The first major documentary biography of civil rights hero, congressional…
A Crime on the Bayou
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From the award-winning director of The Loving Story, A Crime on the Bayou is the story of Gary Duncan, a Black teenager from Plaquemines Parish, a swampy strip of land south of New Orleans.
In 1966, Duncan tries to break up an argument between white and Black teenagers outside a newly integrated school. He gently lays his hand on a white boy’s arm. The boy recoils like a snake. That night, police burst into Duncan’s trailer and arrest him for assault on a minor.
A young Jewish attorney, Richard Sobol, leaves his prestigious D.C. firm to volunteer in New Orleans. With his help, Duncan bravely stands up to a racist legal system powered by a white supremacist boss to challenge his unfair arrest. Their fight goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Duncan and Sobol’s lifelong friendship is forged.
'Vivid...Provide[s] an unusually palpable sense of just how much deeply-ingrained institutional and cultural bias needed to be overcome for the civil rights movement to make real headway...[An] engrossing, flavorful document.' Dennis Harvey, Variety
'A Crime on the Bayou never explodes with fury. But that doesn't mean you won't feel enraged while taking in the maddening series of systematic wrongs committed against Sobol and Duncan.' Robert Daniels, The Los Angeles Times
'Thoughtful and illuminating...Shines a light on a groundbreaking piece of recent American history that will be news to many viewers.' Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter
'Filmmaker Nancy Buirski has an elegant, judicious way of imparting the facts of the case, taking not just the political temperature of the moment (boiling) but finely sketching the character and minds of the people involved. 4 out of 4 stars.' Steven Boone, Roger Ebert
'Buirski follows the case with cogency and clarity, illuminating its implications and putting it in the perspective of Black and white alliances in the struggle for Civil Rights.' Peter Keough, The Boston Globe
'It has a potent idea, which is to show how even bureaucratic aspects of the legal system in the Deep South in the 1960s could be weaponized against Black Americans.' Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times
'Must-see...A Crime on the Bayou focuses on an incident that happened in 1966 but is, infuriatingly, still timely and relevant more than half a century later.' Lois Alter Mark, Alliance of Women Film Journalists
'Buirski has assembled an impressive set of historical sources but allows the story to unfold so naturally that it feels as if it were being told for the first time...The issues at the heart of this film remain very much alive today.' Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film
'The film sharply illustrates the pervasive character of systemic racism that allows one person to use his position in society to tangle another in a web that can trap him for a lifetime.' Pat Mullen, POV Magazine
'Tells a powerful, important story, the reverberations of which still linger.' Jeffrey M. Anderson, Common Sense Media
'Essential...An urgent, exceptionally well told chronicle of an important but often forgotten moment in American history.' Sean Patrick, Vocal
'Topical and gripping...Given current events, rarely has a film felt so essential.' Mike Scott, Times-Picayune
'Very well-made...An essential piece to think about the United States of America - how it was and why it is like it is today.' Leticia Magalhaes, Cine Suffragette
'If you want to look at this national conversation about systemic racism, this is a nice demonstration of where it manifests.' Kevin Carr, Fat Guys at the Movies
'Documentarian Nancy Buirski deploys a delicate cinematic elegance to tell Duncan's tale.' MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher
'Eloquently draws out the heroism of ordinary extraordinary Americans...5 out of 5 stars.' Thelma Adams, AARP
'I strongly recommend A Crime on the Bayou...The story it tells is about a key moment in the fight against Jim Crow, and it tells it well.' Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist
'A good, straightforward documentary.' Peter Rainer, FilmWeek
'True and disturbing...Shocking...A Crime on the Bayou shines a light on race relations in the U.S....It's a story about persistence and vigilance in the face of the uglier side of humanity.' Peter Martin, Screen Anarchy
'Incredible story...A real life head-on collision between good and evil.' David Ferguson, Red Carpet Crash
'Fascinating...A very different documentary on race and hate in the 1960s. Normally, we are shown stories of illegal incarceration, pain and suffering...Could we have here a story of the carriage of justice?' Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews
'Does a good job in balancing the legal, the political and the personal in the telling of its story.' Peter Canavese, Celluloid Dreams
'The modern day comparisons are clear and Duncan and Sobol's quest for justice - no matter what threats they faced - is utterly inspiring.' Mary Palmer, Jumpcut Online
'The documentary...serves as a wake-up call: the time of Jim Crow really isn't that far in the past.' Kent Turner, Film-Forward
'A powerful, important story...The movie's message of tolerance is righteously clear, and sadly timely.' Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
'Artful...This is another overlooked chapter of great significance in US race relations, one that Buirski tells with an engrossing, flavorful mix of archival materials and testimony from the still-living protagonists themselves.' Dennis Harvey, 48 Hills
Citation
Main credits
Duncan, Gary (on-screen participant)
Sobol, Richard B. (on-screen participant)
Buirski, Nancy (film director)
Buirski, Nancy (film producer)
Buirski, Nancy (screenwriter)
Margolin, Susan (film producer)
Chandler, Claire L. (film producer)
Martino, Vanessa (film producer)
Ripoli, Anthony (editor of moving image work)
Miller, Rex (director of photography)
Other credits
Editor, Anthony Ripoli; director of photography, Rex Miller.
Distributor subjects
Activism; African-American Studies; American Democracy; American Studies; Citizenship and Civics; Civil Rights; Film Studies; History; Human Rights; Law; Poverty; Race and Racism; Social Justice; Social Psychology; SociologyKeywords
00:00:39.915 --> 00:00:43.545
and I'm the baby,
(chuckles) and, uh...
00:02:15.428 --> 00:02:17.222
(Gary Duncan) We thought
we'd have been all right on the boat,
00:02:17.347 --> 00:02:18.515
which we was, you know?
00:02:18.640 --> 00:02:22.143
'Cause when the water rise,
the boat gonna rise.
00:02:22.268 --> 00:02:24.395
(wind howling)
00:02:31.402 --> 00:02:33.613
(Man) It's one
continuous blow.
00:02:33.738 --> 00:02:36.157
I'm telling you, she's
a-blowin' and she's a-shakin'.
00:02:39.535 --> 00:02:41.287
(Gary) So we still
on the boat.
00:02:56.385 --> 00:02:59.347
(Man) By midnight,
Betsy's overwhelming the city.
00:02:59.472 --> 00:03:02.267
Gusts are reaching 150
miles an hour,
00:03:02.392 --> 00:03:05.185
and all the church bells in
town are tolling wildly in the wind.
00:03:05.310 --> 00:03:07.855
(bells clanging)
00:03:13.318 --> 00:03:17.407
(Gary) And it's just the next day
that we didn't have no communication.
00:03:18.365 --> 00:03:23.245
We couldn't get in touch with our
family, and we was worrying about them.
00:03:26.415 --> 00:03:29.377
They had been bringing dead
bodies up from out of the river.
00:03:35.925 --> 00:03:37.677
My daddy, he cried.
00:03:38.385 --> 00:03:40.053
Everybody cried.
00:03:41.305 --> 00:03:45.225
We were all hugging, you know,
so...
00:03:45.350 --> 00:03:46.685
And he vowed, he said, no,
00:03:46.810 --> 00:03:49.397
he said I'm never going out
there, no more of that.
00:03:49.605 --> 00:03:53.400
He's not gonna let any of his children
stay on the boats during a hurricane.
00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:55.362
He said, "The hell
with the boats."
00:03:55.487 --> 00:03:57.280
He said he always could
get another boat.
00:04:05.622 --> 00:04:08.457
You trust God that
everything'll be all right.
00:04:09.917 --> 00:04:12.337
Guess what? You got another
hurricane coming at you.
00:04:16.798 --> 00:04:19.343
There's eight of us,
four boys and four girls,
00:04:19.468 --> 00:04:24.307
and I'm the baby,
(chuckles) and, uh...
00:04:24.432 --> 00:04:27.435
and pretty much all of them
to their twenties beat me.
00:04:27.560 --> 00:04:29.103
(chuckles)
00:04:34.442 --> 00:04:36.027
I used to trawl.
00:04:36.902 --> 00:04:38.487
I would trawl for shrimps.
00:04:39.530 --> 00:04:41.740
And my brother Calvin,
he was a fisherman.
00:04:42.658 --> 00:04:45.453
I started out, I don't know,
00:04:45.578 --> 00:04:48.372
12 years old, I guess,
foolin' with Calvin, going out,
00:04:48.580 --> 00:04:52.418
and we'd put a net in the water
and we'd drag it for a couple hours.
00:04:52.627 --> 00:04:54.128
We'd pick up and...
00:04:55.045 --> 00:04:57.465
put the catch on the deck
of the boat and we...
00:04:57.590 --> 00:04:59.007
we'd sort it out.
00:04:59.132 --> 00:05:01.468
Throw the bad catch away,
and we'd keep the shrimps.
00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:11.520
My daddy, he was a
boat captain.
00:05:11.645 --> 00:05:13.355
They started...
00:05:15.483 --> 00:05:16.858
harassing us.
00:05:22.490 --> 00:05:24.367
When the boat was on the job,
00:05:24.575 --> 00:05:27.453
and we'd come back to the dock,
we had to sleep on 'em because...
00:05:28.788 --> 00:05:30.832
they had set one of
them afire.
00:05:31.790 --> 00:05:34.918
Anything can happen to you,
you know?
00:05:35.043 --> 00:05:38.338
You could go to jail for,
back then, eye-rape,
00:05:38.463 --> 00:05:42.552
or, you know, you-- hey, you
stay away in your Black community,
00:05:42.677 --> 00:05:45.053
because you could get--
00:05:45.262 --> 00:05:48.975
they just could trump any kind of-- put
any kind of charges on you, you know?
00:05:49.183 --> 00:05:51.602
For anything.
So we stuck to ourselves.
00:05:51.727 --> 00:05:53.478
Hey, you know, nobody
want no trouble.
00:05:53.603 --> 00:05:55.565
We couldn't afford no trouble,
you know?
00:05:55.690 --> 00:05:59.485
'Cause my mama always said,
"Trouble's easy to get into,
00:05:59.610 --> 00:06:01.570
but hard to get out of,"
you know?
00:06:01.695 --> 00:06:04.240
And a Black person
back when I was coming up,
00:06:04.365 --> 00:06:09.995
he didn't stand a chance
of having his...
00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:13.540
We didn't have no rights.
We didn't have no rights.
00:07:01.838 --> 00:07:03.590
Well, I was working.
00:07:03.715 --> 00:07:04.717
And I was married,
00:07:04.842 --> 00:07:08.303
and my wife just had
my first child,
00:07:08.428 --> 00:07:10.598
and I had to go get her--
00:07:10.723 --> 00:07:11.598
she was in Charity Hospital--
00:07:11.723 --> 00:07:13.893
to pick her up from
the hospital,
00:07:14.018 --> 00:07:17.522
and I was driving south
on Highway 23.
00:07:33.578 --> 00:07:37.123
The school was just letting
out, and children...
00:07:37.333 --> 00:07:40.503
the ones that wasn't riding
the school bus, they was walking.
00:07:40.628 --> 00:07:43.297
That's when I seen--
I just passed by the school,
00:07:43.422 --> 00:07:45.132
and a little further out
from the school,
00:07:45.340 --> 00:07:48.468
I seen my cousin and my
nephew, one of my nephews,
00:07:48.677 --> 00:07:51.472
with four white boys
standing on the side of the road.
00:07:54.517 --> 00:07:58.103
(boys arguing indistinctly)
00:07:58.562 --> 00:08:01.273
But what really got my
attention was a couple of white fellas.
00:08:01.482 --> 00:08:03.108
They was watching,
00:08:03.233 --> 00:08:04.610
so I stopped.
00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:08.072
I told Harry, I said,
"Something's going on." So I backed up.
00:08:08.113 --> 00:08:11.908
I got out of the car. I said,
"What's the problem? What's wrong?"
00:08:12.033 --> 00:08:14.912
And they was just
about in tears.
00:08:15.037 --> 00:08:16.038
"They want to fight us."
00:08:17.998 --> 00:08:19.750
I said, "Fight y'all? What?" You know,
"Why do they want to fight y'all?"
00:08:19.958 --> 00:08:21.460
And...
00:08:22.085 --> 00:08:23.712
Bud Landry, said,
00:08:23.837 --> 00:08:26.257
"We don't want to fight 'em.
We just wanted to know their names."
00:08:26.382 --> 00:08:27.550
You know?
00:08:27.675 --> 00:08:29.552
So I told him,
"Well, my name is Gary."
00:08:29.677 --> 00:08:32.178
And I touched him on his arm.
00:08:32.388 --> 00:08:35.348
Didn't hit him, just touched
him, just from talking.
00:08:35.557 --> 00:08:36.517
And that was it.
00:08:36.725 --> 00:08:39.270
I said, "Y'all, come on, let's
go. Get in the car."
00:08:54.410 --> 00:08:56.745
(Richard Sobol)
He touched him on...
00:08:56.870 --> 00:09:00.540
he touched one of the boys
on the elbow, kind of...
00:09:02.585 --> 00:09:03.793
"Go on home."
00:09:04.712 --> 00:09:08.173
And the father of
one of the boys
00:09:08.298 --> 00:09:10.760
was within eyesight of this.
00:09:10.885 --> 00:09:13.930
And he reported that Duncan
had slapped his son.
00:09:14.055 --> 00:09:15.388
I don't know what time it was.
00:09:17.098 --> 00:09:18.100
Early part of the night,
I think it was, my mama called.
00:09:20.018 --> 00:09:22.397
She said, "They got a warrant
out for your arrest. Come back home."
00:09:22.605 --> 00:09:26.733
So I came on back home, and
the next day I turned myself in.
00:09:26.733 --> 00:09:30.237
And they had the charges on
me. Cruelty to a juvenile.
00:09:32.948 --> 00:09:36.660
(Sobol) They claimed that by touching
the white boy, he had committed a crime.
00:09:41.707 --> 00:09:44.752
People talk about
totalitarian regimes
00:09:44.877 --> 00:09:46.920
as being so regimented
and so predictable,
00:09:47.045 --> 00:09:49.423
and that's the nature
of their oppression.
00:09:50.257 --> 00:09:52.760
But in fact, it's the
exact opposite.
00:09:52.885 --> 00:09:58.557
The arbitrary nature
of the totalitarian regime's actions
00:09:58.682 --> 00:10:00.810
is what makes it so
oppressive.
00:10:01.393 --> 00:10:04.188
You never know
when you've crossed the line.
00:10:10.693 --> 00:10:12.613
(Gary) Perez was
making them do that.
00:10:12.738 --> 00:10:17.242
Perez made Landry
file charges on me
00:10:17.452 --> 00:10:21.455
'cause they wanted to use me for an
example for the rest of the Blacks.
00:10:21.955 --> 00:10:23.623
(William F. Buckley) Have you
been very wildly misquoted?
00:10:23.832 --> 00:10:26.793
For instance, you're quoted
as having said, quote,
00:10:26.793 --> 00:10:31.257
"Yes, the Negro is inherently immoral.
Yes, I think it's the brain capacity."
00:10:31.465 --> 00:10:32.717
Is that a misquotation?
00:10:32.842 --> 00:10:34.843
It's not a misquotation.
It's the truth.
00:10:34.968 --> 00:10:36.512
Because I know Negroes.
00:10:36.637 --> 00:10:40.015
We have a number of Negroes
in our community,
00:10:40.140 --> 00:10:43.352
and I know that basically,
fundamentally, they are immoral.
00:10:43.477 --> 00:10:45.645
They're un-moral.
I know that to be a fact.
00:10:45.770 --> 00:10:47.145
-I--
-(Buckley) Yes.
00:10:47.187 --> 00:10:48.857
-Why should I try to hide it?
-(Buckley) Well--
00:10:48.898 --> 00:10:52.653
I'd be untrue to myself if I
tried to deny it out of cowardice.
00:10:52.862 --> 00:10:53.945
Of course.
00:10:55.528 --> 00:10:56.740
And I wouldn't-- I wouldn't
plead guilty to that, could I?
00:10:56.865 --> 00:11:00.327
It's been said of you
that you have a--
00:11:00.535 --> 00:11:02.328
that "you can grudgingly
admire his blunt talk.
00:11:02.538 --> 00:11:04.832
He is honest about
his bigotry."
00:11:04.957 --> 00:11:07.083
-And--
-I'm not a bigot, son.
00:11:07.208 --> 00:11:10.045
-I'm not a bigot at all.
-(audience laughs)
00:11:10.170 --> 00:11:12.465
Well, look, whatever you are,
Judge Perez,
00:11:12.590 --> 00:11:14.383
and I'm sure you're a
great many things,
00:11:14.425 --> 00:11:16.260
what you don't have is sovereign
power over the English language.
00:11:16.302 --> 00:11:18.345
-(audience laughs)
-I am just a good American.
00:11:18.470 --> 00:11:20.555
(indistinct chanting)
00:11:20.680 --> 00:11:23.808
(Sobol) Leander Perez fought
like no one ever had before
00:11:23.933 --> 00:11:26.145
against desegregating the
public schools.
00:12:07.687 --> 00:12:10.898
(screams and shouts)
00:12:11.023 --> 00:12:12.900
(dogs barking)
00:12:33.295 --> 00:12:35.380
(Dan Rather) A year ago,
newspapers throughout America
00:12:35.505 --> 00:12:38.508
front-paged a four-column
picture of the protestors.
00:12:38.633 --> 00:12:41.303
Prominent in the picture
was the rural political boss
00:12:41.428 --> 00:12:44.390
credited with making sure
the school had no students,
00:12:44.515 --> 00:12:46.808
Leander Henry Perez.
00:12:46.933 --> 00:12:48.935
I'm not bragging, sir,
00:12:49.060 --> 00:12:52.773
but I said we are not
surrendering our schools
00:12:52.898 --> 00:12:55.275
to anybody, and that
means anyone.
00:12:56.735 --> 00:12:59.655
(Gary) If it wouldn't have been Perez,
there wouldn't have been a case.
00:12:59.863 --> 00:13:02.742
I know there's, in one of
the old Encyclopedia Britannicas,
00:13:02.867 --> 00:13:05.410
they had an article on that
by a British scientist.
00:13:05.995 --> 00:13:08.247
He says that the Negro child
will develop
00:13:08.372 --> 00:13:10.623
until he gets to be
about 11 years of age,
00:13:10.832 --> 00:13:13.835
and then because of the
thickness of this cranium,
00:13:14.043 --> 00:13:19.383
and the limited size
of the brain area,
00:13:19.508 --> 00:13:21.052
he stops expanding.
00:13:21.760 --> 00:13:24.888
He goes so far, and
no further.
00:13:25.013 --> 00:13:26.848
That's a pretty good 'un.
A friend of mine wrote that.
00:13:26.973 --> 00:13:28.683
-(indistinct remark)
-Yeah.
00:13:28.808 --> 00:13:30.227
-Glad you enjoyed it.
-So long.
00:13:31.145 --> 00:13:33.272
(Man) I definitely think
that he could be considered
00:13:33.397 --> 00:13:35.690
as one of the natural
resources of the parish.
00:13:37.233 --> 00:13:39.403
(Dan Rather) Plaquemines
Parishlies on both sides
00:13:39.612 --> 00:13:41.613
of the mile-wide Mississippi,
00:13:41.738 --> 00:13:45.075
on rich, marshy soil
that has over the centuries
00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:49.872
washed down the 2,350 miles
of twisting river
00:13:49.997 --> 00:13:53.833
to push its delta even farther
into the Gulf of Mexico.
00:13:54.042 --> 00:13:56.712
In the years when Leander
Perez was growing up,
00:13:56.920 --> 00:14:00.215
one of 13 children
of a sugar and rice planter,
00:14:00.423 --> 00:14:04.845
the flat prairie, the swamps
and bayous of Plaquemines Parish
00:14:05.053 --> 00:14:07.848
were the source of its chief
industry, the trapping of muskrats.
00:14:09.182 --> 00:14:11.018
Today all that has changed.
00:14:11.477 --> 00:14:14.272
Oil, discovered in 1928,
00:14:14.397 --> 00:14:17.023
has altered both the
parish and Perez,
00:14:17.148 --> 00:14:18.858
and neither have been
the same since.
00:14:21.362 --> 00:14:23.530
As the money began to roll in,
00:14:23.655 --> 00:14:28.202
Leander Perez, through shrewd
manipulation in the state legislature,
00:14:28.327 --> 00:14:31.872
managed to siphon off
a good deal of it for the parish.
00:14:33.915 --> 00:14:36.960
There is only one Judge Perez.
Let's not kid ourself.
00:14:37.460 --> 00:14:39.087
There is only one Judge Perez,
00:14:39.295 --> 00:14:41.965
and as I said, that man
was a gift from God to us.
00:14:42.173 --> 00:14:45.885
(Man) To me, Judge Perez
is a very egotistical sort of character.
00:14:46.803 --> 00:14:48.847
He's arrogant, generally.
00:14:48.972 --> 00:14:54.603
Self-righteous, but I think
most of the time completely wrong.
00:14:54.728 --> 00:14:57.898
Everybody in that parish
better play ball with Leander Perez.
00:14:58.023 --> 00:15:00.985
One way or another.
They better.
00:15:02.110 --> 00:15:04.947
'Cause there's too many ways
that he can make it very obnoxious.
00:15:05.738 --> 00:15:08.117
It is my personal
opinion that...
00:15:08.325 --> 00:15:13.955
Mr. Perez, over a period of years,
has established a tighter dynasty,
00:15:15.790 --> 00:15:19.085
and has a better setup,
than Mr. Khrushchev has.
00:15:19.210 --> 00:15:24.007
(Dan Rather) You now have
as your enemies, your opponents,
00:15:24.132 --> 00:15:27.135
at least the last four
presidents of the United States,
00:15:27.260 --> 00:15:28.970
President Kennedy,
President Eisenhower,
00:15:29.095 --> 00:15:31.473
President Truman,
President Roosevelt.
00:15:31.598 --> 00:15:34.393
The Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, Earl Warren,
00:15:34.518 --> 00:15:38.647
the other justices of the
Supreme Court, the late Pope John.
00:15:38.772 --> 00:15:42.108
You also have as your enemies,
your sworn opponents,
00:15:42.233 --> 00:15:44.945
such institutions
as the United States government,
00:15:45.070 --> 00:15:47.823
parts, at least,
of the Roman Catholic Church,
00:15:47.948 --> 00:15:50.742
the Departments of Justice,
Interior,
00:15:50.867 --> 00:15:53.370
to some extent
the Department of Defense,
00:15:53.495 --> 00:15:56.373
the United States Navy,
United Nations.
00:15:56.498 --> 00:15:58.000
This is a formidable list.
00:15:58.125 --> 00:16:00.377
(Perez) What is the future
of our country?
00:16:00.502 --> 00:16:05.215
Why the communist conspiracy
to deprive our white youth
00:16:05.340 --> 00:16:07.677
of educational opportunities?
00:16:08.385 --> 00:16:11.638
Does Mr. Kennedy see that,
or does he give a damn?
00:16:11.763 --> 00:16:13.848
-(Man) No!
-Did President Eisenhower see it,
00:16:13.973 --> 00:16:17.560
surrounded by his Zionist
advisors, Max Rabinowitz?
00:16:17.685 --> 00:16:19.813
Goldfein and company?
00:16:19.938 --> 00:16:23.025
Did Harry Truman see it? No.
00:16:23.150 --> 00:16:25.652
(Gary) Well, he was a
dictatorship. Perez was a dictatorship.
00:16:25.777 --> 00:16:29.615
He wasn't elected into office.
He took that position.
00:16:29.740 --> 00:16:31.033
Then everybody called
him a judge.
00:16:31.158 --> 00:16:33.243
Oh, yeah. He was the man.
He was in charge.
00:16:33.368 --> 00:16:35.078
He ran this parish.
00:16:35.203 --> 00:16:37.622
And at one time he was
a judge. Yeah.
00:16:38.623 --> 00:16:40.833
(Robert Collins) He didn't
have any problem with Black folks
00:16:41.042 --> 00:16:44.003
living in his parish as long
as they were agricultural workers,
00:16:44.212 --> 00:16:46.090
as long as they were
working on farms,
00:16:46.215 --> 00:16:48.967
as long as they were
domestic servants.
00:16:49.092 --> 00:16:51.595
He hated Jews for the
same reason,
00:16:51.803 --> 00:16:54.180
not only because they were
active in the civil rights movement.
00:16:54.180 --> 00:16:57.433
They didn't really fit
into his view
00:16:57.558 --> 00:17:00.603
of white Protestant
family life
00:17:00.728 --> 00:17:03.273
in white Protestant America.
00:17:26.630 --> 00:17:29.508
Let's think about what
Gary Duncan did.
00:17:29.633 --> 00:17:32.135
He's attempting to
break up a fight,
00:17:32.260 --> 00:17:34.555
and he puts his hand on
this white man.
00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:36.307
He didn't punch this man.
00:17:36.432 --> 00:17:39.518
He didn't engage in the fight.
He's attempting to break up the fight.
00:17:40.602 --> 00:17:42.187
That's illegal?
00:17:42.897 --> 00:17:47.442
Under no circumstances
are you supposed to see yourself
00:17:47.567 --> 00:17:49.445
as being equal to
this white man.
00:17:49.570 --> 00:17:53.157
And, in fact, we will
charge you legally
00:17:53.282 --> 00:17:58.662
for this failure to understand
the nature of your existence.
00:17:58.787 --> 00:18:01.748
You know, and I thank God
that I had parents that I had.
00:18:01.957 --> 00:18:07.170
'Cause me, I probably would have
just run on up there and pled guilty,
00:18:07.378 --> 00:18:10.298
figure I'd pay a fine and go
on about my business, you know?
00:18:10.507 --> 00:18:14.887
He could have gone home that
night, but he chose not to.
00:18:15.095 --> 00:18:16.430
Uh...
00:18:18.432 --> 00:18:20.808
I don't think there's one in a
hundred people that would do that,
00:18:21.058 --> 00:18:22.227
make that choice.
00:18:25.522 --> 00:18:31.320
The guy is of steel
about his rights,
00:18:31.445 --> 00:18:34.948
and justice and what's fair,
and...
00:18:35.532 --> 00:18:37.283
and he still is.
00:18:43.290 --> 00:18:45.917
(Gary) F.J. and Wilbur,
the policemen,
00:18:46.042 --> 00:18:47.962
stopped me and asked me
what happened,
00:18:48.087 --> 00:18:50.005
and they told me
to get in the police car.
00:18:50.130 --> 00:18:52.132
They brought me back
to the scene.
00:18:52.340 --> 00:18:55.510
That's where the four white
boys were standing there, and...
00:18:56.387 --> 00:18:57.803
one of them said I hit him.
00:18:58.805 --> 00:19:00.265
And the rest of them
didn't say anything.
00:19:00.265 --> 00:19:02.350
They didn't. You know,
that I didn't do anything.
00:19:02.475 --> 00:19:04.310
Wilbur and FJ said, "Well, hey,
00:19:04.435 --> 00:19:07.522
it don't matter much what any of
them say because I know if he hit him,
00:19:07.647 --> 00:19:09.148
we'll be able to tell."
00:19:09.273 --> 00:19:10.233
They let me go,
00:19:11.817 --> 00:19:13.195
and so I came home and I got
my wife out of the hospital,
00:19:13.320 --> 00:19:16.823
and my mama called me and said,
"They got a warrant out for your arrest."
00:19:16.948 --> 00:19:19.325
So I came on back and I
turned myself in.
00:19:19.450 --> 00:19:23.247
And they had me charged
with cruelty to a juvenile.
00:19:23.372 --> 00:19:25.248
I went and had an interview
with Mr. Sobol,
00:19:25.373 --> 00:19:28.168
and we talked, and he told me
when I go to court
00:19:28.293 --> 00:19:32.172
to plead not guilty,
and that's what I did.
00:19:32.297 --> 00:19:34.382
They had evidence,
but they couldn't charge me
00:19:34.507 --> 00:19:35.842
with cruelty to a juvenile.
00:19:35.967 --> 00:19:41.180
Which you can't be without
having authority over the child.
00:19:41.305 --> 00:19:42.765
So they dropped the charge.
00:19:43.392 --> 00:19:46.228
They let me go,
but by the time I got home,
00:19:46.353 --> 00:19:48.730
the police, FJ and Wilbur,
were sitting at my house
00:19:48.855 --> 00:19:50.315
waiting for me,
to take me back to jail
00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:51.775
to charge me with
assault and battery.
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:54.820
Then I realized they
was after me.
00:19:55.487 --> 00:19:58.032
(Lolis Eric Elie) Any time
white people would decide
00:19:58.157 --> 00:20:00.950
that what you were doing was
improper, you could be arrested for it.
00:20:01.410 --> 00:20:03.620
And you see that
in the Gary Duncan case.
00:20:03.745 --> 00:20:08.500
What is impossible to
enumerate is all the billions of times
00:20:08.625 --> 00:20:11.587
when Black people were
harassed for absolutely no reason
00:20:11.712 --> 00:20:14.380
other than the fact that
they were Black.
00:20:14.505 --> 00:20:19.010
Or perhaps because white people
needed to remind them that they were Black.
00:20:47.788 --> 00:20:50.250
(Armand Derfner)
Anything that put a Black person
00:20:50.375 --> 00:20:53.295
out of the normal line of
submissiveness
00:20:53.795 --> 00:20:57.132
was a civil rights or
Constitutional case. It became that.
00:20:57.257 --> 00:21:01.470
Because here's the thing:
If a Black person got out of line,
00:21:01.595 --> 00:21:03.305
then they would often
be arrested.
00:21:03.430 --> 00:21:05.515
And they'd be arrested
on some bogus charge.
00:21:05.640 --> 00:21:07.933
I remember I was in...
00:21:08.058 --> 00:21:10.853
in my office in Jackson,
and...
00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:14.900
somebody was arrested,
00:21:15.025 --> 00:21:19.487
and I asked, I called
the police station or whoever,
00:21:19.612 --> 00:21:21.030
and I asked what
the charge was,
00:21:21.155 --> 00:21:24.325
and the charge was
"using florid language."
00:21:24.450 --> 00:21:27.120
Okay. Or, um...
00:21:27.245 --> 00:21:30.290
I was representing somebody
in Cleveland, Mississippi, once.
00:21:30.415 --> 00:21:32.458
It was a Black person
wearing a suit,
00:21:32.583 --> 00:21:34.502
which was pretty suspicious
to begin with,
00:21:34.627 --> 00:21:37.672
wearing eyeglasses--
that was also suspicious.
00:21:37.797 --> 00:21:39.758
And so they just arrested him.
00:21:39.883 --> 00:21:42.302
Just to show people
who's in charge.
00:21:44.512 --> 00:21:49.475
The essence of the Southern system
in those days was total control.
00:21:49.600 --> 00:21:53.188
It was a totalitarian nation.
00:21:53.313 --> 00:21:55.607
(indistinct shouting)
00:21:57.983 --> 00:22:00.070
It was really viewed
as a separate nation.
00:22:00.195 --> 00:22:01.363
It was a totalitarian nation
00:22:01.488 --> 00:22:05.200
in which total control
was essential.
00:22:07.743 --> 00:22:10.538
Control of Black people
and white people.
00:22:10.663 --> 00:22:14.375
So, if a white person
thought differently,
00:22:14.500 --> 00:22:16.587
they'd find the law on them,
too.
00:22:17.545 --> 00:22:20.382
In Gary Duncan's case, I don't
know what he had done before,
00:22:20.507 --> 00:22:24.468
but if he had been in marches,
he's a marked man.
00:22:24.593 --> 00:22:28.140
If he hadn't been, well, then he got
to be a marked man that day.
00:22:28.848 --> 00:22:31.518
And that also means that ca--
00:22:31.643 --> 00:22:34.980
anything that involved
him after that,
00:22:35.105 --> 00:22:36.940
24 hours a day, seven
days a week,
00:22:37.065 --> 00:22:38.567
was a civil rights case.
00:22:39.608 --> 00:22:41.737
Because a civil rights case
00:22:41.862 --> 00:22:45.573
is one where something bad
is gonna happen to you
00:22:45.698 --> 00:22:49.912
out of proportion to or not
related to anything you actually did.
00:22:50.912 --> 00:22:56.167
So it was the white,
quote, "power structure,"
00:22:56.292 --> 00:22:58.878
whatever you want to call it,
the white system, governmental system,
00:22:59.003 --> 00:23:01.548
they were the ones
who created civil rights cases
00:23:01.673 --> 00:23:03.175
by what they did.
00:23:03.967 --> 00:23:06.052
(chair scrapes)
00:23:06.637 --> 00:23:12.017
(gavel banging)
00:23:12.142 --> 00:23:15.562
(Judge) Do you recall an incident
that occurred on October 18th?
00:23:15.687 --> 00:23:16.647
(Herman Landry) Well,
00:23:18.440 --> 00:23:19.942
me and Wayne and this other boy,
we was coming out of school,
00:23:20.067 --> 00:23:22.360
and we got out on the road.
00:23:22.485 --> 00:23:24.737
These two other boys was on
the other side of the road.
00:23:24.862 --> 00:23:27.490
We knew one of them
had got in a fight at school,
00:23:27.615 --> 00:23:31.537
and we asked him
what happened, and he was telling us.
00:23:31.662 --> 00:23:34.663
Then that boy right over there
stopped in his car,
00:23:34.788 --> 00:23:37.417
and he backed up,
and he got out of his car
00:23:37.542 --> 00:23:39.543
and he asked us what was going
on, and we told him nothing.
00:23:39.668 --> 00:23:41.420
We were just asking these boys
their name.
00:23:41.545 --> 00:23:43.465
He said, "You want
to know mine?"
00:23:43.507 --> 00:23:44.967
(Wayne Scarabin)
And the two boys said we was lying.
00:23:45.008 --> 00:23:46.510
(crowd murmurs)
00:23:46.635 --> 00:23:51.097
So Gary Duncan, he asked us
if we wanted to know his name.
00:23:51.222 --> 00:23:53.642
And he had his name
on his shirt.
00:23:53.767 --> 00:23:56.352
He says, "Can you read?"
00:23:56.477 --> 00:23:58.522
Herman told him yes.
00:23:58.647 --> 00:24:02.608
And he said, "You still want
to know my name?"
00:24:02.733 --> 00:24:04.862
Herman said yes.
00:24:04.987 --> 00:24:07.447
He told Herman
he was a smart little punk.
00:24:07.572 --> 00:24:09.490
(Herman) Then he told us
he was gonna beat us all up.
00:24:09.615 --> 00:24:12.202
And then I told that other
boy, I said, "He thinks he's tough."
00:24:12.327 --> 00:24:13.912
-That's when he slapped me.
-(crowd murmurs)
00:24:14.037 --> 00:24:15.622
(Darryl Bubrig)
Was it a hard slap?
00:24:15.747 --> 00:24:16.998
(Wayne)
Pretty hard, yes.
00:24:19.083 --> 00:24:20.877
(Bubrig) Wayne, do you know why
the defendant, Gary Duncan, stopped?
00:24:21.002 --> 00:24:23.630
(Wayne) I guess he thought we was
trying to jump the boys or something.
00:24:23.755 --> 00:24:26.675
-(crowd murmurs)
-(gavel bangs)
00:24:26.800 --> 00:24:29.468
(Gary) Mama, she asked me,
she said, "Did you hit him?"
00:24:29.593 --> 00:24:32.347
I said, "No. All I done
was touch him on his arm.
00:24:32.472 --> 00:24:35.683
I touched him on his arm.
I didn't hit him. I touched him."
00:24:35.808 --> 00:24:37.643
And she said, "Well, hey."
00:24:37.768 --> 00:24:40.272
She said, "I'll walk the
streets buck naked
00:24:40.397 --> 00:24:42.565
before I see you spend
one day in jail."
00:24:42.690 --> 00:24:45.902
(Sobol) It was his mother that
didn't want him to plead guilty
00:24:46.027 --> 00:24:49.280
and pay a fine
and have a criminal record
00:24:49.405 --> 00:24:52.325
and let them get
away with this.
00:24:52.450 --> 00:24:54.410
She was the driving force.
00:24:54.535 --> 00:25:00.125
When they sat down in my
little room there, she did the talking.
00:25:00.250 --> 00:25:02.293
I said, "What can I
do for you?"
00:25:02.418 --> 00:25:03.545
And she answered.
00:25:04.670 --> 00:25:06.798
And Gary was right there.
00:25:08.048 --> 00:25:11.302
I was working with the law
firm Collins, Douglas & Elie,
00:25:11.427 --> 00:25:16.725
which is the most important
firm in civil rights law in Louisiana.
00:25:16.850 --> 00:25:19.185
It was important
that out-of-state lawyers
00:25:19.310 --> 00:25:21.688
come to handle civil
rights cases
00:25:21.813 --> 00:25:24.732
because no lawyer in Louisiana
00:25:24.857 --> 00:25:27.568
would handle civil
rights cases.
00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:31.990
He didn't have no license to
practice law in the state of Louisiana,
00:25:32.115 --> 00:25:35.785
so he was working through
Collins, Douglas & Elie's office.
00:25:37.745 --> 00:25:39.080
They was involved
00:25:39.205 --> 00:25:41.750
in civil rights themselves,
you know.
00:25:41.875 --> 00:25:43.752
The right of the Black people.
00:25:46.128 --> 00:25:50.133
(Lolis Elie) It was difficult
for African-Americans to get lawyers
00:25:50.258 --> 00:25:52.385
in a civil rights matter,
00:25:52.510 --> 00:25:55.222
and of course in Plaquemines
Parish to get anyone
00:25:55.347 --> 00:25:59.392
to be involved in any case
in opposition to Leander Perez
00:25:59.517 --> 00:26:01.770
was a very dangerous thing.
00:26:01.895 --> 00:26:04.688
(Lolis Eric Elie) My father
and Bob Collins and Nils Douglas
00:26:04.813 --> 00:26:09.735
accepted the responsibility
of doing this work, in part because
00:26:09.860 --> 00:26:13.113
so few other people were
willing and able to do it.
00:26:13.823 --> 00:26:16.743
My father grew up in a part of
town called Nigger Town.
00:26:16.868 --> 00:26:18.412
When you asked him
where he was from,
00:26:18.537 --> 00:26:20.580
he'd make a point of saying
he was from Nigger Town.
00:26:22.165 --> 00:26:24.417
It was important to him
00:26:24.542 --> 00:26:26.377
that you understood
the full meaning of that,
00:26:26.502 --> 00:26:28.630
you understood that this man
who went to law school
00:26:28.755 --> 00:26:30.798
and tried these
important cases
00:26:30.923 --> 00:26:33.385
was from a part of town
called Nigger Town.
00:26:33.510 --> 00:26:37.388
(New Orleans jazz music plays)
00:26:44.687 --> 00:26:46.313
When you talk about
those people.
00:26:46.438 --> 00:26:48.483
when you talked about niggers,
you gotta realize
00:26:48.608 --> 00:26:51.527
sometimes niggers
go to Loyola Law School.
00:26:51.652 --> 00:26:53.738
Sometimes niggers do
great things.
00:27:04.457 --> 00:27:09.795
(Lolis Elie) At what point,
or when, is it possible
00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:13.717
for white people to look at
Black people as being human beings?
00:27:13.842 --> 00:27:16.845
I don't mean
an individual white person.
00:27:16.970 --> 00:27:18.972
I mean as a whole.
00:27:19.097 --> 00:27:21.598
I know not in my lifetime.
00:27:21.723 --> 00:27:22.642
Let's face it.
00:27:22.767 --> 00:27:24.768
You know, this is the
20th century.
00:27:24.893 --> 00:27:28.857
We're talking about a people
that has been on this continent
00:27:28.982 --> 00:27:31.233
for over 400 years.
00:27:32.860 --> 00:27:35.405
(New Orleans jazz
music continues)
00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:54.757
(Lolis Eric Elie) When people
like Richard Sobol came here,
00:27:54.882 --> 00:27:59.762
it allowed lawyers like Collins, Douglas
& Elie to have some assistance.
00:27:59.887 --> 00:28:03.808
Suddenly the forces
of civil rights had allies.
00:28:03.933 --> 00:28:04.683
(music fades)
00:28:06.142 --> 00:28:08.688
Sobol, Richard Sobol,
who had come to New Orleans
00:28:08.813 --> 00:28:13.067
from the law firm of Arnold,
Fortas & Porter,
00:28:13.192 --> 00:28:17.197
and I think it would be fair to say
that Sobol was something of a genius.
00:28:31.335 --> 00:28:35.715
(Sobol) I'm outside.
I'm gonna wave a cab down,
00:28:35.840 --> 00:28:40.178
and down the street,
a cab stops.
00:28:41.678 --> 00:28:44.223
I look in. It's Fortas.
00:28:45.892 --> 00:28:47.602
He said, "Get in."
00:28:47.727 --> 00:28:48.728
I said, "Well, this
is very nice."
00:28:50.438 --> 00:28:52.898
I had never been alone with
him after a year working there.
00:28:54.025 --> 00:28:56.360
You had to make an appointment
to see him,
00:28:56.485 --> 00:29:00.615
and lots of times the appointment
was denied. You couldn't see him.
00:29:00.740 --> 00:29:03.993
And here I am sitting next to him,
and I'm feeling, "This is great."
00:29:05.912 --> 00:29:10.292
But on the way, he said,
"What do you do at the firm?"
00:29:10.417 --> 00:29:12.543
And I told him...
00:29:14.628 --> 00:29:18.132
I told him, and he...
00:29:19.383 --> 00:29:22.387
He said, "Well, where
are you going now?
00:29:22.512 --> 00:29:23.972
And I said...
00:29:24.972 --> 00:29:29.060
proudly, because I'm talking
to a guy who really is big-time
00:29:29.185 --> 00:29:31.187
in good cause work,
00:29:31.312 --> 00:29:33.565
I said, "I'm going...
00:29:34.357 --> 00:29:36.150
It's my vacation.
00:29:36.275 --> 00:29:38.027
It starts today,
00:29:38.152 --> 00:29:43.992
and I'm gonna go down
to Louisiana
00:29:44.117 --> 00:29:45.868
to work on civil
rights cases."
00:29:45.993 --> 00:29:48.997
He said, "Well, I don't think
you should go.
00:29:49.122 --> 00:29:50.790
I think you should get
out of the cab
00:29:50.915 --> 00:29:54.877
and go inside and say
you've changed your mind.
00:29:55.002 --> 00:29:59.507
If you don't need a vacation,
then we don't want to give you one."
00:30:01.175 --> 00:30:05.430
Abe Fortas had just handled a
very famous case in the Supreme Court
00:30:05.555 --> 00:30:09.808
involving the right to counsel
in state court criminal proceedings.
00:30:11.060 --> 00:30:14.188
And I kinda got the mistaken,
naive idea
00:30:14.313 --> 00:30:16.815
there was gonna be a lot
of that kind of thing at the law firm.
00:30:18.442 --> 00:30:22.238
(Fortas) At the time of
Gideon, I felt that every man--
00:30:22.363 --> 00:30:27.618
the rich, the poor, and the
poor as well as the rich,
00:30:27.743 --> 00:30:30.747
was entitled to the
benefit of counsel
00:30:30.872 --> 00:30:32.998
when he was defending himself
00:30:33.123 --> 00:30:37.878
against prosecution by the
mighty forces of the state.
00:30:38.253 --> 00:30:43.508
I thought, if this guy does
that, I want to be in this firm.
00:30:45.428 --> 00:30:47.930
And it didn't take
more than...
00:30:49.265 --> 00:30:51.100
a couple of weeks to
realize that
00:30:51.225 --> 00:30:54.020
they don't just sit around
doing this good work.
00:30:54.145 --> 00:30:58.523
This is a firm in the business
of making money.
00:30:58.648 --> 00:31:02.070
And I learned that the Arnold
00:31:02.862 --> 00:31:05.823
of Arnold, Fortas & Porter
00:31:05.948 --> 00:31:09.952
wouldn't allow the employment
of Black secretaries.
00:31:11.370 --> 00:31:15.040
Which, this horrified me.
I mean, I couldn't hardly believe it.
00:31:15.165 --> 00:31:18.795
But I said, okay, well, he's old
and he's gonna be gone soon--
00:31:18.920 --> 00:31:22.298
which was true, he was old,
and he did get gone.
00:31:22.423 --> 00:31:24.925
And then there was
Paul Porter,
00:31:25.050 --> 00:31:26.552
who was a drunk.
00:31:28.262 --> 00:31:29.930
So that leaves Fortas.
00:31:31.140 --> 00:31:35.143
I asked him where
he was going.
00:31:35.268 --> 00:31:37.897
And he said
00:31:38.022 --> 00:31:40.775
he's going to see
Lyndon Johnson
00:31:42.985 --> 00:31:45.988
about an appointment
to the Supreme Court.
00:31:47.532 --> 00:31:49.075
So I said, "Jesus."
00:32:08.970 --> 00:32:11.930
Gave it a lot of thought, and
I said, well, "Who do I want to be?"
00:32:12.055 --> 00:32:14.475
And if necessary,
00:32:14.600 --> 00:32:17.937
we must be willing to
fill up the jails
00:32:18.062 --> 00:32:19.938
all over the state of Georgia.
00:32:20.063 --> 00:32:22.525
-(demonstrators singing)
-(Policeman) C'mon, get up!
00:32:23.525 --> 00:32:24.985
(protesters)
♪ Turn me round ♪
00:32:25.110 --> 00:32:29.115
♪ Turn me round,
turn me round ♪
00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:31.033
♪ Keep on a-walkin'... ♪
00:32:31.158 --> 00:32:33.912
1964, two friends of mine,
00:32:34.037 --> 00:32:35.538
colleagues at Arnold,
Fortas & Porter,
00:32:35.663 --> 00:32:39.375
young men like myself,
told me about LCDC,
00:32:39.500 --> 00:32:41.210
the Lawyer's Constitutional
Defense Committee,
00:32:41.335 --> 00:32:44.797
which was sending lawyers
in the summer to the South,
00:32:44.922 --> 00:32:47.633
to help with the arrests that
essentially were resulting
00:32:47.758 --> 00:32:50.803
from all the civil rights
activity that was taking place.
00:32:50.928 --> 00:32:53.973
I was told that I was going to
be included, but I didn't know where.
00:32:54.098 --> 00:32:57.810
And a letter came that said, "You're
assigned to New Orleans, Louisiana."
00:32:57.935 --> 00:32:58.978
Which was a big
disappointment to me
00:32:59.103 --> 00:33:01.230
because I wanted
to go to Selma, Alabama,
00:33:01.355 --> 00:33:04.067
or Jackson, Mississippi, or
someplace that I had heard of,
00:33:04.192 --> 00:33:05.777
where things were happening.
00:33:05.902 --> 00:33:07.612
Of course, things were happening
here, I just didn't know it.
00:33:07.737 --> 00:33:10.407
(Bob Dylan)
♪ Far between sundown's finish ♪
00:33:10.532 --> 00:33:11.865
(Sobol)
That letter changed my life.
00:33:11.990 --> 00:33:15.745
♪ And midnight's broken toll ♪
00:33:15.870 --> 00:33:20.123
♪ We ducked inside the doorway
As thunder went crashing ♪
00:33:23.252 --> 00:33:26.672
♪ As the majestic
bells of bolts ♪
00:33:27.298 --> 00:33:29.008
(Sobol) I'd been there
for eight days,
00:33:29.133 --> 00:33:32.303
and I had gotten relief in the
school desegregation case
00:33:32.428 --> 00:33:35.013
in the face of
the worst judge in the South.
00:33:35.807 --> 00:33:38.308
And that was just one of several
things I did during three weeks.
00:33:39.602 --> 00:33:42.272
♪ Flashing for the warriors ♪
00:33:43.313 --> 00:33:46.067
♪ Whose strength is
not to fight ♪
00:33:47.693 --> 00:33:49.070
♪ Flashing for the refugees ♪
00:33:50.320 --> 00:33:52.157
(Sobol) I could just see
the impact I could have.
00:33:55.242 --> 00:34:01.248
♪ And for each and every
underdog soldier in the night ♪
00:34:01.248 --> 00:34:03.960
(Lolis Eric Elie)
When you have few Black lawyers,
00:34:04.085 --> 00:34:07.422
and even fewer Black lawyers
willing to take these cases,
00:34:07.547 --> 00:34:10.842
so it was crucial that folks
came in and were serious.
00:34:12.008 --> 00:34:15.345
The South was the battleground
for the nation at that point,
00:34:15.470 --> 00:34:17.890
and so it was, in a sense,
fashionable for a lawyer
00:34:18.015 --> 00:34:19.975
to come here for a couple of
weeks or a couple of months.
00:34:20.100 --> 00:34:23.562
A lot of the lawyers who were
being sent down by LCDC
00:34:23.687 --> 00:34:25.940
were also enjoying
the life in New Orleans,
00:34:26.065 --> 00:34:28.108
and bringing their wives
and different things.
00:34:28.233 --> 00:34:31.237
It seemed to me a little bit
of a messy situation
00:34:31.362 --> 00:34:35.032
in that I came away
with the firm idea
00:34:35.157 --> 00:34:37.160
that what they need is
permanent lawyers down there.
00:34:37.285 --> 00:34:39.203
and not people
passing through.
00:34:39.745 --> 00:34:43.582
While I cannot say why those lawyers
would not stay longer or do more,
00:34:43.707 --> 00:34:46.127
they absolutely had
their other responsibilities--
00:34:46.252 --> 00:34:49.088
for the people who stayed,
for the people who were serious,
00:34:49.213 --> 00:34:51.673
for the people
who took this work to heart,
00:34:51.798 --> 00:34:53.885
my father had infinite
respect for them,
00:34:54.010 --> 00:34:56.387
Richard Sobol
perhaps chief among them
00:34:56.512 --> 00:34:58.722
because he stayed.
00:34:58.847 --> 00:35:02.935
It's one thing to say, "I'm gonna go
down there and help those poor people,"
00:35:03.060 --> 00:35:05.938
as opposed to actually
taking the fight to heart
00:35:06.063 --> 00:35:08.565
and realizing that this
is an American struggle,
00:35:08.690 --> 00:35:10.777
and not merely a
Southern struggle.
00:35:10.902 --> 00:35:12.820
♪ The chimes of
freedom flashing ♪
00:35:12.945 --> 00:35:16.323
(Angela Davis) I have an ambivalent
relationship to the term "allies."
00:35:18.283 --> 00:35:21.828
Because when it comes to...
00:35:21.953 --> 00:35:24.123
challenging racism,
00:35:24.248 --> 00:35:27.418
I think white people
should know that they have
00:35:27.543 --> 00:35:33.382
as much of a stake
in purging this society of racism...
00:35:33.507 --> 00:35:35.092
(audience clapping)
00:35:35.217 --> 00:35:38.803
...as people who are
the immediate targets.
00:35:39.805 --> 00:35:41.973
(Male Reporter)
Why do you want to go to this school?
00:35:42.098 --> 00:35:44.602
(Young Girl) Well, I feel
that I have a chance too,
00:35:44.727 --> 00:35:47.188
to have an education...
(sniffles)
00:35:47.313 --> 00:35:48.813
...a good education.
00:35:48.938 --> 00:35:51.192
And not allowed to
stare at me.
00:35:52.943 --> 00:35:56.405
And I'm goin' back, if I
have-- they'll have to kill me.
00:35:56.530 --> 00:35:57.573
I'm... I'm...
00:35:57.698 --> 00:35:59.658
I'll die for my freedom.
00:36:03.537 --> 00:36:05.832
(jazz playing)
00:36:05.957 --> 00:36:09.252
(Sobol) He had been charged
with simple battery.
00:36:09.377 --> 00:36:13.380
We were giving, explicitly,
notice by Judge Leon
00:36:13.505 --> 00:36:15.215
that he could just
plead to that,
00:36:15.340 --> 00:36:16.425
he mentioned a small fine,
00:36:17.885 --> 00:36:22.180
not the maximum fine
in the statute,
00:36:22.305 --> 00:36:24.017
and you could walk out
of here today.
00:36:25.308 --> 00:36:30.063
And uh, he and his mother
didn't want to do that.
00:36:32.148 --> 00:36:34.193
Which is pretty extraordinary,
right there.
00:36:34.318 --> 00:36:38.155
Because, to this day,
all around the country...
00:36:39.282 --> 00:36:41.075
people are having to plead
guilty to things
00:36:41.200 --> 00:36:43.243
they don't feel they're
guilty about.
00:36:45.578 --> 00:36:46.830
It's a crime.
00:36:48.457 --> 00:36:51.585
(jazz blues continues)
00:36:58.883 --> 00:37:02.220
The judge said to the lawyer, me,
00:37:02.345 --> 00:37:04.307
"Anything else you
want to add?"
00:37:04.432 --> 00:37:07.435
And I will say,
"Yes. I want to add a demand
00:37:07.560 --> 00:37:10.103
for trial by jury."
00:37:10.228 --> 00:37:13.315
And, uh, he kind of scoffed
and said,
00:37:13.440 --> 00:37:15.985
"I'm gonna deny that.
00:37:18.028 --> 00:37:19.238
Let's proceed."
00:37:20.405 --> 00:37:21.865
And that day...
00:37:21.907 --> 00:37:23.575
(Sobol) We didn't just raise
civil rights issues in cases...
00:37:23.617 --> 00:37:24.618
...we proceeded.
00:37:24.743 --> 00:37:26.912
We represent-- like
any lawyer,
00:37:27.037 --> 00:37:30.207
raised every issue we possibly
could to help your client.
00:37:30.332 --> 00:37:34.670
One of them was the, uh,
Louisiana jury system at the time,
00:37:34.795 --> 00:37:39.300
which did not allow for juries
in any case
00:37:39.425 --> 00:37:42.010
unless the punishment
was more than two years.
00:37:42.887 --> 00:37:44.597
So he was going to be tried
before this judge
00:37:44.722 --> 00:37:46.473
that Perez had appointed.
00:37:47.725 --> 00:37:50.102
(court spectators chattering)
00:37:50.227 --> 00:37:52.270
(gavel bangs)
00:37:54.857 --> 00:37:56.483
(Sobol)
Bert, how old are you?
00:37:56.608 --> 00:37:58.235
(Bert) Fourteen.
00:37:58.360 --> 00:37:59.903
And what school do you go to?
00:38:00.028 --> 00:38:01.322
Boothville-Venice High.
00:38:01.447 --> 00:38:03.532
When did you enter
that school?
00:38:03.657 --> 00:38:06.243
About the week the
schools opened.
00:38:06.368 --> 00:38:09.497
Do you recall an incident
on October 18th, 1966,
00:38:09.622 --> 00:38:13.500
involving the defendant, Mr. Duncan,
and some boys on Route 23?
00:38:13.625 --> 00:38:14.918
Yes, sir.
00:38:15.043 --> 00:38:17.672
And me and my friend,
we was walkin' home.
00:38:17.797 --> 00:38:18.922
Who's your friend?
00:38:19.047 --> 00:38:20.340
Bernard Ste. Ann.
00:38:20.465 --> 00:38:22.677
Was there any reason to think
they wanted to fight?
00:38:24.428 --> 00:38:26.097
The way they was walkin' like.
00:38:26.222 --> 00:38:28.473
You know, they-- they came on the
side of the road where we was on.
00:38:28.598 --> 00:38:31.268
They hollered at us,
"What are y'all names?"
00:38:31.393 --> 00:38:34.397
We kept walkin'. We didn't
pay no attention to them.
00:38:34.522 --> 00:38:36.773
They got in front of us,
and they said,
00:38:36.898 --> 00:38:38.733
"We asked you yo' names."
00:38:38.858 --> 00:38:41.195
I said, "None of yo' business
what my name is."
00:38:41.570 --> 00:38:44.365
And that's when Gary saw
we're standin' up there, backed up...
00:38:44.490 --> 00:38:45.782
-Bernard.
-...and got out of the car.
00:38:45.823 --> 00:38:47.577
(Sobol) You stated
that they wanted to fight?
00:38:47.618 --> 00:38:48.660
Yes, sir.
00:38:48.785 --> 00:38:51.205
And what made you think
they wanted to fight?
00:38:51.330 --> 00:38:54.042
Because... the way
they was talking,
00:38:54.167 --> 00:38:56.585
sayin', "Yo' name is Bert?"
00:38:56.710 --> 00:38:58.795
And makin' fun of us.
00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:01.257
Had you been in a fight
in school with these boys,
00:39:01.382 --> 00:39:04.302
or any of these boys
who were on the road?
00:39:04.427 --> 00:39:06.470
I had one that day, is all.
00:39:06.595 --> 00:39:08.513
-You had a fight that day?
-Yes, sir.
00:39:09.140 --> 00:39:12.393
A boy hit me. He wanted
to jump me in the bathroom.
00:39:12.518 --> 00:39:14.145
Were these some of
the same boys?
00:39:14.270 --> 00:39:18.732
Yes, sir. Herman Landry and
Wayne Scarabin, they were in there.
00:39:18.857 --> 00:39:20.735
Gary said, "What's wrong, Bert?"
00:39:20.860 --> 00:39:24.238
And I said, "These boys.
They want to fight."
00:39:24.363 --> 00:39:26.990
He said, "Why do all y'all
want to fight, boy?"
00:39:27.115 --> 00:39:30.035
And Herman Landry said,
"We just want to know his name."
00:39:30.160 --> 00:39:33.705
And Gary said, "Well, best
ought for you just to go on home."
00:39:33.830 --> 00:39:35.707
And he touch him
on the elbow right there.
00:39:35.832 --> 00:39:37.292
(Sobol)
Touched him on the elbow?
00:39:37.417 --> 00:39:40.212
(Bert) We got in the car
and pulled off.
00:39:40.337 --> 00:39:44.133
And Herman Landry said, "My
people can put you in jail for that."
00:39:44.258 --> 00:39:46.802
-(courtroom spectators chattering)
-(gavel banging)
00:39:46.927 --> 00:39:49.555
(Sobol) Did it look to you
like Landry had been hurt?
00:39:49.680 --> 00:39:51.473
(Bert) No, sir.
00:39:51.515 --> 00:39:53.392
(Sobol) Did it look to you
as though Gary was trying to hit him?
00:39:53.433 --> 00:39:55.102
No.
00:39:55.143 --> 00:39:57.437
(Prosecutor) Could you see
all of the motions of his hands?
00:39:57.478 --> 00:39:58.855
(Bert) No, sir.
00:39:58.980 --> 00:40:02.568
I saw when he touched
him on the arm, that's all.
00:40:02.693 --> 00:40:05.612
That's the only time he
raised his hand.
00:40:05.737 --> 00:40:07.615
(Prosecutor) In other words,
you're sittin' in a car,
00:40:07.740 --> 00:40:09.742
and a man has his
back to the car,
00:40:09.867 --> 00:40:11.660
and you could see exactly
how he handled himself,
00:40:11.785 --> 00:40:13.203
through the man's back?
00:40:13.328 --> 00:40:15.622
(Bert) I could see from the
side, yes.
00:40:15.747 --> 00:40:17.750
(Prosecutor) And you could see
through the man?
00:40:17.875 --> 00:40:19.585
(Bert) I could see from the
side of him.
00:40:19.710 --> 00:40:21.378
(Prosecutor)
I have no further questions.
00:40:21.503 --> 00:40:24.005
My mama, she wanted
to speak her mind,
00:40:24.130 --> 00:40:26.592
And Mr. Sobol-- I remember
Mr. Sobol sayin',
00:40:26.717 --> 00:40:29.093
"Well, I can't put you
on the witness stand."
00:40:29.218 --> 00:40:30.972
'Cause she had too
much to say.
00:40:31.097 --> 00:40:32.473
(Prosecutor) Did you
threaten the four white boys
00:40:32.598 --> 00:40:34.475
that were on the side
of the road?
00:40:34.600 --> 00:40:36.643
(Gary) No.
00:40:36.685 --> 00:40:38.978
(Prosecutor) In other words, those boys
were lyin' when they took the stand?
00:40:39.020 --> 00:40:41.315
(Gary) They were lyin' when
they said I threatened them,
00:40:41.440 --> 00:40:44.610
and that I was meanin' to hurt
the boy when I touched him on the arm.
00:40:44.735 --> 00:40:47.613
If I wanted to hurt him,
I could have hurt him.
00:40:47.738 --> 00:40:50.657
(Prosecutor) Uh-huh. And did he
consent to your touchin' him on the arm?
00:40:50.782 --> 00:40:52.242
(Gary) Did he consent?
00:40:52.367 --> 00:40:54.453
(Prosecutor) Did he say, "Go
ahead and hit me?"
00:40:54.578 --> 00:40:55.662
(Gary) No.
00:40:57.287 --> 00:40:58.457
(Prosecutor) And did you have
contact with him in any way?
00:40:58.582 --> 00:41:00.458
(Gary)
Yes, I had contact with him.
00:41:00.583 --> 00:41:02.252
I touched him with my hand.
00:41:02.377 --> 00:41:04.045
(spectators chatter)
00:41:04.170 --> 00:41:07.842
I think I made a pretty
good case of...
00:41:07.967 --> 00:41:10.302
why they hadn't carried
their burden of proof.
00:41:10.928 --> 00:41:14.557
But Judge Leon had his,
uh, instructions,
00:41:14.682 --> 00:41:16.475
and he wasn't gonna
mess with Perez.
00:41:16.600 --> 00:41:19.060
And we lost the case.
We lost the case.
00:41:19.185 --> 00:41:21.313
It was all fixed.
00:41:21.438 --> 00:41:24.358
And so, I was just surprised--
I don't know, it's kind of silly.
00:41:24.483 --> 00:41:26.068
I was...
00:41:28.778 --> 00:41:30.530
I had a little bit of
surprise about it,
00:41:30.655 --> 00:41:33.867
although when I stopped to
think, "What the hell did I expect?"
00:41:33.992 --> 00:41:36.703
(blues music playing)
00:41:36.828 --> 00:41:39.582
(Gary) I felt like I coulda
just went through the floor.
00:41:39.707 --> 00:41:42.627
You know? I mean... I would...
00:41:42.752 --> 00:41:44.628
You know, I--
00:41:44.753 --> 00:41:46.672
I don't know how I felt...
00:41:47.673 --> 00:41:48.673
because...
00:41:52.093 --> 00:41:53.928
And I looked around, and...
00:41:58.725 --> 00:42:00.268
I seen...
00:42:07.025 --> 00:42:10.570
I was seein' my mom, and my
sisters, and everybody cryin'.
00:42:13.782 --> 00:42:16.118
It was cryin', and uh...
00:42:16.993 --> 00:42:18.995
I just felt like
I was goin' through the floor
00:42:19.120 --> 00:42:21.248
in that courthouse, you know?
I said, damn. Yeah.
00:42:23.417 --> 00:42:25.168
Oh, God, you know,
I'm just not--
00:42:25.293 --> 00:42:28.588
You know, what am I
gon' do now, you know?
00:42:28.713 --> 00:42:29.882
Mister Sobol, uh--
00:42:30.007 --> 00:42:31.675
He told me, he said, uh,
00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:33.218
"Don't worry about it," he say.
00:42:34.637 --> 00:42:37.723
"We gonna, uh, we gonna get
you outta here," he said.
00:42:37.848 --> 00:42:39.850
"I got everything.
We gonna appeal it."
00:42:39.975 --> 00:42:43.020
(Lolis Eric Elie) Merely being
Black in this country
00:42:43.145 --> 00:42:45.563
is a political act.
00:42:45.688 --> 00:42:48.567
Walking down the street
as a Black person
00:42:48.692 --> 00:42:51.778
subjects you to a kind of
political scrutiny
00:42:51.903 --> 00:42:55.448
that has nothing to do with your
mission of going to buy a loaf of bread,
00:42:55.573 --> 00:42:58.160
or even, for that matter,
going to rob a liquor store.
00:42:58.285 --> 00:43:01.788
Whatever it is you're doing has a
kind of racial politics embedded in it.
00:43:03.415 --> 00:43:07.585
And to understand what Gary
Duncan did in the absence of race,
00:43:07.710 --> 00:43:11.465
in the absence of an understanding of
the civil rights movement of that era,
00:43:11.590 --> 00:43:16.262
is to fundamentally misinterpret
the nature of his arrest and trial.
00:43:16.887 --> 00:43:20.473
The reason Gary Duncan is such
an exceptional human being
00:43:20.598 --> 00:43:23.560
is that his position was,
"I have done nothing wrong,
00:43:23.685 --> 00:43:26.397
yet I have been arrested
and tried for it."
00:43:27.898 --> 00:43:30.692
And there is, of course, the
shame of this Land of the Free
00:43:30.817 --> 00:43:33.653
boasting the largest prison
population on the planet,
00:43:33.778 --> 00:43:36.740
of which the descendants
of the enslaved
00:43:36.865 --> 00:43:38.658
make up the largest share."
00:43:39.117 --> 00:43:43.830
There were a whole lot more
people who were not like Gary Duncan
00:43:43.955 --> 00:43:46.750
than there were people
who were like him.
00:43:46.875 --> 00:43:48.668
And that's why this case
is so crucial.
00:43:48.793 --> 00:43:51.463
The question: What happens
when someone actually stands forward
00:43:51.588 --> 00:43:53.298
to assert these rights?
00:43:53.548 --> 00:43:57.302
And Leander Perez's example
is that, well, when that happens,
00:43:57.427 --> 00:44:00.513
we remind them that those
rights do not pertain to him.
00:44:01.265 --> 00:44:04.685
And Richard Sobol, of course,
was saying, "Yes, they do."
00:44:05.435 --> 00:44:07.688
According to the Constitution
and the Amendments
00:44:07.813 --> 00:44:10.273
and the recently-passed
Civil Rights Act,
00:44:10.398 --> 00:44:12.735
they do indeed pertain
as much to Gary Duncan
00:44:13.735 --> 00:44:16.697
as to anybody else in the
United States of America.
00:44:16.822 --> 00:44:19.867
(Sobol) The judge would
sentence Duncan to prison.
00:44:19.992 --> 00:44:23.787
Actually, 60 days in prison,
um, and a fine.
00:44:23.912 --> 00:44:27.248
I was intent on appealing,
particularly on the jury issue.
00:44:27.373 --> 00:44:31.837
He presented the case
to the state of Louisiana,
00:44:31.962 --> 00:44:33.922
Supreme Court, and
they refused it.
00:44:34.047 --> 00:44:36.800
(Sobol) Each time we lost
a round of the case,
00:44:36.925 --> 00:44:38.593
the motions, the trial,
the appeal,
00:44:38.718 --> 00:44:42.013
Duncan was rearrested,
put in prison overnight.
00:44:42.138 --> 00:44:44.140
And each time, I had to go
down and get an order
00:44:44.265 --> 00:44:46.852
to get him out of prison
while the case was pending.
00:44:47.853 --> 00:44:51.940
I had come to the courthouse
in Plaquemines Parish,
00:44:52.065 --> 00:44:55.735
to get the bond that was
already in effect extended.
00:44:55.860 --> 00:44:58.905
I called Judge Leon first.
00:44:59.030 --> 00:45:01.867
I said, "Judge Leon,
I want to present to you
00:45:01.992 --> 00:45:04.953
an order for a stay
pending appeal."
00:45:05.953 --> 00:45:08.748
And I said, "When can I come?"
00:45:08.873 --> 00:45:11.710
He said, "Well, how 'bout
in two hours?"
00:45:11.835 --> 00:45:14.630
He was waiting for me. He said,
"What do you want me to sign?"
00:45:14.755 --> 00:45:17.967
I gave him the piece of paper,
he looked at it, he signed it,
00:45:18.092 --> 00:45:20.718
he said, "There you are."
And so I'm leaving his office,
00:45:20.843 --> 00:45:22.553
easy as pie, "Thank you, judge."
00:45:22.678 --> 00:45:25.515
And six steps away,
00:45:26.892 --> 00:45:29.185
there's a sheriff there...
00:45:30.187 --> 00:45:32.147
and behind him was
Leander Perez.
00:45:33.607 --> 00:45:35.400
To make sure
the sheriff did the job.
00:45:36.318 --> 00:45:40.947
They asked me if I was Sobol,
and I said yes.
00:45:41.072 --> 00:45:43.325
And he said,
"You're under arrest."
00:45:44.743 --> 00:45:47.370
And I was mystified. I didn't
know what in the world--
00:45:48.038 --> 00:45:51.833
I'd been in the court, I'd
gotten stays millions of times.
00:45:51.958 --> 00:45:53.418
Why are they arresting me?
00:45:53.543 --> 00:45:55.128
I don't know if it was 2:00 or
3:00 o'clock in the day,
00:45:55.253 --> 00:45:57.213
and they asked, "What y'all--
What's wrong with your--"
00:45:57.338 --> 00:45:59.800
He said, "We're waitin'." I'm
waitin' for my lawyer. I gotta see my--
00:45:59.925 --> 00:46:02.970
He said, "Man, your lawyer
locked up in jail back there!"
00:46:03.970 --> 00:46:07.975
I was afraid 'cause I, uh...
00:46:10.185 --> 00:46:12.813
I didn't want to be in a
jail overnight.
00:46:12.938 --> 00:46:16.400
They put him in jail.
They put him in jail.
00:46:16.525 --> 00:46:20.028
For practicing law
without a license.
00:46:20.153 --> 00:46:21.780
(Sobol) I was in the jail
with the white prisoners,
00:46:21.905 --> 00:46:25.408
and some guy started telling
me the story about another LCDC lawyer--
00:46:25.533 --> 00:46:26.992
I knew this LCDC lawyer--
00:46:27.118 --> 00:46:30.205
in Alabama, who had been
arrested for the same reason.
00:46:31.163 --> 00:46:34.793
I got one phone call, and I made
it to my colleagues in New Orleans,
00:46:34.918 --> 00:46:37.170
and before I knew it,
there was Juno.
00:46:37.295 --> 00:46:38.672
Big as life.
00:46:39.923 --> 00:46:41.717
(Gary) Juno came down.
00:46:41.842 --> 00:46:43.718
And he raised some hell
up in that--
00:46:43.843 --> 00:46:45.887
You could hear him hollerin'
all through that--
00:46:46.012 --> 00:46:47.513
the courthouse, man,
you know, he say,
00:46:47.638 --> 00:46:49.390
"We gonna sue every
damn body in here,
00:46:49.515 --> 00:46:51.518
from the trusty on up."
00:46:51.643 --> 00:46:56.190
I'm in front of the
Plaquemines Parish Jailhouse,
00:46:56.315 --> 00:46:59.902
it's gettin' dark, and I said,
"Look, if you'll bend down
00:47:00.027 --> 00:47:04.197
and look under the car, and
see that there's no devices visible..."
00:47:04.322 --> 00:47:06.867
They didn't take my belt.
As I recall, they took his belt away
00:47:06.992 --> 00:47:09.493
when they put him in jail, which
is standard procedure with prisoners.
00:47:09.618 --> 00:47:11.037
they didn't take my belt away.
00:47:11.162 --> 00:47:12.957
And the thing is,
I was never scared.
00:47:13.707 --> 00:47:15.833
I just-- If it was Plaquemines
Parish, I might have been scared.
00:47:15.958 --> 00:47:19.713
Because if I went anywhere,
somebody in the office
00:47:19.838 --> 00:47:21.840
always knew where I was.
00:47:21.965 --> 00:47:26.428
And the rule was,
if somebody--
00:47:26.553 --> 00:47:28.430
and this dates back
to the killing
00:47:28.555 --> 00:47:30.890
of the three civil rights
workers in Neshoba County--
00:47:31.015 --> 00:47:33.935
but the rule was, if you
didn't know where somebody was,
00:47:34.060 --> 00:47:36.480
and they didn't turn up
for say, an hour,
00:47:36.605 --> 00:47:38.107
you called the FBI right away.
00:47:38.232 --> 00:47:40.733
It showed how
dangerous it was.
00:47:42.152 --> 00:47:44.195
I drove to Neshoba County
a few times,
00:47:44.320 --> 00:47:47.740
and I remember knowing,
and being told
00:47:47.865 --> 00:47:51.578
that from the moment
I entered the county
00:47:51.703 --> 00:47:54.538
till the time I left, the
police and the sheriffs also knew
00:47:54.663 --> 00:47:57.250
exactly where I was, who I
was, and what I was doing.
00:48:01.128 --> 00:48:04.842
We came to this country
after a series of escapes.
00:48:04.967 --> 00:48:07.677
My mother and father
escaped from Poland
00:48:07.802 --> 00:48:11.890
to France in the 1930s
on forged Swedish passports,
00:48:12.015 --> 00:48:15.768
and then we left Paris
the night that Hitler came in.
00:48:15.893 --> 00:48:18.105
We escaped on the last train
out of Paris.
00:48:18.230 --> 00:48:20.773
And I remember asking
my mother one time
00:48:20.898 --> 00:48:22.067
while I was in Mississippi,
to say,
00:48:22.192 --> 00:48:26.322
"Well, Ma, when you were
escaping across Europe,
00:48:26.447 --> 00:48:28.198
were you scared?"
00:48:28.323 --> 00:48:32.452
She said, "Scared?
Every minute of every day!
00:48:32.577 --> 00:48:34.578
But what difference
does that make?
00:48:34.703 --> 00:48:36.290
You don't have a choice."
00:48:36.415 --> 00:48:38.708
I guess I theoretically
had a choice.
00:48:39.458 --> 00:48:42.712
In the most turbulent times--
not always--
00:48:42.837 --> 00:48:47.008
we went with a convoy
of three vehicles:
00:48:47.133 --> 00:48:49.593
a car in front, with guns,
00:48:49.718 --> 00:48:50.970
me in the middle,
00:48:51.095 --> 00:48:53.390
and a car behind us with guns.
00:48:54.933 --> 00:48:57.935
Because we knew
there was a chance
00:48:58.060 --> 00:49:01.857
that there'd be guns waiting
for us somewhere along the way.
00:49:01.982 --> 00:49:03.192
Yeah, I think I did a
wonderful thing.
00:49:05.110 --> 00:49:08.155
I really-- I'm proud, and happy,
and it's a high point of my life.
00:49:08.280 --> 00:49:09.530
But it's not so courageous.
00:49:09.655 --> 00:49:12.950
We were outsiders,
and so it was easy enough
00:49:13.075 --> 00:49:15.995
'cause you know, I could have
gotten on a plane any time, and moved.
00:49:16.120 --> 00:49:20.583
Even if I felt shielded
from some of the risks,
00:49:20.708 --> 00:49:22.960
I knew that was not true
of the people...
00:49:24.337 --> 00:49:27.132
of the people who lived there,
especially Black, but also white.
00:49:27.257 --> 00:49:30.177
The people with whom
and for whom we worked,
00:49:30.302 --> 00:49:31.970
they took real risks.
00:49:32.095 --> 00:49:36.558
(jazz music playing)
00:49:36.683 --> 00:49:39.143
(Robert Collins) My father
used to tell a story of the case
00:49:39.268 --> 00:49:42.480
that he was handling with his
law partner, Lolis Elie,
00:49:42.605 --> 00:49:44.023
over in rural Alabama.,
00:49:44.775 --> 00:49:47.152
They were driving
back to New Orleans.
00:49:47.277 --> 00:49:50.155
The car started to overheat
on the road.
00:49:50.280 --> 00:49:53.242
Dad said, "We probably should
pull over into a gas station
00:49:53.367 --> 00:49:55.160
and see if we can
get some help."
00:49:55.285 --> 00:49:57.662
Lolis said,
"Bob, after we won that case,
00:49:57.787 --> 00:49:59.538
the people over there
look so angry at us,
00:49:59.663 --> 00:50:02.042
I think it's really dangerous
to try and pull over.
00:50:02.167 --> 00:50:03.668
I think people are
following us.
00:50:03.793 --> 00:50:05.378
We're just gonna
take our chances
00:50:05.503 --> 00:50:08.882
and drive all the way home
to Louisiana in the overheated car."
00:50:10.675 --> 00:50:11.677
(jazz music playing)
00:50:13.428 --> 00:50:15.763
(Collins) It was very dangerous.
Every civil rights lawyer
00:50:15.888 --> 00:50:18.142
practicing in the South
during those days
00:50:18.267 --> 00:50:20.185
was at risk, white or Black.
00:50:20.310 --> 00:50:22.020
Even if you're a white lawyer,
00:50:22.145 --> 00:50:25.065
once you walk into a courtroom
with a Black lawyer,
00:50:25.190 --> 00:50:28.402
you're going to be seen as a
troublemaker just like them.
00:50:32.072 --> 00:50:34.157
(Lolis Eric Elie) A friend of
mine, he asked my father,
00:50:34.282 --> 00:50:35.783
"Well, you know,
if the police arrest you,
00:50:35.908 --> 00:50:38.203
what should you say,
what should you do?"
00:50:38.328 --> 00:50:41.457
My father said,
"You should say, 'Yes, sir, officer.'"
00:50:41.582 --> 00:50:44.125
They meant it as kind of a joke,
but the underlying truth was there,
00:50:44.250 --> 00:50:48.755
which is that, in the context of
that interaction with a police officer,
00:50:48.880 --> 00:50:50.923
you have no civil rights.
00:50:51.048 --> 00:50:54.302
Your best bet is to submit
in that circumstance,
00:50:54.427 --> 00:50:57.138
and attempt to fight it later,
where you can then call a lawyer.
00:51:00.267 --> 00:51:04.312
My father would often refer to
the lesson from the Dred Scott case,
00:51:04.437 --> 00:51:06.440
which is, "A Black man has no rights
00:51:06.565 --> 00:51:08.900
that a white man
is bound to respect."
00:51:09.025 --> 00:51:12.278
It does not say that
a Black man has no rights,
00:51:12.403 --> 00:51:15.490
it says that a Black man has no rights
that a white man is bound to respect.
00:51:17.283 --> 00:51:19.743
It has now become
somewhat fashionable
00:51:19.868 --> 00:51:22.997
for Black men to talk about
having "The Talk" with their sons,
00:51:23.122 --> 00:51:26.460
or having had The Talk
with their fathers.
00:51:26.585 --> 00:51:29.503
I never remember
having "The Talk."
00:51:29.628 --> 00:51:32.965
We were having that
talk all the time.
00:51:33.090 --> 00:51:34.092
It was the atmosphere.
00:51:34.217 --> 00:51:37.095
How often do you talk to your
parents about humidity?
00:51:37.220 --> 00:51:39.055
Well, it's always there.
00:51:47.397 --> 00:51:50.358
(Sobol) I could tell you every
dirty little thing they did,
00:51:51.317 --> 00:51:55.697
but each time, it wound up
with Gary going to jail.
00:52:01.368 --> 00:52:02.995
(Gary) I was working offshore.
00:52:04.288 --> 00:52:05.873
(Randy Newman)
♪ What has happened down here ♪
00:52:05.998 --> 00:52:07.500
♪ The wind has changed ♪
00:52:07.625 --> 00:52:11.128
(Gary) And they call our
Danny, told him to send me in.
00:52:11.253 --> 00:52:13.965
♪ Clouds roll in from the
North And it started to rain ♪
00:52:15.592 --> 00:52:17.677
(Gary)
They're, uh...
00:52:17.802 --> 00:52:21.222
♪ It rained real hard. It
rained for a real long time ♪
00:52:21.347 --> 00:52:23.140
They said, uh...
00:52:24.558 --> 00:52:27.187
♪ Six feet of water
in the streets of Evangeline ♪
00:52:30.232 --> 00:52:32.233
that they was comin'
to take me to jail.
00:52:32.358 --> 00:52:35.278
So... I said well,
00:52:36.070 --> 00:52:37.488
I'm not goin' to jail.
00:52:37.613 --> 00:52:39.282
I'm tired.
00:52:39.407 --> 00:52:40.367
So, uh...
00:52:41.575 --> 00:52:43.828
we're opening up the can.
00:52:45.330 --> 00:52:49.458
They came there 'bout an hour later,
and Calvin said, "Well, he's inside."
00:52:49.583 --> 00:52:51.920
They said, "Well, we come
to take him to jail."
00:52:52.045 --> 00:52:54.923
"He say he not goin' to jail,
so y'all have to wait,
00:52:55.048 --> 00:52:57.300
but y'all not comin'
in my house."
00:52:57.425 --> 00:52:59.343
The Sheriff Department kep'
callin'.
00:52:59.468 --> 00:53:02.388
"Hey, where that nigger's at?
Where that nigger is at?"
00:53:02.513 --> 00:53:04.307
So...
00:53:04.432 --> 00:53:07.310
♪ They're tryin' to
wash us away ♪
00:53:08.687 --> 00:53:10.397
That night I... gave up.
00:53:10.522 --> 00:53:14.233
I said, Well, you know,
I'm not going-- I was ready to die.
00:53:14.775 --> 00:53:16.945
I want to say, "Well,
y'all not gon' handcuff me."
00:53:17.070 --> 00:53:18.280
I got in the car.
00:53:19.447 --> 00:53:21.448
Got out of the car, and, uh,
Wilbur and them just said...
00:53:22.867 --> 00:53:26.328
"Man," he say, "I don't know
what they gonna do to you."
00:53:26.453 --> 00:53:28.248
He said, "We never experienced
nothin' like this."
00:53:28.373 --> 00:53:30.208
He said, "We've took people
that have killed people,
00:53:30.333 --> 00:53:31.292
and they never did this."
00:53:34.462 --> 00:53:38.300
They was holdin' the ferry up.
It was in the early mornin', now.
00:53:38.425 --> 00:53:39.800
'Bout 3:00 in the mornin'.
00:53:40.593 --> 00:53:42.428
And, uh,
00:53:42.553 --> 00:53:45.057
had the ferry runnin' just to
take me across the river.
00:53:45.182 --> 00:53:47.267
So when we get across the
river, the deal was,
00:53:47.392 --> 00:53:50.562
I was gonna get out of
F.J. and Wilbur's car
00:53:50.687 --> 00:53:52.647
and get in with the warden.
00:53:52.772 --> 00:53:54.273
Wilbur say, "I don't know
what they gonna do with you,"
00:53:54.398 --> 00:53:56.275
he said, "but we gonna
lock you up."
00:53:56.400 --> 00:54:00.322
He said, "I know we gon' lock you,
but after that, I'm not responsible."
00:54:00.863 --> 00:54:03.825
I really figured their
intention was onto killin' me.
00:54:03.950 --> 00:54:07.328
I said, well, hey, to myself,
I say if somethin' gonna happen,
00:54:07.453 --> 00:54:10.123
I'm gonna die
defending myself.
00:54:12.042 --> 00:54:14.377
♪ Louisiana ♪
00:54:15.045 --> 00:54:16.545
(John F. Kennedy) Your
children can't have the chance
00:54:16.670 --> 00:54:19.048
to develop whatever
talents they have.
00:54:19.173 --> 00:54:21.467
The only way that they're
going to get their rights
00:54:21.592 --> 00:54:23.345
is to go in the street
and demonstrate.
00:54:26.097 --> 00:54:27.307
♪ Louisiana ♪
00:54:28.558 --> 00:54:32.062
(Girl) They'll have to kill me.
I'll die for my freedom.
00:54:33.353 --> 00:54:36.440
♪ They're tryin' to
wash us away ♪
00:54:37.025 --> 00:54:38.652
♪ Louisiana ♪
00:54:40.528 --> 00:54:42.905
♪ Louisiana ♪
00:54:44.740 --> 00:54:46.785
(Lolis Eric Elie) Claude McKay
wrote: "If we must die,
00:54:46.910 --> 00:54:50.497
let it not be like hogs
pinned in an inglorious spot."
00:54:51.538 --> 00:54:54.167
In other words,
we're gonna fight like men.
00:54:54.833 --> 00:54:57.920
♪ They're tryin' to
wash us away ♪
00:55:05.010 --> 00:55:08.390
(Derfner) We all think, well,
you have a right to a trial by jury.
00:55:09.307 --> 00:55:12.727
The Bill of Rights gives you
a right to a jury trial,
00:55:12.852 --> 00:55:14.520
but for many years,
00:55:14.645 --> 00:55:17.232
that only applied
to the Federal Government,
00:55:17.357 --> 00:55:19.567
and it didn't apply
to the States.
00:55:19.692 --> 00:55:22.153
I could never quite
understand, myself,
00:55:22.278 --> 00:55:24.488
why applying the
Bill of Rights,
00:55:24.613 --> 00:55:27.492
which we think is our
fundamental American liberty--
00:55:27.617 --> 00:55:30.995
why applying it to the States
is such a crazy idea.
00:55:31.120 --> 00:55:33.832
I mean, it seems to me that
the opposite is the crazy idea.
00:55:33.957 --> 00:55:38.420
We have 51 legal systems
in this country.
00:55:38.545 --> 00:55:40.588
There's one legal system
for Federal courts,
00:55:40.713 --> 00:55:43.508
and there's 50 separate legal
systems for the State courts.
00:55:43.633 --> 00:55:47.762
Only lawyers and judges could figure
out some way to make that logical.
00:55:47.887 --> 00:55:50.182
You still read in Supreme
Court cases today,
00:55:51.223 --> 00:55:54.435
"Oh, this is trenching
on the states' prerogatives."
00:55:54.560 --> 00:55:56.562
You know, the states'
prerogatives, states' rights.
00:55:56.687 --> 00:55:59.357
We, more than, I think, any
other country in the world,
00:56:00.733 --> 00:56:03.318
have decided that
that the states
00:56:03.443 --> 00:56:07.782
retain some great autonomy
or power--
00:56:07.907 --> 00:56:09.492
"States' rights," you know?
00:56:09.617 --> 00:56:11.702
States' rights has usually
been, in our history,
00:56:11.827 --> 00:56:15.123
a cover for states
doing bad things.
00:56:16.540 --> 00:56:17.792
Taking the right to
jury trial,
00:56:17.917 --> 00:56:22.172
until the Gary Duncan case
came along,
00:56:22.297 --> 00:56:26.592
the rule was, if you're
charged in a federal court,
00:56:26.717 --> 00:56:28.302
you have a right to
a jury trial,
00:56:28.427 --> 00:56:30.555
and if you're charged in a
state court, you do or you don't
00:56:30.680 --> 00:56:32.390
depending on whatever the
state wants to do,
00:56:32.515 --> 00:56:35.810
all because of
the idiot notion we have
00:56:35.935 --> 00:56:38.480
that the states are one world
00:56:38.605 --> 00:56:40.523
and the federal government
is some different planet.
00:56:41.232 --> 00:56:44.527
(Sobol) And then it went to
Supreme Court.
00:56:44.652 --> 00:56:45.820
They're very strict about it.
00:56:45.945 --> 00:56:48.448
The don't want to be just a
regular appellate court.
00:56:48.573 --> 00:56:49.532
They're the final court.
00:56:51.325 --> 00:56:55.163
And so, I was expecting it
would take a long time, actually.
00:56:55.288 --> 00:56:58.792
But to my surprise,
they granted it quickly.
00:56:58.917 --> 00:57:01.585
I went to the Supreme Court
Library in New Orleans,
00:57:01.710 --> 00:57:04.422
which was a place I liked to
go a lot because it was quiet,
00:57:04.547 --> 00:57:08.425
and I worked on that
almost constantly.
00:57:08.550 --> 00:57:11.470
(Dixieland jazz music playing)
00:57:17.602 --> 00:57:20.813
(Sobol) I wrote my head off,
and so did others,
00:57:20.938 --> 00:57:22.648
mostly Nils Douglas.
00:57:22.773 --> 00:57:24.275
We would talk late
into the night
00:57:24.400 --> 00:57:27.612
in the bar of a Black
hotel nearby.
00:57:27.737 --> 00:57:32.325
We were, like in the trenches,
is how we felt.
00:57:32.450 --> 00:57:35.537
I used to run with Nils. We
were both runners at the time,
00:57:35.662 --> 00:57:39.248
and we'd run together to his house.
00:57:39.373 --> 00:57:40.667
We'd run next to each other.
00:57:40.792 --> 00:57:42.668
And we'd talk, going out.
00:57:42.793 --> 00:57:45.547
And we got to his house,
he'd say, "Come on.
00:57:45.672 --> 00:57:48.465
Come on in, Bessie's going
to want to feed you."
00:57:48.590 --> 00:57:52.428
First time I ever flew in
a plane, a jet!
00:57:52.553 --> 00:57:56.098
First time I ever left out
of the State of Louisiana.
00:57:56.223 --> 00:57:57.392
So...
00:57:57.517 --> 00:58:00.143
Me and my wife--
I felt pretty good, you know?
00:58:00.268 --> 00:58:03.105
And I met Mr. Sobol and his
wife, and his two kids,
00:58:03.230 --> 00:58:04.898
and we went to the
Supreme Court,
00:58:05.023 --> 00:58:07.693
and that was very interesting,
00:58:07.818 --> 00:58:11.280
seein' the nine justices,
you know?
00:58:11.405 --> 00:58:14.867
(Derfner) In the Gary Duncan
case, Sobol was arguing
00:58:14.992 --> 00:58:19.747
that the right to a jury trial
applies to cases in state court
00:58:19.872 --> 00:58:21.748
just as much as it does
in federal court.
00:58:21.873 --> 00:58:24.210
And that was revolutionary,
believe it or not.
00:58:25.587 --> 00:58:27.963
(Chief Justice Earl Warren)
Number 410.
00:58:28.088 --> 00:58:31.675
Gary Duncan, appellant,
versus Louisiana.
00:58:34.137 --> 00:58:35.930
Mr. Sobol?
00:58:36.055 --> 00:58:39.683
I was, uh, 29.
00:58:41.852 --> 00:58:44.980
(Sobol) Mr. Chief Justice,
and may it please the court,
00:58:45.105 --> 00:58:48.358
this case is here on appeal from
the Supreme Court of Louisiana,
00:58:49.277 --> 00:58:52.530
and it raises the issue that
was to a large extent assumed
00:58:52.655 --> 00:58:55.242
in the case
immediately preceding--
00:58:55.367 --> 00:58:59.203
namely, whether the Due Process
Clause of the 14th Amendment
00:58:59.328 --> 00:59:03.625
secures the right to trial by
jury in state criminal proceedings.
00:59:03.750 --> 00:59:06.002
That category includes
such serious crimes
00:59:06.127 --> 00:59:08.922
as aggravated battery
resulting from a breach of the peace,
00:59:09.047 --> 00:59:11.548
which is punishable
by 10 years,
00:59:11.673 --> 00:59:14.593
simple battery, the crime in
this case, punishable by two years,
00:59:14.718 --> 00:59:17.180
and aggravated assault,
punishable by two years.
00:59:17.305 --> 00:59:19.973
(Earl Warren) What did you say
about ten years?
00:59:20.098 --> 00:59:22.727
Is it possible it
would be possible
00:59:22.852 --> 00:59:27.690
to send a man to jail for ten
years without a jury trial?
00:59:27.815 --> 00:59:31.235
Yes, sir. There was no right
to trial by jury under Louisiana law
00:59:31.360 --> 00:59:32.653
on the charge against
the appellant.
00:59:32.778 --> 00:59:33.570
But notwithstanding...
00:59:33.695 --> 00:59:35.407
It was a friendly
Supreme Court.
00:59:36.407 --> 00:59:37.783
And, uh...
00:59:37.908 --> 00:59:41.412
not that I think Fortas would
give us any break,
00:59:41.537 --> 00:59:45.248
but the Supreme Court
had been recognizing
00:59:45.373 --> 00:59:47.960
one of these rights
after another.
00:59:48.085 --> 00:59:51.797
There was a period there that
we didn't, uh--
00:59:51.922 --> 00:59:55.802
"we," I mean the civil
rights advocates,
00:59:55.927 --> 00:59:57.095
didn't lose a single case.
00:59:59.055 --> 01:00:02.600
(Dorothy Wolbrette) The test
under due process is whether a jury
01:00:02.725 --> 01:00:05.978
is essential to a fair trial.
01:00:06.770 --> 01:00:09.773
Contrary to appellants' arguments,
recent decisions of this court--
01:00:09.898 --> 01:00:13.277
(Warren) What kind of trials
would that be, Miss Wolbrette?
01:00:15.028 --> 01:00:18.490
For a jury trial
that's essential to a fair trial?
01:00:19.450 --> 01:00:21.743
(Dorothy Wolbrette) What kind
of trial would it be? Oh, it's--
01:00:21.868 --> 01:00:24.497
(Warren) You say it's only--
it's only applicable to...
01:00:24.622 --> 01:00:29.210
to, uh... to cases where a
fair trial would be...would, uh...
01:00:29.335 --> 01:00:31.212
-(Wolbrette) No, no, no, I'm saying--
-...require a jury.
01:00:31.337 --> 01:00:33.882
No, sir, I'm saying that the
only test under due process
01:00:34.007 --> 01:00:39.137
is whether, uh, a jury trial
is essential to a fair trial.
01:00:39.262 --> 01:00:40.722
(Warren) When would that be?
01:00:42.432 --> 01:00:44.308
(Wolbrette) Oh, it-- you mean
in-- in any--
01:00:44.433 --> 01:00:46.893
I-I don't think it would be
necessary in any case,
01:00:47.018 --> 01:00:48.730
as far as a fair trial
is concerned.
01:00:48.855 --> 01:00:53.108
I believe that a judge
certainly can try any defendant fairly.
01:00:53.233 --> 01:00:58.823
There is no rational basis for declaring
that a judge cannot dispense justice
01:00:58.948 --> 01:01:01.908
with the same fairness
and impartiality
01:01:02.033 --> 01:01:06.538
which could be expected of a jury
acting under a judge's instructions,
01:01:06.663 --> 01:01:08.123
both as to the law
and the facts...
01:01:08.248 --> 01:01:10.710
-Certainly it cannot be--
-(Stewart) We're not talking about...
01:01:10.835 --> 01:01:16.465
dispensing justice as a generality,
we're talking about the particular
01:01:16.590 --> 01:01:19.635
function that a jury has in
finding the facts
01:01:19.760 --> 01:01:23.848
that 12 of a defendant's peers
01:01:23.973 --> 01:01:28.435
are perhaps better equipped
as fact finders than a single judge.
01:01:28.560 --> 01:01:31.772
(Fortas) Isn't there something
in the Magna Carta about juries?
01:01:31.897 --> 01:01:33.482
(Wolbrette laughs)
Your Honor,
01:01:33.607 --> 01:01:38.278
Magna Carta did not guarantee
jury trial to anybody.
01:01:38.403 --> 01:01:39.863
-(Fortas) I think I
have a very--
01:01:39.988 --> 01:01:42.867
pretty-pretty good idea
what the Magna Carta says.
01:01:42.992 --> 01:01:44.743
-(Wolbrette) The English tradition
of the general right of jury trial...
01:01:44.868 --> 01:01:48.455
(Fortas) Yes, ma'am, that does indicate
that at least there were some old fellas,
01:01:48.580 --> 01:01:51.583
uh, in the 13th century
who thought that the jury
01:01:51.708 --> 01:01:53.878
was an important institution in a
man's search for freedom and fairness--
01:01:54.003 --> 01:01:56.922
(Wolbrette) It's valuable!
We don't deny!
01:01:57.047 --> 01:01:58.588
They just laughed.
01:01:58.632 --> 01:02:00.843
Laughed them and Perez
right on out of there, you know?
01:02:00.885 --> 01:02:04.305
It was just the most remarkable thing,
and people were looking around,
01:02:04.347 --> 01:02:06.223
and I'm looking back at Mike.
01:02:06.348 --> 01:02:10.603
It was a comical moment,
for me certainly,
01:02:10.728 --> 01:02:12.730
and for I think everybody.
01:02:13.355 --> 01:02:14.982
It was kind of tittering.
01:02:17.235 --> 01:02:18.652
(Sobol) We won in the
Supreme Court.
01:02:20.487 --> 01:02:21.988
What's now a very famous
decision called Duncan against Louisiana
01:02:22.113 --> 01:02:26.743
ruled that the right to trial
by jury does apply in state courts.
01:02:26.868 --> 01:02:28.495
(Gary) Mr. Sobol
called me on the phone
01:02:28.620 --> 01:02:31.707
and told me about the case,
and that we won the case.
01:02:31.832 --> 01:02:33.960
We had the right for
the six-man jury.
01:02:34.085 --> 01:02:36.753
I feel good about it.
You know?
01:02:36.878 --> 01:02:41.883
I can hold my head up,
stick my chest out. You know?
01:03:20.047 --> 01:03:23.425
Duncan vs.
Louisiana was a case
01:03:23.550 --> 01:03:26.220
that could have come along
anywhere, in any state.
01:03:28.347 --> 01:03:31.600
It was part of a process that
was going on throughout the country.
01:03:31.725 --> 01:03:34.728
Sobol vs. Perez was...
01:03:36.063 --> 01:03:40.860
a case about bringing the
Constitution to play
01:03:40.985 --> 01:03:43.528
in the Deep South states,
01:03:43.653 --> 01:03:47.533
and in overthrowing complete
white supremacy,
01:03:47.658 --> 01:03:48.910
that sort of thing.
01:03:49.035 --> 01:03:50.995
(Sobol) I filed suit
against Perez
01:03:51.120 --> 01:03:53.622
right after I was arrested
in the first place.
01:03:55.332 --> 01:03:57.960
Even by Leander
Perez's standards,
01:03:58.085 --> 01:04:00.253
that was a pretty
outrageous act.
01:04:01.213 --> 01:04:03.423
(Collins) If he went
and arrested him himself,
01:04:03.548 --> 01:04:06.010
he wanted the symbolism
and the press to cover it.
01:04:06.760 --> 01:04:09.930
That was just the ultimate
personification
01:04:10.055 --> 01:04:13.517
of his white supremacy,
his anti-Semitism,
01:04:13.642 --> 01:04:17.397
his hatred of Jews,
hatred of Blacks.
01:04:17.522 --> 01:04:21.067
That was as much trying to
neutralize Richard Sobol as a warning
01:04:21.192 --> 01:04:23.903
to other lawyers to
"stay out of my parish
01:04:24.028 --> 01:04:27.030
if you're going to challenge
the natural order of things,
01:04:27.155 --> 01:04:29.450
and the natural order of
things is whatever I say it is."
01:04:31.952 --> 01:04:33.913
(Vocalist)
♪ Fear no danger! Shun no labor! ♪
01:04:34.038 --> 01:04:35.998
♪ Lift up rifle, pike,
and saber! ♪
01:04:36.123 --> 01:04:37.165
-♪ To arms! ♪
-♪ To arms! ♪
01:04:37.290 --> 01:04:38.375
-♪ To arms! ♪
-♪ To arms! ♪
01:04:38.500 --> 01:04:40.753
♪ To arms in Dixie! ♪
01:04:40.878 --> 01:04:42.880
♪ Shoulder pressing
Close to shoulder... ♪
01:04:43.005 --> 01:04:45.048
Perez was enough Klan himself.
01:04:45.173 --> 01:04:48.552
You know, he didn't have to
put no sheet on, he--
01:04:48.677 --> 01:04:50.553
he got on national
television and said,
01:04:50.678 --> 01:04:52.557
you know,
if the Federal Government
01:04:52.682 --> 01:04:54.517
would, uh, send
people down here,
01:04:54.642 --> 01:04:57.978
or Martin Luther King
would come down, what he would do,
01:04:58.103 --> 01:05:00.690
or the NAACP,
what he was going to do.
01:05:00.815 --> 01:05:05.945
He had put fences around Fort St. Philip
on the east bank of the river.
01:05:06.070 --> 01:05:09.073
He thought, "Hey, those niggers
come down here, we gonna take 'em,
01:05:09.198 --> 01:05:12.285
put 'em over there, let the
snakes and the mosquitoes eat 'em up."
01:05:12.410 --> 01:05:13.953
-♪ To arms! ♪
-♪ To arms! ♪
01:05:14.078 --> 01:05:17.582
♪ And conquer peace
For Dixie! ♪
01:05:18.373 --> 01:05:21.543
(Reporter) The only way to reach
Fort St. Philip is by boat, helicopter,
01:05:21.668 --> 01:05:23.963
or on foot through the swamps,
if you don't mind the snakes.
01:05:24.088 --> 01:05:27.633
(Man) Perez built a jail
on an alligator-infested island
01:05:27.758 --> 01:05:30.552
in the middle of the Mississippi River,
where he was going to put anybody
01:05:30.677 --> 01:05:32.847
involved with civil rights
activities. (chuckles)
01:05:32.972 --> 01:05:36.933
(Perez) We are building strong
fences around it, which--
01:05:37.058 --> 01:05:41.147
the top of which will be electrified,
so as to prevent any attempt at escapes.
01:05:41.272 --> 01:05:42.940
(Sobol) Being arrested
was one thing,
01:05:43.065 --> 01:05:46.110
but I didn't want to spend
the night on that island.
01:05:46.235 --> 01:05:48.195
(Reporter) Plans call
for putting the demonstrators
01:05:48.320 --> 01:05:51.198
in the old powder magazines
beneath the concrete gun emplacements.
01:05:51.323 --> 01:05:54.827
No snakes were in evidence,
but Perez says they're there,
01:05:54.952 --> 01:05:57.413
and the the mosquitoes
are almost a year-round problem.
01:05:57.538 --> 01:06:01.542
How many people do you think
you could accommodate in here?
01:06:01.667 --> 01:06:03.543
How many could you
incarcerate?
01:06:03.585 --> 01:06:05.963
Well, now, that depends on how
many people come into Plaquemines Parish
01:06:06.005 --> 01:06:09.717
to try and break down our
local government and cause trouble.
01:06:11.135 --> 01:06:13.053
There's no limit in number.
01:06:13.428 --> 01:06:19.018
If they choose to come in tens
and twenties, we'll take care of them.
01:06:19.143 --> 01:06:21.937
-What about--?
-If they choose to come in hundreds...
01:06:22.062 --> 01:06:25.107
we'll pack 'em in here
just the same.
01:06:25.232 --> 01:06:27.233
(Reporter) There's never been
a racial demonstration
01:06:27.358 --> 01:06:30.863
in Perez's Plaquemines Parish,
but if they come, officials are ready.
01:06:30.988 --> 01:06:35.242
Two cattle boats are even now standing
by at Fort Jackson across the river
01:06:35.367 --> 01:06:38.745
ready to haul the demonstrators
to the Fort St. Philip stockade.
01:06:38.870 --> 01:06:41.623
It was a very
persuasive thing,
01:06:41.748 --> 01:06:44.210
but not-- not so
persuasive that...
01:06:46.920 --> 01:06:48.213
I didn't come.
01:06:48.338 --> 01:06:52.718
(Derfner) When I was growing
up, everybody that I knew
01:06:52.843 --> 01:06:57.138
was in favor of civil rights.
01:06:57.263 --> 01:07:02.687
When I was a kid, I knew that
01:07:02.812 --> 01:07:07.232
Jackie Robinson was good,
and the South was bad,
01:07:07.357 --> 01:07:09.443
except Alabama,
which was worse.
01:07:10.152 --> 01:07:14.907
(Rabbi Prinz) I was the rabbi
of the Jewish community in Berlin
01:07:15.032 --> 01:07:16.617
under the Hitler regime.
01:07:18.077 --> 01:07:20.203
I learned many things.
01:07:21.705 --> 01:07:25.500
The most important thing
that I learned in my life
01:07:25.625 --> 01:07:31.215
is that bigotry and hatred
01:07:31.340 --> 01:07:34.843
are not the most
urgent problems.
01:07:34.968 --> 01:07:38.555
The most shameful and
the most tragic problem
01:07:38.680 --> 01:07:40.850
is silence.
01:07:40.975 --> 01:07:43.727
Jews who survived
the Holocaust,
01:07:43.852 --> 01:07:47.230
and close descendants of them
01:07:48.315 --> 01:07:50.692
I think there's a
feeling about
01:07:53.237 --> 01:07:57.240
helping Black people who
01:07:59.743 --> 01:08:02.622
kinda have a bad
situation going.
01:08:04.080 --> 01:08:06.125
(Elie) Most of the lawyers
that have been willing to help us
01:08:06.250 --> 01:08:07.710
have been Jewish lawyers.
01:08:08.460 --> 01:08:11.463
And we feel very close to
Jews. Certainly I do.
01:08:11.588 --> 01:08:14.258
And the reason is because
these people see
01:08:14.383 --> 01:08:17.553
that the Negro is nothing more
than a buffer for Jewish people.
01:08:17.678 --> 01:08:22.265
(Elie) The mere fact that
there were so many Jewish lawyers
01:08:22.390 --> 01:08:24.768
who are able to come down
and be a part of this,
01:08:24.893 --> 01:08:26.520
and there were so few
Black lawyers
01:08:26.645 --> 01:08:30.398
makes clear the differences in
how Jews were treated by white gentiles,
01:08:30.523 --> 01:08:33.277
and how Blacks were treated
by white gentiles.
01:08:34.152 --> 01:08:38.115
So while there may be some connections,
and indeed there have been Jews
01:08:38.240 --> 01:08:41.327
lynched in this country
for being Jewish,
01:08:42.787 --> 01:08:46.832
the truth is that our struggles
have been very, very different.
01:08:47.373 --> 01:08:50.920
Jews were allowed to do things that Black
people couldn't even think about doing.
01:08:51.045 --> 01:08:54.047
We're talking about in the '60s here,
so when we say the Holocaust,
01:08:54.172 --> 01:08:57.635
we may be talking about
maybe 20 years earlier,
01:08:57.760 --> 01:09:00.595
so the memory of the Holocaust
was still fresh.
01:09:00.720 --> 01:09:03.807
You get into a dangerous area
when you start saying,
01:09:03.932 --> 01:09:05.350
" OK, well my pain's worse
01:09:05.475 --> 01:09:06.768
than your pain, you know.
01:09:06.893 --> 01:09:09.897
Let's compare pain and let's
see whose pain is worse."
01:09:10.022 --> 01:09:12.567
It's-- it's different.
It's-- it's different.
01:09:14.150 --> 01:09:17.738
We were there
helping tear down
01:09:18.988 --> 01:09:21.325
their system of
government and society.
01:09:21.450 --> 01:09:24.912
So, the civil rights workers
were doing it,
01:09:25.370 --> 01:09:29.833
but we were helping them make
the destruction work, that we--
01:09:29.958 --> 01:09:32.502
we were the ones going to the
courts and getting the court orders,
01:09:32.627 --> 01:09:35.047
and the court orders were
telling the-- the segregationists
01:09:35.088 --> 01:09:37.465
or the government what they
had to do and couldn't do,
01:09:37.675 --> 01:09:39.427
so of course they wanted
to get rid of us.
01:09:40.802 --> 01:09:44.348
And that's why the Shakespeare
quote, let's kill all the lawyers.
01:09:44.473 --> 01:09:48.352
The first thing we do let's
kill all the lawyers... yeah.
01:09:50.980 --> 01:09:54.692
Any system knows
that the lawyers
01:09:54.817 --> 01:09:59.947
are integral with making the
system work or not work.
01:10:00.072 --> 01:10:04.243
So if you control the system, you want
to make sure you control the legal system.
01:10:06.203 --> 01:10:11.917
It was a system of-- of
pretend law in Louisiana, Mississippi,
01:10:12.042 --> 01:10:15.295
Alabama, Georgia, Virginia,
other states,
01:10:15.420 --> 01:10:19.925
and that system of pretend law,
which they could keep up as long as
01:10:20.050 --> 01:10:24.472
they weren't scrutinized by the
outside world and the Federal courts,
01:10:24.597 --> 01:10:29.183
we were bringing an outside
source of greater authority
01:10:29.308 --> 01:10:32.228
called the U.S. Supreme Court
and the Federal courts
01:10:32.353 --> 01:10:36.067
and the U.S. Constitution,
bringing that to bear
01:10:36.192 --> 01:10:39.362
on the systems of pretend law
01:10:39.487 --> 01:10:41.238
that were prevailing
in the Southern states.
01:10:41.363 --> 01:10:45.158
And that's what Sobol vs.
Perez, that case, was about.
01:10:45.283 --> 01:10:48.245
(Sobol) We filed a case
in Federal court New Orleans
01:10:48.370 --> 01:10:51.957
to enjoin my prosecution
and to declare any prohibition
01:10:52.082 --> 01:10:54.835
on the activities of outside
civil rights lawyers
01:10:54.960 --> 01:10:57.378
unconstitutional as violating
not only the lawyers' rights...
01:10:57.503 --> 01:11:00.967
If we lost, I'd be in
jail the next day.
01:11:02.050 --> 01:11:07.640
Me and Duncan were the plaintiffs,
and this defendant was Perez.
01:11:07.765 --> 01:11:10.475
There was a trial, and the
trial lasted for three weeks.
01:11:10.600 --> 01:11:12.853
And every day, there was a
story in the Times-Picayune
01:11:12.978 --> 01:11:14.480
about what was going on
in the courtroom.
01:11:14.605 --> 01:11:17.190
We were all jealous of Sobol
'cause he got all the headlines,
01:11:17.315 --> 01:11:20.693
and all he had to do was spend
a couple of hours in jail. (chuckles)
01:11:20.818 --> 01:11:26.742
(courtroom chatter, footsteps)
-(Bailiff) All rise.
01:11:26.867 --> 01:11:30.287
(courtroom chatter continues)
(gavel bangs)
01:11:30.412 --> 01:11:32.622
(Bronstein) I would now like
to call Mr. Sobol to the stand.
01:11:32.747 --> 01:11:34.833
State your name
and address for the record.
01:11:34.958 --> 01:11:37.627
(Sobol) Richard B. Sobol. Six-oh-five
Common Street, New Orleans.
01:11:37.752 --> 01:11:39.463
(Bronstein) Where did you
serve as a volunteer,
01:11:39.588 --> 01:11:41.298
and with whom were
you associated?
01:11:41.340 --> 01:11:44.092
(Sobol) I was working with the
law firm of Collins, Douglas, and Eli.
01:11:44.133 --> 01:11:48.347
(Dowling) There is no doubt
about it in your mind that you informed
01:11:48.472 --> 01:11:52.058
Judge Leon very early in the proceedings
that you were an out-of-state attorney?
01:11:52.183 --> 01:11:54.395
(Sobol) At the very first minute
when we sat down at the table,
01:11:54.520 --> 01:11:56.688
that was the first thing
Mr. Collins said.
01:11:56.813 --> 01:12:01.235
A small part of the testimony
had to do with me and Duncan
01:12:01.360 --> 01:12:02.485
and what happened, yeah.
01:12:04.362 --> 01:12:07.950
Ninety percent had to do with, how
does a Black person get a lawyer
01:12:08.075 --> 01:12:10.910
in this state if he wants to
assert rights under Federal law?
01:12:11.035 --> 01:12:12.788
And it was very interesting.
01:12:12.913 --> 01:12:15.957
(Bronstein) Would you briefly describe
the duties of the volunteer lawyers?
01:12:16.082 --> 01:12:18.627
(Sobol) The volunteer lawyers would
come down for a three-week period only,
01:12:18.752 --> 01:12:20.253
usually on their vacations,
01:12:20.378 --> 01:12:21.838
and do whatever it was
that Mr. Douglas and...
01:12:21.963 --> 01:12:24.550
(Sobol) The one thing
that Negro leadership in the South
01:12:24.675 --> 01:12:27.552
is rightly disinclined to
accept is white people telling them
01:12:27.677 --> 01:12:29.805
any further what to do
and what not to do,
01:12:29.930 --> 01:12:33.142
even well-meaning and
committed white liberal Northerners.
01:12:33.267 --> 01:12:35.727
(Sobol) The leadership is
theirs, and so are the choices,
01:12:35.852 --> 01:12:38.438
including the option not to
work with any white lawyers at all.
01:12:38.563 --> 01:12:40.815
(Provensal) How is the Duncan
case a civil rights case?
01:12:40.857 --> 01:12:43.027
(Sobol) The Duncan case is a civil
rights case because this court ordered
01:12:43.068 --> 01:12:45.737
the desegregation of the
Plaquemines Parish schools,
01:12:45.862 --> 01:12:49.365
and the officials of the parish were
contemptuous of that court order
01:12:49.490 --> 01:12:51.702
and encouraged violations
of that court order.
01:12:51.827 --> 01:12:54.538
(Woman) When I answered the
phone, it was a woman's voice.
01:12:54.663 --> 01:12:58.958
She said, "If you take those
Negroes into our new white school,
01:12:59.083 --> 01:13:01.712
it will be blown to pieces,
with you in it."
01:13:01.837 --> 01:13:03.505
(Sobol) ...lawlessness
in Plaquemines Parish
01:13:03.630 --> 01:13:06.258
by encouraging students
not to go to school.
01:13:06.383 --> 01:13:08.718
But then,
the first criminal prosecution
01:13:08.843 --> 01:13:12.555
arising out of all this was
not Mr. Perez, nor the parents,
01:13:12.680 --> 01:13:14.642
who were encouraging their
boys to stay out of school,
01:13:14.767 --> 01:13:17.853
but Gary Duncan, who had
stopped by the side of the road
01:13:17.978 --> 01:13:20.230
where his cousin and nephew
were about to be attacked
01:13:20.355 --> 01:13:22.357
for attending the
desegregated school.
01:13:22.482 --> 01:13:24.860
And the forces of law and
order were brought to bear
01:13:24.985 --> 01:13:27.028
not on those
who are trying to prevent...
01:13:27.153 --> 01:13:29.405
(Sobol) Solely by virtue
of being Negro children
01:13:29.530 --> 01:13:32.075
who had transferred to a white
school under the court order.
01:13:32.200 --> 01:13:34.410
(Provensal) The integration of the
schools was carried out very peacefully.
01:13:34.535 --> 01:13:36.122
-Isn't that true?
-(Sobol) I don't think that
01:13:36.247 --> 01:13:38.540
the district attorney saying
that these orders of this court
01:13:38.665 --> 01:13:40.583
was a disaster like
Hurricane Betsy
01:13:40.708 --> 01:13:44.588
is a peaceful carrying-out
of the orders of this court.
01:13:46.465 --> 01:13:49.217
(Bronstein) Would you speak into the
microphone so that everyone can hear you?
01:13:49.342 --> 01:13:54.013
(Gary) Gary Duncan. I live at
Boothville, Louisiana.
01:13:54.138 --> 01:13:56.600
-(Bronstein) How old are you, Mr. Duncan?
-(Gary) 20.
01:13:56.725 --> 01:13:59.060
(Bronstein) Why did you go
to New Orleans to get a lawyer?
01:13:59.185 --> 01:14:03.523
(Gary) Well, I never had any intention of
getting a lawyer in Plaquemines Parish
01:14:03.648 --> 01:14:07.610
because I figured all they were going
to do for me was to plead guilty.
01:14:07.735 --> 01:14:09.070
(Bronstein) Would you have
trusted any lawyer
01:14:09.195 --> 01:14:11.157
in Plaquemines Parish to
take your case?
01:14:11.282 --> 01:14:12.282
No,
01:14:13.782 --> 01:14:15.243
because the majority of the
lawyers are in politics.
01:14:15.368 --> 01:14:19.288
(Bronstein) Before the battery case
went to trial, did Mr. Sobol talk to you
01:14:19.413 --> 01:14:21.583
about requesting a jury trial?
-(Gary) Yes.
01:14:21.708 --> 01:14:25.837
I told him I believe I would stand a
better chance at winning the case,
01:14:25.962 --> 01:14:28.715
you know, with a jury trial.
01:14:28.840 --> 01:14:30.883
(Bronstein) We would like to
call Mr. Lolis Elie.
01:14:31.008 --> 01:14:33.553
State your full name and
address for the record, please.
01:14:33.678 --> 01:14:36.097
(Elie) My name is
Lolis Edward Elie.
01:14:36.222 --> 01:14:39.935
I live at 1035 Short Street,
New Orleans, Louisiana.
01:14:40.060 --> 01:14:42.145
(Bronstein) What kind of work
do you do, Mr. Elie?
01:14:42.270 --> 01:14:44.480
(Elie) I am an
attorney-at-law.
01:14:44.605 --> 01:14:48.693
(Bronstein) Mr. Elie, have you any
experience in handling civil rights cases?
01:14:48.818 --> 01:14:52.822
(Elie) Yes, I've handled
civil rights cases since the year 1960.
01:14:52.947 --> 01:14:57.870
My best estimate is that we have
handled between 500 and 600 civil rights...
01:14:57.995 --> 01:15:00.080
(Elie) My office was involved
in the Duncan case
01:15:00.205 --> 01:15:04.250
that was in the United States
Supreme Court and argued last week.
01:15:04.375 --> 01:15:08.172
(Bronstein) Mr. Elie, do you have an
opinion as to whether local Negroes
01:15:08.297 --> 01:15:12.050
active in civil rights have
trust or confidence in local lawyers?
01:15:12.175 --> 01:15:14.595
(Elie) Civil rights workers
and other people involved
01:15:14.720 --> 01:15:17.513
have no confidence whatsoever
in white attorneys
01:15:17.638 --> 01:15:18.765
in the state of Louisiana.
01:15:20.933 --> 01:15:22.685
(Bronstein) Have you ever attempted
to enlist the assistance of local counsel?
01:15:22.810 --> 01:15:25.772
(Elie) No, I have not because I
talked to local counsel,
01:15:25.897 --> 01:15:29.568
and their attitude
was clearly antagonistic.
01:15:29.693 --> 01:15:32.570
They talked about what would happen
to them if they attempted to help us.
01:15:32.695 --> 01:15:37.658
The lawyers for Perez keep talking about
all these white lawyers of good will
01:15:37.783 --> 01:15:40.578
who, if they had only been asked,
would have been glad to come forward.
01:15:40.703 --> 01:15:44.457
"And, Mr. Eli, did you not even
bother to ask these lawyers?"
01:15:44.582 --> 01:15:47.752
But of course, the whole time
they're asking this,
01:15:47.877 --> 01:15:49.712
they got to know
they're lying.
01:15:49.753 --> 01:15:52.090
(Elie) The white attorneys realized
that we were not making money.
01:15:52.132 --> 01:15:54.635
You would talk to people
about taking these cases,
01:15:54.760 --> 01:15:56.052
and they would think
you were crazy.
01:15:56.177 --> 01:15:57.930
(Bronstein)
Realizing this increased need,
01:15:58.055 --> 01:16:00.890
did you or the members of your
firm do anything?
01:16:01.015 --> 01:16:01.975
(Elie) Yes, we did.
01:16:03.475 --> 01:16:05.353
Since the beginning of 1960,
we have been in contact
01:16:05.478 --> 01:16:06.980
with C.O.R.E. and the NAACP.
01:16:07.105 --> 01:16:10.733
It was within a month that the Lawyers
Constitutional Defense Committee,
01:16:10.858 --> 01:16:13.237
LCDC, came into existence.
01:16:13.362 --> 01:16:17.032
(Bronstein) Would it have been possible
for you to have handled these cases
01:16:17.157 --> 01:16:18.575
without the
out-of-state counsel?
01:16:18.700 --> 01:16:19.952
(Elie) Absolutely not.
01:16:20.077 --> 01:16:22.828
(Bronstein) Mr. Eli, had you
or any member of your firm
01:16:22.953 --> 01:16:25.165
been subjected to hostility?
01:16:25.665 --> 01:16:31.003
(Vocalist) ♪ Yes, we'll rally
round the flag ♪
01:16:31.128 --> 01:16:33.132
(Elie) Our office was bombed.
01:16:33.257 --> 01:16:36.092
(Vocalist)
♪ Rally once again ♪
01:16:37.843 --> 01:16:43.600
♪ Shouting the battle
cry of freedom ♪
01:16:45.477 --> 01:16:48.647
He talked to the point about
the segregated bathrooms
01:16:48.772 --> 01:16:51.400
in criminal district court
in New Orleans.
01:16:51.525 --> 01:16:56.613
He talked about being given a
court date that was on a holiday,
01:16:56.738 --> 01:17:00.533
but, of course, as a lawyer,
you can't defy the court date,
01:17:00.658 --> 01:17:02.452
but you show up and
nobody's there.
01:17:02.577 --> 01:17:04.287
(Elie) Cases would be
fixed on holidays.
01:17:04.412 --> 01:17:07.623
We would drive up there,
and no one would be in the courtroom.
01:17:07.748 --> 01:17:10.793
They would also segregate
our clients in the courtroom.
01:17:10.918 --> 01:17:12.628
Who else would you do that to
01:17:12.753 --> 01:17:15.507
but a lawyer for whom
you had contempt
01:17:15.632 --> 01:17:18.052
and who you thought
was beneath you?
01:17:18.177 --> 01:17:20.595
But mind you, as an
officer of the court,
01:17:20.720 --> 01:17:23.640
you also have to embody
a respect for the institution
01:17:23.765 --> 01:17:25.850
because if you go there
and tell the judge
01:17:25.975 --> 01:17:28.603
or tell the district attorney,
you know, "Fuck you.
01:17:28.728 --> 01:17:31.773
You gave me this bullshit-ass
date. You knew you was doing this."
01:17:31.898 --> 01:17:32.898
You can't do that.
01:17:33.023 --> 01:17:35.652
(Elie) Judge Rarick
said to me,
01:17:35.777 --> 01:17:38.697
"I didn't know
they let coons practice law."
01:17:38.822 --> 01:17:41.908
He pointed to a tree
outside and said,
01:17:42.033 --> 01:17:45.620
"Once there was a Negro
sheriff in Clinton,
01:17:45.745 --> 01:17:50.458
and he had been removed and
hanged on the tree outside this window."
01:17:50.583 --> 01:17:55.797
Another time I went up to a place
called Arcadia with two LCDC lawyers.
01:17:55.922 --> 01:17:58.758
We were intercepted
by some police.
01:17:58.883 --> 01:18:01.845
They brought out cattle prods.
01:18:01.970 --> 01:18:03.930
They put them where we
could see them.
01:18:04.055 --> 01:18:07.850
We decided that since I was
the only Louisiana lawyer present,
01:18:07.975 --> 01:18:09.685
I should do the talking.
01:18:09.810 --> 01:18:14.900
We went in and the sheriff,
he said, "Nigger, shut up your mouth."
01:18:15.025 --> 01:18:17.943
And I was not permitted
to open my mouth in that room.
01:18:18.068 --> 01:18:22.532
It was said to me, "Nigger,
don't you come back here again.
01:18:22.657 --> 01:18:24.952
Let these white people
take care of this."
01:18:27.662 --> 01:18:30.123
How do you talk about the tone
of the clerk of court
01:18:30.248 --> 01:18:33.960
or someone like that when
that's not something that you can prove,
01:18:34.085 --> 01:18:35.545
but it's something you know?
01:18:35.670 --> 01:18:38.090
Something you know not only
because of that moment,
01:18:38.215 --> 01:18:40.675
but because of the years
01:18:40.800 --> 01:18:42.468
and decades
you have spent in this life,
01:18:42.593 --> 01:18:45.930
and because of the lessons
that your parents have taught you
01:18:46.055 --> 01:18:49.100
about the kind of deference
you must show to white people
01:18:49.225 --> 01:18:51.895
if you want to live
into adulthood.
01:18:52.020 --> 01:18:56.398
How do you prove that this
system is racist at its very core?
01:18:59.987 --> 01:19:02.447
(Derfner)
Sobol v. Perez was about
01:19:02.572 --> 01:19:05.992
the transformation of the
South into part of America.
01:19:06.117 --> 01:19:08.703
It was a huge global issue.
01:19:12.998 --> 01:19:18.922
What we dreamed of then,
we have not come close to.
01:19:19.047 --> 01:19:23.177
I remember when Barack Obama
was elected president.
01:19:23.302 --> 01:19:26.428
People kept saying, "I never
dreamed this would happen."
01:19:26.553 --> 01:19:28.557
We dreamed it would happen.
01:19:32.518 --> 01:19:34.813
(Derfner) The outside world
started really paying attention
01:19:34.938 --> 01:19:38.150
in 1964 and 1965.
01:19:38.275 --> 01:19:42.445
In 1964, the three civil
rights workers
01:19:42.570 --> 01:19:44.948
were murdered in
Neshoba County.
01:19:45.073 --> 01:19:47.617
It really shook a
lot of people
01:19:47.742 --> 01:19:52.205
because one of the ways that
segregation and white supremacy worked
01:19:52.330 --> 01:19:57.168
is that there was a sympathy
for it in the rest of the country.
01:20:06.052 --> 01:20:10.432
So in '64 and '65,
you had major events,
01:20:10.557 --> 01:20:15.312
the murder of the civil rights
workers and the Selma march,
01:20:15.437 --> 01:20:20.025
and you had major laws, Civil
Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
01:20:20.150 --> 01:20:23.195
And those two things
changed things irrevocably.
01:20:23.320 --> 01:20:27.490
...as a registered voter can we in
any way start on the road to freedom.
01:20:27.615 --> 01:20:29.825
And I hope you'll all help us.
01:20:29.950 --> 01:20:34.205
(Derfner) In '62 and '63,
it really was enemy territory.
01:20:34.330 --> 01:20:35.832
It was a foreign country.
01:20:35.957 --> 01:20:40.420
By '67 and '68,
we were in enemy territory,
01:20:40.545 --> 01:20:43.715
but it was enemy territory
that was being occupied
01:20:43.840 --> 01:20:46.342
by the United States of
America, slowly but surely.
01:21:03.360 --> 01:21:07.030
(Lolis Eric Elie) There's been
an awakening among Americans
01:21:07.155 --> 01:21:12.243
about how very precarious
our rights are.
01:21:12.368 --> 01:21:16.038
We find folks rallying
to defend those things
01:21:16.163 --> 01:21:19.875
which we thought were
emblazoned not only in our Constitution,
01:21:20.000 --> 01:21:23.045
our great documents, but also
in the hearts of Americans.
01:21:23.170 --> 01:21:27.550
Police used to shoot Black
kids all the time.
01:21:27.675 --> 01:21:28.968
All the time.
01:21:30.053 --> 01:21:32.638
What's different is now,
01:21:32.763 --> 01:21:35.308
when it happens,
it's a big deal.
01:21:36.100 --> 01:21:38.060
Before, it used to happen,
and nobody cared.
01:21:39.103 --> 01:21:40.647
And it happened much more.
01:22:21.730 --> 01:22:24.148
(Lolis Eric Elie) Frederick Douglass
used to talk about the abolitionists
01:22:24.273 --> 01:22:28.403
caring a great deal about
slavery but not so much about the slave.
01:22:32.032 --> 01:22:35.910
For Richard Sobol to
effectively argue in Gary Duncan's case,
01:22:36.035 --> 01:22:39.080
he had to see it as a case
about a human being
01:22:39.205 --> 01:22:41.165
and not a case about
a civil right.
01:23:03.228 --> 01:23:06.398
(Sobol) So then they wanted
to give Duncan a jury trial,
01:23:06.523 --> 01:23:10.112
and we brought a case,
saying the only reason
01:23:10.237 --> 01:23:12.780
they could possibly try the
man at this point after all this
01:23:12.905 --> 01:23:17.160
was just intimidation
and vengeance.
01:23:17.285 --> 01:23:19.620
And we filed a case
called Duncan v. Perez.
01:23:19.745 --> 01:23:22.040
Your boys done that to me.
I learned my lesson.
01:23:22.165 --> 01:23:25.085
(Sobol) That went to trial,
where the judge ruled in our favor,
01:23:25.210 --> 01:23:26.085
and he issued a nice opinion,
01:23:26.210 --> 01:23:28.755
saying that there was
malicious prosecution,
01:23:28.880 --> 01:23:30.798
and they enjoined them
from trying Duncan.
01:23:30.923 --> 01:23:33.635
And so it was kind of a
trifecta, I guess.
01:23:34.802 --> 01:23:36.178
(Gary) You're a changed man, huh?
01:23:42.018 --> 01:23:45.272
(Sobol) He grew and turned out
to be an important leader in the parish.
01:23:47.273 --> 01:23:49.025
He was the head
of the shrimpers' association
01:23:49.150 --> 01:23:51.987
and became an important figure
after that.
01:23:57.075 --> 01:23:58.367
And he's still my friend.
01:24:13.298 --> 01:24:17.095
(Man) I never came to
Louisiana again without seeing Gary.
01:24:25.562 --> 01:24:27.855
I was feeling very sick
01:24:28.063 --> 01:24:32.527
and reluctantly decided that
we had to put off meeting with Gary.
01:24:32.735 --> 01:24:37.448
We wrote to him and said,
"Don't come this week.
01:24:37.573 --> 01:24:39.075
Richard's not feeling well,
01:24:39.200 --> 01:24:42.203
and we'll
reschedule it later."
01:24:42.328 --> 01:24:47.750
He wrote back and said,
"I don't care what his condition is.
01:24:47.875 --> 01:24:50.295
I wanna see him.
I wanna be there."
01:24:50.420 --> 01:24:54.923
So, uh, he came.
01:25:05.977 --> 01:25:08.312
Mr. Sobol became part
of my family.
01:25:08.437 --> 01:25:09.897
I'm part of his family.
01:26:07.663 --> 01:26:09.998
(Vocalist)
♪ I just wanna talk about it ♪
01:26:10.123 --> 01:26:12.835
♪ Just a little bit ♪
01:26:12.960 --> 01:26:14.628
♪ Just for a while ♪
01:26:17.257 --> 01:26:19.717
♪ We will win this race ♪
01:26:19.842 --> 01:26:22.553
♪ I still believe we can ♪
01:26:22.678 --> 01:26:25.973
♪ Oh, don't be misled ♪
01:26:26.098 --> 01:26:28.392
♪ I won't let no one ♪
01:26:28.517 --> 01:26:31.938
♪ Destroy my path ♪
01:26:36.442 --> 01:26:41.822
♪ I stood around in
ice-cold blood ♪
01:26:42.948 --> 01:26:48.287
♪ Livin' in fear for
everyone I love ♪
01:26:48.997 --> 01:26:54.502
♪ Segregation is
all I can see ♪
01:26:55.795 --> 01:26:57.963
♪ There's no fine line ♪
01:26:58.088 --> 01:27:01.592
♪ They're starin' off of me ♪
01:27:01.717 --> 01:27:05.347
♪ Yes, I'll embrace
these strangers ♪
01:27:05.472 --> 01:27:07.432
♪ Face to face ♪
01:27:07.557 --> 01:27:10.602
♪ North and South ♪
01:27:10.727 --> 01:27:15.230
♪ I won't let no one
destroy my house ♪
01:27:15.355 --> 01:27:18.192
♪ Take this road by myself ♪
01:27:18.317 --> 01:27:20.278
♪ If I have to ♪
01:27:20.403 --> 01:27:23.572
♪ No, I have friends ♪
01:27:23.697 --> 01:27:28.995
♪ I won't let no one
destroy my path ♪
01:27:33.875 --> 01:27:36.460
♪ The heroes I've read about ♪
01:27:36.585 --> 01:27:40.465
♪ Wouldn't take a life
like a thug ♪
01:27:40.590 --> 01:27:42.508
♪ Look in my eyes ♪
01:27:42.633 --> 01:27:46.512
♪ You'll see the
flow of love ♪
01:27:46.637 --> 01:27:49.348
♪ What do y'all hear? ♪
01:27:49.473 --> 01:27:52.393
♪ Does anyone hear me? ♪
01:27:52.518 --> 01:27:54.270
♪ Should I write a letter? ♪
01:27:54.395 --> 01:27:55.938
♪ Talk to a mayor? ♪
01:27:56.063 --> 01:27:57.482
♪ Become a politician? ♪
01:27:57.607 --> 01:27:59.483
♪ Provide a speech? ♪
01:27:59.608 --> 01:28:01.443
♪ Choices I make ♪
01:28:01.568 --> 01:28:05.448
♪ I like them to be my own ♪
01:28:05.573 --> 01:28:08.158
♪ Oh, this feels so wrong ♪
01:28:08.283 --> 01:28:12.413
♪ But I won't let no
one destroy my ♪
01:28:12.538 --> 01:28:17.960
♪ I've been down
some weird streets sometimes ♪
01:28:18.085 --> 01:28:21.130
♪ But I know that ♪
01:28:21.255 --> 01:28:24.925
♪ I won't let no one
destroy my ♪
01:28:25.050 --> 01:28:26.760
♪ I won't let no one ♪
01:28:26.885 --> 01:28:30.348
♪ We're gonna get better ♪
01:28:30.473 --> 01:28:33.642
♪ We need a change of weather ♪
01:28:33.767 --> 01:28:35.562
♪ The world needs a change ♪
01:28:35.687 --> 01:28:39.523
♪ We can't stay this
way forever ♪
01:28:39.648 --> 01:28:43.193
♪ We gotta get better ♪
01:28:43.318 --> 01:28:46.322
♪ We need a change
of weather ♪
01:28:46.447 --> 01:28:48.448
♪ The world needs a change ♪
01:28:48.573 --> 01:28:52.412
♪ We can't stay this
way forever ♪
01:28:52.537 --> 01:28:55.748
♪ We've gotta get clever ♪
01:28:55.873 --> 01:28:58.710
♪ More clever than ever ♪
01:28:58.835 --> 01:29:01.128
♪ The world needs a change ♪
01:29:01.253 --> 01:29:04.590
♪ We can't stay this
way forever ♪
01:29:19.605 --> 01:29:21.357
(vocalizing)
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 91 minutes
Date: 2021
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 10 - 12, College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
Interactive Transcript: Available
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