■x■x■x■x■x■x■x■x■x■xo ♪♪♪ male narrator: in 1949, thurgood marshall, the director of the naacp legal defense fund an obscure new york lawyer named franklin hall williams, to assist in a case involving four young black men in groland, orida o wereof rapg a whitwoman. one ofhe suspes was hued do in a swp and killed by a posse. two were taken out on a desolate road and shot by the sheriff, one tally. twe survivs wereonvicta desolate roby aall-whitjury on theiff, strength of false confesons at resuld from tture. all re innoct, but tira desolate innin 19 in theeep soutceiff, a white jury could simply never credit the word of a black man over thaof a whi girl. it wasocially d polically uninkable. frklin wilams quicy found mself rown intthe midd of a cultural and legal minefield. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ how ry few pple knew rout frankl williams.the irony is, at least to me, i mean, across the board, he was noa, quotenquote, famous pson. t when you look at his life, you realize how much of an impact this man had. narrator: throughout his lifetime, he would play many roles: attorney, civil rights leader, organizer of the

. >> the former leader of the naacp legal defense fund made a very important point on twitter if youhat is, i have the conservative super majority on the supreme court of the united states not gutted the heart of the voting rights act, this would not be possible. because mississippi would have to submit any changes to its voting laws to either the department of justice or a three judge panel for approval. are precisely the reason the mayor has now alleged. because this is a history, a state of the history of racial discrimination. an example of something that would probably not super are five scrutiny. when you have to go through the voting rights act process. >> about the crime in jackson, is that predicate for doing something this rash there? >> we can't lose sight of the problem. jackson is a city in a series of crises, the water crisis, the zoo crisis, the crime crisis. but if you look at that, i think the murder rate for the united states is five per 100,000. in jackson it is 88. so it is per capita probably the murder capital of the united states. with 153,000 people murders. t

and if you read the brief by the naacp legal defense fund to the court in the terry they talk about the the the mass of numbers of stops and search as that were being done in predominantly black and neighborhoods in neighborhoods of people with color people of color said we don't need more of this we need more protections from it. the supreme court looking at these two sides, decided sort of to to find some sort middle ground or what they considered be middle ground. and so what the supreme court said was the fourth amendment applies. you don't have unfettered discretion court cops to do these searches, but it's not as much as the fourth amendment is full protection. you need a warrant or you don't need probable cause. all you need the supreme court said was reasonable to believe that the person had done something wrong or in the case of a search, that they had something on their person that created a danger so although court viewed this as compromise, i think between two competing considerations this reasonable suspicion standard has come to play an enormous role in the fourth amendmen

in a new york times op-ed, janai nelson, the president and director counsel of the naacp legal defense fundrican studies may, quote, so the racial divisions which enable white supremacy. quote, the losses to our nation if this broad attack to our shared history is allowed to continue our incalculable. not only will it breathe a generation of americans indoctrinated by ignorance, it will deny them the analytical skills to understand the complex history of this experiment of democracy, as well as the historic grounding to sustain it. thhold that thought about the analytical skills, i want to talk about that in a moment. the far-right's relentless ski fearmongering and othering is nothing new. the danger comes when major u.s. institutions, like the education system, capitulate to far-right extremist. some of those removed from the black victim remove renowned thinkers like james bach when, bell hooks, ta-nehisi coates, and my next guest, professor kimberly crenshaw. a pioneering scholar in the areas of gender and race -- she is the author of actual critical race theory, not the scarecrow versi

also -- president of the naacp legal defense fund. thank you both for joining me this evening as we talk about a complicated issue, but one that is, as we see, based on the events of the last week, ever more urgent. philip, professor, i want to start with your reaction to the story that is being reported in the l. a. times from cornell walker, a man who sounds like he had in some ways, a similar experience, at least at the outset, with the scorpion unit. absolute confusion. overly aggressive response. obviously a different outcome. what is your thought when you hear the details of his story and philip, i will start with you. >> the details of the story are not surprising. they are not uncommon. if you recall, during the terroristic reign of stop, and frisk in new york, there are constant stories that people would not believe until there is videotape of it. until there is videotape of a young man who had been pulled over, stop, questioned, three different times. the special the sort of urban crime or gun units -- they have a habit of c