A candid but unenlightening memoir of the failed effort to defend
segregation before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of
Education. Wilson (Law/Univ. of Kansas), in 1954 assistant attorney
general for the state of Kansas, writes as the only surviving
litigator of the landmark case that ended segregation in the
nation's public schools. Back then he was a fledgling "country
lawyer" infected by what he calls "the Kansas ambivalence" about
race relations, who was suddenly charged with representing his
state before the Supreme Court - and before national opinion.
Wilson makes no bones about his current belief that segregation was
morally reprehensible and un-American. However, his account of his
views 40 years ago is less clear: Sometimes he admits he just
doesn't remember; at others, he swears that if he had been a state
legislator he would have voted to end the practice. Nevertheless,
once charged with writing the brief for Brown, Wilson became
convinced that "history and tradition and judicial precedent" were
on his side. After all, he rationalized, unlike the schools of
Virginia or South Carolina (whose cases also fell under the
province of Brown), Kansas's separate schools were "substantially
equal" in quality. Most important, his job was to vigorously invoke
legal precedent (especially Plessy v. Ferguson) and the rule of
law. Wilson's persistent belief that he was just focusing on the
law, and doing his job, comes across today as pathetic and even
comical. When he takes Plessy and his new dark suit to the Supreme
Court, the Justices (especially Frankfurter) mock him then ignore
him in their unanimous opinion. But Wilson is characteristically
clueless: "I was satisfied that I had looked and talked and behaved
like a lawyer." Repetitive, simplistic, and inadvertently humorous,
this book will not win sympathy for its legalistic defense of
segregation. (Kirkus Reviews)
This thoughtful and engaging memoir opens up a previously hidden
side to what many consider the most important Supreme Court
decision of the twentieth century. With quiet candor Paul Wilson
reflects upon his role as the Kansas assistant attorney general
assigned "to defend the indefensible"--the policy of "separate but
equal" that was overturned on May 17, 1954, by Linda Brown's
precedent-shattering suit.
The "Brown" decision ended legally sanctioned racial segregation
in our nation's public schools, expanded the constitutional
concepts of equal protection and due process of law, and in many
ways launched the modern civil rights movement. Since that time, it
has been cited by appellate courts in thousands of federal and
state cases, analyzed in thousands of books and articles, and
remains a cornerstone of law school education.
Wilson reminds us that Brown was not one case but four-including
similar cases in South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware-and that it
was only a quirk of fate that brought this young lawyer to center
stage at the Supreme Court. But the Kansas case and his own role,
he argues, were different from the others in significant ways. His
recollections reveal why.
Recalling many events known only to Brown insiders, Wilson
re-creates the world of 1950s Kansas, places the case in the
context of those times and politics, provides important new
information about the state's ambivalent defense, and then steps
back to suggest some fundamental lessons about his experience, the
evolution of race relations, and the lawyer's role in the judicial
resolution of social conflict.
Throughout these reflections Wilson's voice shines through with
sincerity, warmth, and genuine humility. Far from a self-serving
apology by one of history's losers, his memoir reminds us once
again that there are good people on every side of the issues that
divide us and that truth and meaning are not the special preserve
of history's winners.
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