"Cradled in the Declaration of Independence" by Jay Tidmarsh

 

Title

Cradled in the Declaration of Independence

Authors

Jay Tidmarsh

Abstract

This book review engages recent scholarship on the nature of civil-rights lawyering in the African-American bar in the generation before Brown v. Board of Education. Using the recent biography of Earl Burrus Dickerson, one of the leaders of the African-American bar before World War II, the book review finds support for the emerging view that, in the years before Brown, the African-American civil-rights bar was not focused on ending de jure segregation in public institutions, but rather in building up African-American institutions. Contrary to recent scholarship, however, the review suggests that Dickerson personally preferred a more integrationist strategy, and his efforts to build up African-American institutions was less a conscious strategy than a realization of the limitations on his ability to practice law as he wished. Freedom of action, rather than racial equality, was Dickerson's great motivator.

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | Legal History

Date of this Version

October 2006