well, what i argue in my work is that these lawyers did not fit that description. they were very savvy. they were able to use the courts and constitutional context to their own advantage even when they were skeptical of those same concepts. a second lesson here is that i am telling a different story about accommodation is. a man like a tea walden, who was dismissed as an uncle tom by lgf on the one hand and by the students on the other because he

didn't tell either line looks more confiscated when we consider him in his own time on the ground from his own death. within that context, his choices looked more reasonable. what he was trying to do and what the pragmatists were trying to do is reconcile this theory, the philosophy of the voice and booker t. washington while battling white supremacist. moreover i think it is very notable that the criticism of school disaggregation in particular that walden offered came to be shared by lots and lots of people in the civil rights movement. all of whom sought something more complicated than integration. so of course people came to understand that one needed nurturing teachers, a good

curriculum and representation on school boards for instance. so he could say that he was -- above all else i would argue that bottom-up perspective on costa xuzhou history show a whole range of people, not only these unsung lawyers but organizers, demonstrators, women and men in interaction with national institutions help to shape and give meaning to the constitution. they were people on the ground and yet they were law shapers. they were launch lunch reporters, even lawmakers if you begin to consider their role in the passage of the landmark civil rights legislation. now i talked about a few people who are public figures and you are already familiar with them, john lewis and julian bond but there were a lot of people in this book oh my talk about who are less familiar or totally unfamiliar. bill ware, margaret mills,

michael michael's sentiments, eva davis, m. armor. these people are all history makers. and i hope that one day when a group is assembled and their names are called out, people will be able to raise their hands and remember them saying that yes i remember ethel mae matthews and howard moore, len holt and a.t. walden. all of these people who have to create a more vibrant democracy, a more perfect union. all of them ought to be remembered along with justice marshall and i hope that you will. thank you and i look forward to your questions. [applause] and if you will please come forward if you have questions.

>> is this on? >> i believe so. >> i don't know if i needed. what explains atlantic dancing in civil rights it seems at a better pace then let's say memphis and birmingham? i have heard this mentioned by others that if you compare atlanta, birmingham and memphis let's say 1955, they are all about the same in size and stature but it landed becomes a the leading city of the southeast, and is it is a plan that handled integration better than the others? is it a bit better, a larger more dynamic black medal class? i think this in a way ties into what in to what you are talking

about, you know, the movement in atlanta, they singling it out but it did have a remarkable role nationally that seem to have a bigger impact than let's say those others to southeastern cities. >> that is a great question, and i will answer you by noting that when i first started this project, i chose atlanta because i thought that it would yield a success story, and that was for two reasons. one, because i understood that so white city fathers viewed themselves as racial moderates, and two excess of the relatively large black no class. i thought that combination of factors, one would see a pretty rapid and pretty smooth transition from jim crow to a regime of civil rights. and i think that the premise

that you articulate their and this idea of success in atlanta certainly is a story that can be told, and get i would emphasize that what atlanta was able to do better than many cities was -- so he was very keen with the business leaders in atlanta, were buried keen on minimizing violence and transitioning when there were crises in such a way that atlanta preserved its image as a moderate city in contrast to a birmingham or in contrast to little rock. for instance. so, it is the case that the schools in atlanta, once the school disaggregation case was

actually filed in 1958, that the schools weren't desegregated via august of 1961, so as these things happened, that is it pretty short, a relatively short transition period and yet what i would emphasize is that desegregation occurred on a token basis. there are only nine african-american students and when one starts to think in terms of meaningful desegregation in atlanta, i don't think the record books that different from any other city, and one could talk about lots of other areas and make the same observation. so yes, atlanta has a great reputation, and it was able to transition in a way that maintains the image of moderation and i would emphasize that obviously atlanta can boast

still today having a successful african-american middle class and that is really important. ..

in atlanta, as the middle-class one out. best of the settlement was fitted to place. atlanta was able to have an african american blacks who superintended. it is the school board was 50% african-american and soon it was a majority african-american. same is true of the city council. over time, mayor jackie became mayor in overtime, atlanta with many other cities became it lack controlled city. and the theory that the african-american middle class had was that same race representation controlled by

african-americans would you progress through the entire race. what is that these was challenging commissioners challenging the premise as early as the late 1960s and 1970s certainly. and i can tell you certainly it was the case the beast in the evolution of the athlete the school board, it became clear to city schools that having same race or temptation was not enough to make the city schools good schools for the majority of children and certainly for children who have the most need. and of course those are typically going to be the children the truly disadvantaged

peers at the african-americans who were living in poverty. so i do think that her fears that these majority black school citizens would not desert noted progress were pouring out. and the story of atlanta, the idea of community control schools -- not just in a later story. it is a story that an approach to education reform doubtless attempt to all over the nation. in part, when i say attempted i should say that it was a tad dated, embraced, but also it became the purse out of necessity because the antenna, like so many cities have to deal with weight slide, with a contract in economy.

so it was a very complex circumstance. a part of why the african-american -- african-americans who took over the cities were not able to achieve out there who because they didn't have very much to work with it and they actually gained power. anything that does not use was born in politics. >> so i really liked your bottom-up purge to history. i think that's really valuable because it lends texture and really an understanding of what really happened. it makes things seem more contingent and more contested than they were, then asserted dominate narrative had very similar to is the dominant narrative sort of come from?

are the lawyers and thurgood marshall, are they just more prominent and is that what makes not the dominant narrative -- but explains that? >> well, a number of things that would say. i mentioned that my book is not just winners history. so the dominant narrative is consistent with winners history. so of course they want to tell the history of the naacp leaders , of thurgood marshall and his conception of equality because we are proud in this country of brown versus board of education and its role in cleansing constitutional flaw of jim crow and there is some debate about this in

contributing to all of the changes, subsequent changes in the law. so to the extent that we value the work of marshall and the history is being written by those within law schools, one would expect that that particular narrative would be dominant. a corollary of that is income to two shalala, as many of you will know, we don't talk so much about inequality as they relate to economics. there's not a lot one can do with that, right-click if you think in terms of its hard to

fit into that bottom-up approach into that dominant narratives because the bottom-up approach is more complicated as you say. it's hard to tell at the narrative that is about success and a narrative of progress when you have mathews weighs in at narrative. so that is a large part of it. and of course it matters to rates history, right? is a tremendous part of it, too. other questions? >> i probably didn't have to come to the mic for this, but he mentioned that had the dissenters -- welcome you talk

about what the dissenters would've to propose the movement to look like as most mainstream leaders. i wanted to get your personal opinion on whether or not you think the movement would better serve had the dissenters had their way i guess in a very large or robust fashion. >> so that is a complicated question in part because a part of what i am arguing is that the dissenters disagree with one another so i can only answer the question by referring to particular dissenters, the particular historical moment. and so, all dark with the parenthesis. i do think that as a critique of that school desegregation that was offered was valuable.

dust, when i think it may teach education law and policy, what about what makes for a good school, a good education, i don't just think about putting students in a classroom and just letting them be. of course it takes nurturing teachers and takes thinking about curriculum and other criticisms of school desegregation across lake in which the process unfolded, related to the destruction of a culture. so things like mascot and all sorts of things that might seem small to us, but from the uva student with certain traditions, i think they are large.

to that extent, i think those critiques were valuable. now, as to the second wave of dissenters, movement lawyers and activists, certainly he emphasized on an up approach to clearing the disconnect it to communities resonates with me very much. now, the trick with that is this. it can be difficult to engage in impact lawyering and remain the two communities. impact lawyering, class actions because those cases take on a momentum of brown that's driven to a large extent by the courts are not so much by the plaintiffs, which is why the

lynn holt said howard morris often litigated cases over so -- the scale of them doesn't compare to the scale of the brown versus board of education. unless i would suggest that if one was to listen to that kind of dissent, one has to be committed to a variety of approaches to lawyering as well as integrating political tactics i don't even mean that lobbying. the students were interest did in one mickles program. as to mathews and her approach to dissent, yes, i think that it

is important to think about the ways in which the legacy of jim crow includes poverty. and of course we do talk about those issues, right? we don't just historicizing his issues. that's what talk about mass incarceration. we talk about all sorts of issues that relate to that legacy, but they're not and i'm not sure we speak about them in a way that is sensitive, that is sympathetic to the outsole may not use of the world what to think the thing that is important is that if math is another slight curve -- have only spoken about her, but i do think that she received in a

powerful way this sense that i save poor, don't really care about their kids are the education of their kids. she and these women who litigated this case, who were involved in the case were motivated entirely by a concern about the welfare of their kids and a lot of the rhetoric that one hears about around education policy and again i do work in this area is very far removed from that reality. other questions? i really love this part. >> i think you touched on this to some extent, but one trend that's occurred