Bill Robinson Interview Transcript

    Legal Defense Fund Oral History Project  

Gabrielle Kirk McDonald 

Interviewed by Susie Penman 

March 22, 2024 

McLean, Virginia 

Length: 02:12:08 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
Conducted in collaboration with the Southern Oral History Program at University of North 

Carolina at Chapel Hill 

 

LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. 



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This transcript has been reviewed by Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, the Southern Oral History 

Program, and LDF. It has been lightly edited, in consultation Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, for 

readability and clarity. Additions and corrections appear in both brackets and footnotes. If 

viewing corresponding video footage, please refer to this transcript for corrected information.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 



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[START OF INTERVIEW] 

Susie Penman: This is Susie Penman from the Southern Oral History Program at the 

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is March 22nd, 2024, and I am here in 

McLean, Virginia, with Gabrielle Kirk McDonald in her home to conduct an interview for the 

LDF Oral History Project. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing your story 

 Gabrielle Kirk McDonald: It's my pleasure. 

 SP: So, will you just begin by introducing yourself, telling us who you are? 

 GKM: Well, I'm Gabrielle Kirk McDonald. Kirk was my maiden name. I was with 

the Legal Defense Fund in New York from 1966 through mid-1969. Do you want me to say 

more? 

 SP: Well, I want to talk about your childhood. 

 GKM: Okay. 

 SP: You were born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. 

 GKM: Yes. 

 SP: But you moved around. 

 GKM: Yes. 

 SP: Can you just tell us a little bit about your childhood, about living in these 

different places? 

 GKM: Well, I was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Saint Joseph’s Hospital. My mother 

was biracial. She was Swedish [and African-American]. There’s a large population of Swedes 

in Minnesota. And my father was African-American. They were divorced. And I moved with 

my mother East. We landed in New York City because she wanted to be an actress. She was 

able to work as an understudy under Hilda Simms in Anna Lucasta, which was the first Black 



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play on Broadway [00:02:02]. But I think, well, I can remember now that I remember when I 

was in high school, she was in a local play. But other than that, that was the end of that career. 

So, and then we moved, the beginning and end I guess, we moved to D.C. for, I guess about a 

year and a half, and then we moved back to New York. First Manhattan, and then we moved 

to Riverdale. From there we moved to Teaneck, New Jersey, to get out of Spanish Harlem, 

where I was then living. So yes, I did, in my youth – and when I say my youth, you know, 

before I became a teenager, yeah, we did move a bit. And then I spent, of that time, the third 

grade through the fifth grade with my grandparents in St. Paul, Minnesota. So, my upbringing 

really had two parts to it. The first was with my mother, who was biracial. And speaking of 

culture and racial awareness, that prompted a number of incidents in my life. Then when I 

moved with my grandparents for a few years because of a racial incident when I was in the 

third grade, it was totally different because I lived in a predominantly Black neighborhood, 

very safe, secure situation. [00:04:02] I could ride my bicycle and all of my friends were 

Black and race was never an issue. I, of course, knew that I was African-American, but faced 

no incidents. I didn't know, I didn't learn there, at least, that [some thought] it was not such a 

good thing to be Black. But I certainly learned it when I was growing up with my mother. 

 SP: Can you talk about some of those things that happened when you were growing 

up? 

 GKM: Well, when we moved to Riverdale, I was in the third grade, so I was probably 

eight, something like that. And as I said, my mother looked white, although she chose never 

to pass. She always lived in a Black world or lived as a Black woman, let's put it that way. 

When I guess I showed my face, the management decided that we would have to move, that 

they didn't allow Black folks or whatever, whatever they said. Before that I was in public 



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school and I can remember running home, I guess, from school. I was very thin and I could 

run fast. And I remember I had one friend in that apartment complex. She was Irish. Maryann 

Heffernan, I remember. Very Irish. And her father was a fireman. So I remember one day we 

were playing with kids in the neighborhood and I don't know what they were calling me. 

[00:06:03] Maybe the N-word, who knows? And she said, “Oh, no, no. She was in Florida 

and she just has a tan.” And I didn't say anything. But in any case, back to when we were told 

we would have to move. My mother made the decision to send me to my grandparents. And I 

ran away. This is an eight-year-old, now. I have a grandson who is four, and I look at little 

kids and I can't imagine myself running away. And I even encouraged, I'm sure I encouraged 

Maryann Heffernan to go with me. So we, I can remember that we put on, at least I did, a lot 

of t-shirts, and I had this red briefcase, I remember, with the flaps over it, and I guess I put 

something in there. Well, we’re running. I don't know where we're going, but that must have 

been my response to it. The police picked us up and called her father, who, as I said, was a 

fireman. And that’s when my mother decided that I needed to spend – she wasn't in a 

position, I don't know whether she moved or not, actually. She probably did move because 

even though she didn't look Black, they knew that she was. So, I moved to Minnesota and I 

went to Catholic [school] – I was raised Roman Catholic. That was a Black school, a Black 

order. And then I went to public school for the fourth and fifth grade. [00:08:00] So, that's a 

long answer to your question. 

 SP: No, that’s perfect. I want to know how your mother or, and or your grandparents 

talked to you about race and about these incidents. 

 GKM: Yeah. You know, I don't know. I can imagine that my grandmother and 

grandfather did not. It’s very difficult, and particularly to an eight-year-old. Now, my mother 



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is different, not about this incident, but I can remember before then, I told her a joke about 

Asians. And kids pick this up. And I thought it was so funny. I just fell out laughing. And she 

gave me a lecture then and there, and this was before Riverdale, that we don't do that. And we 

never did in my family. Never. We never used derogatory terms for people. So my mother 

didn't address that specific incident in terms of race that I recall. I'm sure she did, but I just 

don't remember because for a while I thought my mother was sending me away because I had 

done something bad, you know, like kids and a divorce. And it’s only as I’ve gotten older that 

no. So she would tell me incidents that she had, like she was in a taxicab, I remember she told 

me, and that the driver said, “Oh, I'm sorry if the car stinks, but” – I'm sure “N-word” – “was 

just in the car.” [00:10:07] And then I had other incidents when I came back from living with 

my grandparents. I remember we went to Bloomingdale’s and to the hair salon and I had an 

appointment, so my mother checked me in and she said she was going to go shopping. She 

came back and I was still sitting there. I was, I don’t know how old I was, probably, who 

knows, 12 or something, I don’t know. And she turned the place out. She was a fiery little 

thing. And I say little thing because I'm tall. I take after my father. She was about five-four. 

She turned the place out. And I was petrified and I was afraid that they were just going to snip 

my ears off. And then we moved to Teaneck. And as I look back on my life, I did a lot of 

integrating. You know, when Black schools were, well, when a school system is required to 

integrate, what happens is that Booker T. Washington High School disappears. Well, that's 

what I was doing. I was integrating. And particularly when I integrated Teaneck High School 

in Teaneck, New Jersey, and that was in [19]55, I guess, there were very few Blacks. And the 

Blacks that were there were kind of concentrated in our little enclave, you know, real estate 

agents, kind of steer people, minorities. And later the real estate companies, I guess, practice 



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what's called blockbusting. [00:12:04] And basically, they come and they tell the people, the 

white people who own, “You better sell your house because the value of it is going down.” 

And my mother was very much involved in that [fighting block-busting]. And well, in terms 

of conversations about race, I learned from incidents that she had, I guess, what at least some 

white people felt about Black people. And then I would come, then I came to learn it myself 

as I was integrating Teaneck High School being an integration, because when I graduated 

there were 300 and some students and I was the only girl and there was one Black boy in the 

class. So, it was integrated. No de jure segregation. But for all intents and purposes, it was 

segregated. You know, for four years I went to Teaneck High School and never, I was never in 

the home of any of my classmates and none of my classmates were ever in my home. And 

that’s by choice. That's not de jure. And then in the yearbook, they had, whoever was the 

editorial board, had the audacity to say under my photograph, “One of the nicest girls in the 

class,” blah blah blah. Well if I'm so nice! [laughs] Of course I didn't invite either. [00:14:00] 

I mostly associated with Blacks in Englewood, that was a nearby town just down the hill. And 

there were a number of Blacks there. So. 

 SP: Sorry, I – 

 GKM: Cut me off because I could sit here. I’m an old lady. I could sit here and just 

talk to you until your ears fell off.  

 SP: Well, I could sit here and listen happily, but I wish we had all day.  

 GKM: And I remember, I remember when Emmett Till. 

 SP: Wait, wait, just a second. [microphone issue] 

 GKM: I’m sorry. What happened? 

 SP: Tell me about –  



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 GKM: Don’t tell me the electricity, okay. [GKM commenting on microphone issue] 

 SP: Tell me about Emmett Till. I was going to ask you if you remembered Brown v. 

Board, reading about it, but tell me about that and reading about Emmett Till. 

 GKM: No, I don’t remember Brown. I would have been in my, in the ninth grade, or 

thereabouts. I remember the Little Rock Nine and that would have been in 1957. And I can 

imagine what I felt. And that was a lot of admiration, I guess, for students like me, my age 

group, who would go through that to go to school. But before that, yes, Emmett Till. I can 

remember, and I guess a lot of people, a lot of Black people would remember it that way too, 

was looking at Jet magazine, which was published by the Johnson family. [00:16:00] It was a 

small, small magazine. Little, maybe seven or eight inches by whatever. And I can remember 

to this day that his photograph, Emmett Till’s photograph and the casket was to the right of 

the fold. Now, I could be wrong, but that's how I remember it. That was shocking because, 

you know, it's one thing, racial discrimination, whatever. But the violence that’s a 

consequence was just unbelievable. And I was, let me see, I was 14 I think, and he was 13 or 

vice versa. And so, between that and then subsequently Little Rock Nine. Many years later, I 

met Ernest Green, who was one of them. One of the Little Rock Nine. He was the first one to 

graduate, I guess, in [19]57. And then when I, fast forward again, when I taught at St Mary’s 

University School of Law in [1991], I taught a seminar and I used Race Racism and 

American Law, using Derrick Bell’s book, who was at the Legal Defense Fund, or maybe 

NAACP. That’s who, he was at NAACP in the Brown campaign era.1 And I had this seminar 

and there were about 10 white students and I showed them Eyes on the Prize, which is a 

collection of videos of the Civil Rights Movement. [00:18:00] And when they saw that, this 

 
1 Derrick Bell worked at the NAACP Legal and Education Defense Fund Inc. from 1960-1966. 



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was the integration of Little Rock, of Central High School, two of the young women were 

teary. I mean, really. They said, and they were from the South. They said, “We didn't know 

about that.” I said, “Well, you see those people jeering, they were probably your parents’ 

age.” [laughs] Go talk to them. They just had no idea. 

 SP: So, when you were a teenager and you're beginning to understand how violent 

racism can be, how did you take that understanding with you to college and – 

 GKM: To college? 

 SP: Yeah, when you started college, you know. 

GKM: Well, I started at B.U., and I was on a work scholarship, I remember. And my 

assignment was to serve in the lunchroom over the steam table. I didn't wear a bandana, but I 

wore one of those nets.  The steam table. But we, I guess, ran out of money. And my mother 

sold the house in Teaneck and moved to Manhattan. And I then left B.U. and got a job and 

went to Hunter at nights. But at B.U., I subsequently learned I had a white roommate. I'll 

never forget, she had blonde, short hair. [00:20:00] And at one point she told me that her 

parents had received a letter from Boston University asking them if they would mind if she 

roomed with a Negro. And her parents obviously said no because I got there first. I 

remember. And then I remember her coming in. And they didn't look like they were shocked. 

[laughs] So anyway, that – and then it was really, sororities and fraternities were not allowed 

– Black sororities and fraternities were not allowed at B.U. then. And I pledged to a Black 

sorority, Delta Sigma Theta. We have many illustrious members, including Sherrilyn Ifill. 

And I was really gung-ho. I was president of the Pyramid Club and we had women, there 

were 11 on our line from all of the schools. Wellesley, New England School of Music, 

Emerson, B.U. Anyway, so in terms, it was really me integrating, in a sense. So I don’t think I 



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equated the violence of Emmett Till, 14. It was just a few years later really, 17. I didn't do 

that. And then I went, as I said, I worked for a while, went to Hunter College, the downtown 

campus, which was overwhelmingly white and female, all female, downtown. But 

overwhelmingly white. [00:22:04] There were enough Blacks, women, I guess, to sit at one 

table. That’s kind of a consistent pattern, we all sit at the same table. Not, again, because we 

have to, but because it’s preferable. So at Hunter, I majored in history, and I remember 

subsequently it came to me that when we studied the Civil War, the teacher, I can remember 

she was tall, gray hair, referred to it as the “War between the States.” You know, that's kind of 

a code word, code description. I didn’t know then. I had never been in a Black setting other 

than the third, fourth, fifth grade in Minnesota. And so I didn't really have any race 

consciousness, if that is the way to put it. And then, well, I'm getting ahead of myself, I guess. 

Then I went to New School, at a conference at The New School. But before then, I minored 

in sociology. This is, I don’t know whether this is funny. I find it funny. We had to do a book 

report. I was the only Black in the class, obviously, because there were very few in the whole 

university, the college. [00:24:03] And I did my book report on a book that was entitled On 

Being Negro in America. And it was written by I think it was J. Saunders Redding, and it was 

published in [19]51. And it was a personal story. He was a scholar. He was a professor. First 

Black to teach in the Ivy League, at Cornell. And he told about his personal experiences, 

really. And a friend of his – Black, obviously – had been lynched, and just what it was like. 

His personal experiences, it was political in a sense. And I can remember to this day, I'm 

standing up the chalkboard is behind me and I'm giving [laughs] this book report to all these 

white girls. I don't remember. Do you think that whatever number were in there, you think 

somebody asked me a question? I don't remember it. I wouldn't remember it anyway. Why 



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did I do that? You made me remember this. And I was telling my son this, who you met, the 

other day. He said, “Yeah, did they learn anything from it?” I said, “I don’t know.” First, they 

had to get over the shock value. So, I don’t know whether that was before or after I went to 

the conference at New School, but I was obviously making a statement. So, either I run away 

or get in your face. [laughs] [00:26:13] 

 SP: So, tell me about this conference at New School. 

 GKM: That was for the hundredth, hundred-year anniversary of the Emancipation 

Proclamation. And it was a huge conference where a lot of Black professors from Howard 

came. And this was really an eye opener to me about Howard. And to make it short, I decided 

that that’s where I needed to be, this integration is enough. So I applied to one law school. I 

wanted to be a civil rights lawyer, not a lawyer. I had no interest in tax. And Howard was the 

place to be. Howard had been the think tank, really, for the Civil Rights Movement that led to 

Brown, headed by [the dean of the law school] Charles Hamilton Houston, who was a Black 

scholar, graduated from Harvard Law, Amherst. Phi Beta Kappa. I don't know why we have 

to be so, what, not mediocre, but superior. But he was a mentor to Thurgood Marshall 

because Thurgood Marshall went there. He graduated, Thurgood Marshall, 1933. So, Charles 

Hamilton Houston was not only an architect of “how are we going to do this,” you know, 

overturn Plessy v. Ferguson, attack “separate but equal” in schools. [00:28:17]. He was an 

educator and a taskmaster. And even though I got to Howard in 1963 – Thurgood Marshall 

graduated in [19]33 – there were remnants of it because the Black lawyers who participated 

in this campaign, many of them were still there. But Charles Hamilton Houston is famous for 

a number of quotes. But one was, “Any lawyer who is not a social engineer is a parasite on 

society.” He viewed law as not a means to an end, but a way to achieve equality. And he said, 



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“Graduates of Howard are not going to be mediocre, they're not even going to be good, 

they’re going to be excellent.” And he stayed on their derrieres. And the lawyers with whom, 

well, the lawyers that he brought to the fold, so to speak, the Black lawyers, some of them 

remained. James Washington, who taught me property. Herbert Reid, who taught me 

administrative law. Julian Dugas, who taught a case method study. And Elwood Chisholm, 

from whom I had criminal law. [00:30:06] But anyway, he left Howard, Charles Hamilton 

Houston, and became Special Counsel for the NAACP in 1935. And he then brought 

Thurgood Marshall to be the Assistant Special Counsel. And he left in 1940. And in 1940, 

Thurgood Marshall established the Legal Defense Fund. But Howard, as I said, it was the end 

of my integration. It was wonderful. I had students, some of my fellow students were 

involved in the Civil Rights Movement that was going on when I was there. 

 SP: I want to hear all about Howard, but first I want to hear how you decided to be a 

civil rights lawyer, you know, assuming that you had made that decision before you went to 

Howard. 

 GKM: Well, I think I made the decision I wanted to be a lawyer earlier, but without 

any strong basis. My mother used to say that I went to her lawyer with her, and he was Frank 

Reeves, who was in practice, and he had a safe in his office. And I asked what was in that 

safe. He said, “Money.” And he was a civil rights lawyer, among other things, involved in the 

Brown movement. You know, you see, as a Black youth, you see things and you can perhaps 

think, maybe they should be different. [00:32:16] Or you think that you want to change them. 

And I think I got that attitude from my mother. As I said, she was fiery and there was none of 

this “Woe is me” or “Woe is you.” It's “Get it together and do something. Don't be a 

bystander.” And I thought about becoming – everyone has thought, a Black woman at that 



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period, a history teacher. But I changed my mind after something, probably after I learned 

that I had been taught that the Civil War was a war between the states. Not really. So, I can't 

pinpoint it. I just can't pinpoint it. Part of it is personality. I'm just that way. I make it my 

business. Maybe I'm bossy, but I kind of have that care, sense. And it was certainly reinforced 

at Howard. Not everyone who went to Howard was a civil rights lawyer, for sure. 

 SP: So, when you were at Howard, can you tell me some of the other professors in 

classes that stood out to you that affected you any particular way? 

 GKM: Well, many of those that I mentioned. Elwood Chisholm was one, because 

criminal law can be taught as criminal law, or it can be taught to include racial issues, mostly, 

more recently. [00:34:16] I had Patricia Roberts, Patricia Roberts Harris for Constitutional 

Law too, which was the Civil Rights, the Civil rights course. And I remember I got the 

highest grade. I remember I got an award. It was a book entitled The Petitioners by a Black 

lawyer in California [Loren Miller], but it was the history of the Negro. And basically, he 

concluded it was kind of up and down. News. [laughs] I guess it's better to have the 

opportunity to be up as well as down. I was influenced by her, though, really for her 

excellence. She was tremendously bright. Tough, though. All of my professors were tough. 

And those, you know, it's the influence of Charles Hamilton Houston, I say, through 

Thurgood Marshall. They knew what we were going to face. We had to stand up when we 

gave a case. The men had to wear ties. I remember one of these descendants of Thurgood 

Marshall told one student, “It's better to be presumed a fool than to open your mouth and to 

remove all doubt,” stuff like that. I mean, of course, people say that law schools are like, 

some, at least, are like that. [00:36:03] But they were doing it for a reason. And I remember 

when I was teaching law at Thurgood Marshall School of Law, I had a student who said to me 



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– I think I may have been teaching trusts, not a civil rights course, who said, “It’s easy for 

you because you've had all of this experience, you know, but I'm just being exposed to it.” I 

jumped in his face, a lá Howard University School of Life. I said, “Let me tell you, when you 

graduate, no one’s going to ask you how long ago did you graduate. You have to get it 

together, young man.” And I kind of had that attitude with my students. I really enjoyed 

teaching minority students. I took a motherly interest almost. 

 SP: You were at Howard during some of the years of the Civil Rights Movement, the 

peak years, in a way. Can you talk about that, how that felt, what that felt like on campus? 

 GKM: Yeah, I don't know when, but I must've at least vocalized because I was, many 

of the students call me Miss NAACP, and I guess it was because my attitude about it. But 

most of us were there to get over, I mean, to graduate. I was petrified. I did not want to flunk 

out. And so, I think it was that fear that made me study. There were, there was in my class, a 

student who was a co-founder of SNCC, Charles Johnson was his name. He used to wear 

coveralls, I remember. [00:38:09] And Robert Kennedy, who was the attorney general, I don't 

know whether he invited – somehow we had an audience with him, our class. I don't know 

whether it was the entire class or not. Probably it was. By then we had dropped down from 

about 60 in the entry, entering in [19]63 to 32 graduated. Anyway. So, we met with Robert 

Kennedy and I remember Charles Johnson pressed him. I don't remember what it was about. I 

guess the speed with which things were happening, the commitment. You know, if not Robert 

Kennedy, President Kennedy. And Robert Kennedy. So, he wasn't disrespectful. I don't know 

what it, you know, but he was he was vigorous. And we got back to school and it turned out 

that Robert Kennedy complained to the law school about him. Well, what an insecure little 

person to do that. But there was Charles. Someone told me that one of the Greensboro Four 



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who engaged in the sit-in in North Carolina. [00:40:02] I don't think that’s so, though, 

because I was checking on preparation for you again, this interview. I'm an intense person 

[laughter], on Mr. Google, that's Google. I just love Google. Do you know all of the case 

citations are on Google? My goodness, who subscribes to Lexus or Westlaw? Are they even 

in business? Anyway. But I think there are only three alive and I don't think any of them are 

lawyers. But it's possible that he came, this was a classmate, not a classmate. Someone I 

knew who was before me was telling me, maybe he didn't make it. But we didn't – I mean, I 

saw moots. I'm getting ahead of myself. Moot court preparation by the Legal Defense Fund at 

Howard. You know, Thurgood Marshall was big on that. They understand. I only met 

Thurgood Marshall, I guess, once. In that photograph. I think it was the National Bar 

Association. But he was up in age then. So I don't know. But law school is very demanding. I 

can tell you that. I tell people if they don't really want to be a lawyer, I don't care what kind of 

lawyer, don't go to law school because it's very demanding. So anyway. 

 SP: I want to talk about LDF now. 

 GKM: Okay. 

 SP: Tell me about when you first learned about LDF, whether that was as a very 

young person or as a less young person in law school, and how you came to understand what 

LDF was. [00:42:09] 

 GKM: It would have been in law school. I think it was the moot courts that they had. 

Mine, well, when I say moot court, LDF coming to practice an argument that they would be 

presenting to the Supreme Court. But in law school you have both trial moot court, the 

students, and appellate moot court. And I remember my trial moot court competition was 

judged by William Bryant, who again, he had actually practiced for a while with Charles 



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Hamilton Houston. And then he was the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia, I think the first Black. And I think, so the answer to your question, it was more 

learning through descendants of, legal, lawyer descendants, Black lawyers, about the Legal 

Defense Fund and seeing them argue. And I don’t remember who, but it became very obvious 

that that was the premier civil rights organization. Still is. Argued more cases than any other 

organization. [00:43:58] ACLU, I guess, is up there. But the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had 

been enacted in 1964, became effective in 1965, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, became 

effective in 1965. So, I'm certain, and that's really when the Legal Defense Fund blossomed. I 

mean, until – I've read, well I’ll show it to you later, a book that’s written by, was written by 

Robert Belton, that's fabulous. It’s brilliant. But it's on employment law. But until 1960, there 

were like, 1960 had four, five, six staff attorneys with the Legal Defense Fund. The Civil 

Rights Act of 1964 just resulted in a burgeoning of staff lawyers compared to what it had 

been. And they were active. So as a young student who said she wanted to be a civil rights 

lawyer, I must have learned about the things that it was doing in 1965. And I applied there. I 

applied to IBM as well. And I remember, I think I had an interview with Nicholas 

Katzenbach. But I didn't want to work for IBM. But only Howard that I applied, one law 

school. I knew if I didn't go there, I guess I wouldn't be a lawyer. Well, maybe, no. I don’t 

know whether I would have.  

 SP: So, you applied. Do you remember your interview for LDF? [00:46:02] 

 GKM: It was with Jack Greenberg. I don't remember. I'm sure that I was very much 

in awe. I remember that a person who was competing with me and I was competing with him, 

we were sitting on the couch waiting to be interviewed together. And he chose me. So, I don't 

really remember the interview so much. I remember being shown the lawyers, the staff 



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attorneys. I mean, I was escorted. And [later] I saw Michael Meltsner [again], I guess it was 

[2016], the 75th anniversary of the Legal Defense Fund. And I told him, I said, “I was so 

intimidated by you, you scared me to death.” He said, “Oh, what? And you become a federal 

judge, you need to talk to my family,” or whatever. He was very, very brilliant. He was 

brilliant. And I remember that walk down, here was Jack Greenberg's office here, and then 

you come, and then the waiting room over here and then you come down, and there was a 

line of the secretaries and the lawyers office. So. 

 SP: Do you remember and can you tell me about some of your early days, weeks, 

months at LDF, when you were settling in to the job? 

 GKM: Well, someone told me, I imagine Jack Greenberg told me, because that was 

1966, that I was going to be assigned to the Employment Litigation campaign. [00:48:17] 

And Bob, Robert Belton, Bob Belton was probably then the head of that campaign. And I was 

assigned to share an office with Bob, and Bob had a booming voice and the office, they 

weren’t Wall Street law firm offices. Who knows, I don't think they were 15 by 15. There was 

room for his desk, and then my desk was against, and the window was over there, and my 

view was a wall by the door. So, that was okay. So I don’t know when, in terms of sequence, I 

was given finally the Quarles case, but I worked on other cases as well. Probably I argued the 

Spriggs case, was it Spriggs, or was it Altheimer School District in Arkansas, I argued that in 

the Eighth Circuit and I believe that that case was one of my early cases. 

 SP: Yep. That was Spriggs vs. Altheimer, Arkansas [00:50:00]. 

 GKM: Yeah, that was a case that challenged school districts charging tuition to a 

Black student or students, a couple, one of whom was only charged after he or she attempted 



18 
 

to go to a white school. But in any case, that was my first argument and that probably was in 

[19]67 or so. 

 SP: I want to ask what it was like for you to go down South, were these some of your 

first trips to the South? And can you tell me about what that was like for you? 

 GKM: I don't know my first, I don't know. I'll tell you, it was devastating, shocking, 

to go to Texas, particularly when I got married in 1969. It was backward. But when the staff 

attorneys went South, we didn't tour the area. We would tour perhaps a plant, but we were 

rather confined. I went to Georgia very early and that was in Atlanta, to work with Howard 

Moore, and I worked with him. I guess that may have been my first time because I think it 

was a case that I worked with him on. [00:52:01] It was the first time that I actually practiced 

as a lawyer admitted to practice, and handled a witness. So I don't know the first one. I know 

I said that we were rather confined, but I had an experience in Alabama, which was another 

one of my, a part of, one of the states on my beat list. And we all used to stay at the Gaston 

Motel, which is, he was a Black millionaire. And I had gone there, to Birmingham, and I had 

stayed at Gaston. But I went again and I decided that I was going to stay at a major hotel that 

was supposed to be integrated, right, because of Title II, public accommodations. That’s what 

the law says. And went in and it was late when I arrived and I remember that I went in and 

checked in and got in an elevator and a man got on the elevator with me and I was coming 

from New York. And, you know, we learn as women to watch our entrance into elevators. So, 

he got on with me and he pressed mezzanine, to the mezzanine. And another man, both of 

whom were white, got on. And that's when I started to kind of look around. [00:54:06] When 

I got to my floor, I went to leave, leave the elevator, and the man who had gotten on with me 

when I checked in, grabbed the guy who was trying to follow me out of the elevator. So, I 



19 
 

gather he was up to no good. I never stayed at the Parliament Hotel again. That was enough, I 

think. I went back to Gaston. But other than that, we were – we used to stay in Jackson at the 

Holiday Inn, I remember. And I'm told it was the same room. They had that, every staff 

attorney who stayed at the Holiday Inn were given this one room. They were given this one 

room. I guess they didn't have to disinfect it. I don't know what the deal was. So I didn't go on 

a tour of the city. Particularly some of the stories that I heard from cooperating attorneys in 

Alabama about Dynamite Hill, where they lived, you know. 

 SP: Can you tell me about working with some of those cooperating attorneys? And 

we're jumping around a little bit, but that's fine. 

 GKM: I'm sorry. I told you. Old lady. I’m talking, just tell me that’s enough. 

 SP: No, no. I’m jumping around too. But you mentioned Howard Moore. 

 GKM: Howard Moore. I had a number of cases with him, as I recall, and then when, 

after Martin Luther King, speaking of jumping around, was assassinated, I was in Georgia. 

And I remember sitting in his home watching the TV, the coverage of it with his wife, Jane, 

and him, but Howard Moore. [00:56:09] And, you know, he eventually represented Angela 

Davis. And then in Louisiana, we had Murphy Bell. I remember I filed with him a case 

against Louisiana employment, Public Employment Agency. Alabama, Birmingham, Orzell 

Billingsley, Oscar Adams, and Peter Hall. Oscar Adams eventually became a Supreme Court 

judge, and Peter Hall became a State Court judge. First Black in Alabama, I think. And I 

remember sitting around talking with that group and learning about the old days, not so much 

the good old days, but the old days. And as I said, Dynamite Hill, and whatever. And those 

kinds of conversations make someone like me who came from the North, and had never seen 

that kind of thing, that that kind of reinforces what you're doing, firsthand hearing these 



20 
 

stories. So, Alabama and Louisiana, Georgia, Texas. When I was arguing that school case that 

I was telling you about, the tuition case, I was working with John Walker in Arkansas. 

[00:58:02] And I had – anyway, we had received a charge of discrimination by a Black person 

against a company there [in Texas], and we needed a cooperating lawyer to work with us. 

And we didn't have a lot of cooperating attorneys in Texas. You haven’t asked me about the 

employment litigation campaign, but when in preparation or in the beginning of the 

campaign, devised by Greenberg, they sent students, eight students I think, law students, to 

the South to meet with the community and firm. But in any case, Texas was not one of them. 

Texas was not, it’s not considered a southern state, so to speak. You could fool me. So when I 

finished arguing the case, I told them about the need for a lawyer in Texas. We had Weldon 

Berry and Elmo Willard and that was it. Elmo was outside. He was in Beaumont, which is 

about 90 miles. I eventually, when I moved, had a lot of cases with Elmo. Anyway, he told me 

about a friend of his who was recently divorced, and he said tall and handsome. I said, 

“What's his name?” And I got back to New York and I contacted Mark McDonald and went to 

Houston at some point thereafter and met him. [01:00:00] And fast forward, we were married 

and then it became McDonald and McDonald Law Firm, handling a whole slew of 

employment discrimination cases. Working on the Quarles case, I worked with the law firm 

of Marsh, Oliver Hill, and Sam Tucker. Oliver Hill was a classmate of Thurgood Marshall. 

He graduated number two at Howard, and Thurgood Marshall graduated number one. And 

they were the law firm that was representing the plaintiffs. 

 SP: So, Quarles is described as the first significant plaintiff victory under Title VII. 

Can you tell us why it's so significant? You know, what was happening in that case? And talk 

a little bit about how you got involved. 



21 
 

 GKM: Well, as I said, I was assigned to the employment litigation section, 

enforcement litigation, I guess, campaign. By then, Belton was, it was just me and Belton 

really. And Al Rosenthal, a professor at Columbia. But we knew that, basically I was assigned 

by Bob, I’m sure, and he said, “Here, we’re giving you this case and it involves the seniority 

system.” Well, that was one of the major issues that we knew that we would be facing. And 

that is challenging seniority systems. [01:01:58] And the reason was because the Civil Rights 

Act, Title VII, in 703(h), in the statute said that seniority systems that were bona fide were 

not unlawful unless it was the practices were intentional discrimination. So, if it was a 

facially neutral policy, like a seniority system, which every company that has a union has, 

that have rules and regulations for the promotions and all kinds of terms and conditions, those 

were bona fide unless they arose out of intentional discrimination. And the labor unions had 

been very supportive of the Civil Rights Act. So, when I was given that case, I said, “Oh, 

that's a tall order.” And we didn’t have any cases that we had gone to trial on, on substantive 

issues. And this then became the first, and it was a challenge to the seniority system. And I 

had taken the New York Bar and I carried Howard University School of Law on my back 

because I was the first Howard graduate to work for that Legal Defense Fund. So when I took 

the bar, not only was it important for me to pass, it was important, I said, to Howard, because 

everyone else was from Ivy Leagues, except Bob. [01:04:00] So I went, the results come out 

in the New York Times at midnight or whatever. So a friend drove me down to look at the 

results and they print the names. So, I go through it. My maiden name, Kirk. Not there. And I 

was just devastated for all of those reasons. I then looked to another section, people who had 

passed but who were not eligible for admission, and I was not eligible because New York 

then had a law that was subsequently held unconstitutional that you had to be a resident for 



22 
 

six months. So, nothing like interfering with the right to travel and all kinds of things. And so, 

I was not admitted, but I was the only staff attorney, lawyer, graduate of a law school, to be 

assigned to the case. So, I prepared all the discovery, memoranda. I went down, talked to 

witnesses, interviewing witnesses, discussing theories. Just acting like a lawyer, except I 

couldn't go to court and I couldn't tell anyone that I was a lawyer and misrepresent. So I used 

to go a lot. And I mean so often that I remember we went out of LaGuardia, Eastern Airlines, 

the skycaps knew me. [01:06:00] And then you get to Richmond. Richmond smelled like 

tobacco. And we toured the plant and I was smoking. Not after that tour. So, it was assigned 

to me as a member of the staff. Really the only two members we had at that time with Bob 

and myself – Leroy Clark had been the supervisor of it and did join at the trial, but he didn't 

do any of the preparation. And of course, cooperating attorneys. That's why they were 

cooperating attorneys. We were supposed to be experts. Experts. We just, we were developing 

the law. So I got the case and I thank Bob for giving me that case, I thanked him sarcastically, 

because the only cases that we had filed were cases that were challenging procedural issues 

like can class actions be maintained under Title VII with the length of time that a person who 

filed the charge has to go to trial, that sort of thing. But this was our first really trial. 

 SP: So, starting to talk a little bit about the employment strategy at LDF. 

 GKM: Okay. 

 SP: Can you tell me a little bit about who you worked with, what that strategy looked 

like, what you all did? 

 GKM: Well, you know, it’s amazing that – the group was really small. It was really 

just Bob Belton. [01:08:05] And I'd like to do a commercial now for Robert Belton. This is a 

book that he wrote, was published shortly after his death. His wife sent me a copy. And as 



23 
 

you can see, it's [Crusade for Equality in the Workplace] The Griggs v. Duke Power Story. 

Griggs was the Supreme Court case that approved the disparate impact theory, which really 

kind of had its genesis in Quarles in that the notion of freezing Blacks, the notion of freezing 

Blacks in facially neutral systems – there was kind of a prototype for the discrimination. 

Blacks were excluded, period, or they were assigned to certain departments. Usually the dirty 

ones like in Philip Morris the stemmery that I visited, made me stop smoking, with big vats. 

And then when the Civil Rights Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law a 

year later, some said, “Okay, Black employees, you were excluded from the better paying, 

more desirable jobs. We will let you, the employer, transfer. But when you transfer, your 

departmental seniority in that department that was filled with white employees begins anew.” 

And promotions within that department was based on departmental promotions or based on 

departmental. And most importantly, layoffs are based on department seniority. [01:10:16] 

So, the Black employee may, like a case we had in, when we started McDonald and 

McDonald, R.L. Johnson v Goodyear. He was employed for decades almost in a department 

and couldn't get out because they, if you transferred, he knew that he would be laid off. And 

then superimposed on that seniority system that really protected white employees who were 

the beneficiaries, to the detriment of Blacks, superimposed on that was a high school diploma 

requirement or a test by Wonderlic. So, this Black employee, they say, “Okay, the Civil 

Rights Act of 1964 says we will not discriminate. Come on over and subject yourself to a 

potential layoff, notwithstanding your employment seniority. And oh, you have to have a high 

school diploma.” When white employers did not have to have a high school diploma or they 

played games with them. And you have to pass this Wonderlic test. What does that have to do 

with the steel mills? How is that predictive of success? That was the prototype. So Quarles 



24 
 

was the first case to challenge that. And so the question became the use of that departmental 

seniority even though an employee, Black employees, were excluded and they had long 

employment seniority. [01:12:16] Judge Butzner, in the district court in Richmond, held that 

it – I told you earlier that Title VII has this provision that says that bona fide seniority 

systems are not unlawful unless they were devised intentionally to discriminate. Judge 

Butzner said, “No, no, no, no. This seniority system impacts these Black employees, and that 

is a present effect of a past discrimination, which was the hiring discrimination.” People use 

the analogy that if a white employee starts off on a railroad 10 minutes earlier and Blacks are 

not allowed to leave that 10 minutes and then they leave, they'll never catch them. So, it’s a 

present effect. One of the sections of the Civil Rights Act, Title VII, speaks in terms of 

policies that affect, adversely affect, employees. So, he didn't use, he didn't pick up that term. 

But that is really what happened. The present effect of past discrimination. Unions say “No, 

the senior are protected.” What Butzner said was, “Congress did not intend to freeze Black 

employees into these positions for which they were limited because of their rights and the 

seniority, their expectations, they cannot supersede employment seniority in this instance, 

long employment seniority by Black employees.” [01:14:33] So it was momentous because 

without it, Black employees would be locked into that position because no one wanted to 

subject themselves to being laid off because they had one day, even though they were 

employed there 20 years. It was after that, there was a decision, U.S. v. Local 189 of the 

Paperworkers. That went up to the Fifth Circuit and they borrowed, shall I say, Quarles. So, 

slowly we were moving towards racially neutral policies that had racial effects. I just lost my 

train of thought. Sorry. I guess we can stop. Why am I talking? [laughs] 



25 
 

 SP: I want you to tell me about some of the people you were working with. Who were 

working on the employment docket with you, and then we can move on. 

 GKM: And then what? 

 SP: Then we'll move on to you going to Texas. 

 GKM: Okay, good. So, the employment litigation section, so to speak, was a small 

one. It was Bob Belton, who was head of it, me, and Al Rosenthal, who was a professor at 

Columbia, but had been a Wall Street lawyer as well. [01:16:17] And he would convene, he 

organized groups of advisors who were labor lawyers, economists, and we would meet 

regularly with them to come up with theories to unfreeze Black employees, because that was 

the prototype. Either the seniority system would affect them or high school diploma and 

testing. So, we were trying to develop theories and we would meet regularly. And so it was, 

in terms of when we got to the substantive law, it was the three of us. Now we filed cases 

where a cooperating attorney had been retained. So that was our focus, even though originally 

when Jack designed the campaign, we were looking at the most, industries that offer the great 

number of jobs, and we were looking to focus on what they told us, what was revealed by the 

law students who traveled the southern states, where the most egregious practices and those 

being those that freeze, lock Black employees, and high school and testing positions. But it 

was just really the three of us and the cooperating attorneys. Every now and then, some of the 

other staff attorneys would pitch in, so to speak, particularly on the procedural issues like 

class actions. [01:18:10] Fred Wallace, who was really in the voting section handled a case 

and Michael Meltsner handled a case. Actually, I'm taking that back. He handled the first 

case, case against AT&T. It was, though, settled. It didn't go to trial. 

 SP: And you said that when you left LDF, you went to Texas? 



26 
 

 GKM: Yes. 

 SP: You, at McDonald and McDonald, continued to do employment litigation. 

 GKM: Yes, I was given the Earl Warren Scholarship that gave me a year of a stipend 

to pay bills. And we had some cases, a couple of cases that I took with me from the Legal 

Defense Fund. And then quickly, we became known as the only lawyers who would handle 

these civil rights cases. Houston, Texas, was to me like Mississippi. So eventually we 

probably had 40 cases pending. 

 SP: And you became, I want to fast forward. I know we’re skipping a lot. 

 GKM: No, no, no.  

 SP: There’s a lot I could ask you about. But in 1979, you were appointed as a judge. 

[01:20:00] 

 GKM: Yes. 

 SP: On the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. And you 

were the first African-American to be appointed to the federal bench in Texas and the South, 

and only the third African-American female federal judge in the whole country. So, can you 

talk about that, how you came to that position, what it was like? 

 GKM: Judge Motley was the first Black woman to be appointed to Article Three 

Court in 1966. President Carter did more to integrate, so to speak, the federal judiciary than 

anyone, any President. So, an omnibus judgeship bill was passed, which increased the 

number of federal judges, and Jimmy Carter jumped right in and appointed a number of 

Blacks. My Democratic senator was Lloyd Bentsen. And his office contacted me and asked if 

I was interested in a federal judgeship. I said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” I was 35 at the 

time. Black and a woman, come on, you know. It would be pie in the sky for me to ever have 



27 
 

thought that I would become a federal judge. And I really wasn't so sure that I wanted to be 

because I had handled so many cases in federal courts in Texas that I didn’t know, to be very 

honest, I didn’t know that I wanted to be a part of them. [01:22:00] It was a small number. 

There was something like eight judges in the Southern District of Texas, and I just didn't see 

myself working with those people who had difficulties pronouncing “Negro” in a case, you 

know, during a trial. So, fast forward, it became apparent that he wanted me. I interviewed 

with him once and then a second time, and then he submitted my name. 

 SP: And that's Bentsen you’re talking about, Senator Bentsen? 

 GKM: Yes. Senator Bentsen submitted my name to Jimmy Carter, and then I was 

appointed by Jimmy Carter in 1979. 

 SP: How long did that process take from beginning to end, from when you first got –? 

 GKM: Oh, not long. Right after our hearing before the Judiciary Committee, we 

weren't held up. It was weeks, I guess. I forget when the omnibus judgeship bill was passed. 

But it wasn't long. I don't know, maybe a year, maybe even less. 

 SP: And, how were you, can you talk about the environment and how you were 

received by your colleagues at the time? 

 GKM: I’m laughing, it’s not funny. They had never worked with a Black woman, 

never worked with a Black person. Many of them were elderly, when I say elderly here, I am 

talking about elderly. So, it was difficult. We had a conference room and there were two 

toilets. They taped up a piece of paper and said, “Judge McDonald’s bathroom,” or something 

or another. [01:24:05] One conference – it was difficult. One meeting we had, one of the 

judges, again, had difficulty pronouncing “Negro.” And I know that because I tried a case 

before him. And I finally turned to him. I said, “Judge,” I said, “knee. See that? [patting knee] 



28 
 

Negro.” “Oh Gabby, you’re sensitive.” I said, “I’m sitting right next to you. I heard you.” 

When we were sworn in, another one of the judges, and I think Conrad Harper had appeared 

before him. Anyway, some judge, with the Legal Defense Fund. And this judge again had 

difficulty with the word. Did he mention that? How did I remember that? That’s the judge. 

So, oh, he had a house in River Oaks, a neighborhood where there were mansions. So, he 

gives a reception for the new judges. There were three or four or five of us, I guess, who 

came in. Only three in Houston, though. So, we're doing our – the only Blacks were the men 

who were walking around with canopies, you know, with their gloves on. He comes over to 

me and he says, “I'd like to introduce you to someone.” And so, I said, “Oh, certainly.” He 

took me into the kitchen and there was a Black maid in there with her hands in dishwater, in a 

sudsy sink. And he introduced me to her. And actually, it was okay though because she turned 

and she said, “Oh, I’m so honored.” She said, “I’ve got to tell my daughter about this.” 

[01:26:08] And it made me feel good. Well, my father was there. He left. He left. Well, that 

was my kind of introduction. But I always knew better because I used to tell some of my 

Black friends, I don't think that I’m anyone but a Negro judge. I'm not fooling myself. When I 

resigned, this one judge, he was old enough to be probably my father, gave me a nightgown 

that I opened in front of everyone. I didn’t know what the gift was. He said to me once, we 

were having a conference, and he said – a new judge had come in. He said, “Gabrielle, you 

should talk with Judge so-and-so because a bald-headed man will do anything for you.” But I 

had learned my way around based on my experience, and I could deal with him. And it was 

like, what makes you think I – so, that sort of thing. 

 SP: And did that play out in the courtroom as well? Did that sort of behavior play out 

in the courtroom as well? 



29 
 

 GKM: Well, I never had any contact with them again [in the courtroom]. Really, 

before I was even nominated. I know I was – well, that's not terribly important. But it was 

very, very lonely. My law clerks, I had a Black law clerk and a white law clerk. They were 

my first law clerks, and they filed, they were turned away from somewhere, a public 

accommodation basically. [01:28:02] They filed a lawsuit. The judges just went crazy. 

“They're going to think that you put them up to it.” I said, “They can think what they want. 

They're here to learn how to exercise their rights. I'm not going to interfere.” I went, because 

I had been active in the community, I went to the Rothko Chapel. It had a number of affairs 

and events. And they sponsored a celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday. And I went to 

that and spoke along with a congressman, along with a rabbi, a priest, whatever. I can 

remember the chief judge. “You can't do that sort of thing. People will think that you are 

biased.” What? Please. So, it was very lonely. No one hired any Black law clerks or any 

minority law clerks. A few women, yes. Sometimes I felt when I came back into my 

chambers, I just would one day hit my head against the wall. And I was interested in federal 

question cases like I had handled at the Legal Defense Fund or anywhere, and not necessarily 

race. So, it was very frustrating to say the least. 

 SP: I want to talk about a case that you heard while you were a judge, which was the 

Vietnamese Fishermen's Association v. the Knights of the KKK. 

 GKM: Well, that was a doozy. 

 SP: Can you lay it out for us? 

 GKM: The trial was in 1981. Basically, it was a dispute between the Vietnamese 

Fishermen, who had come from Vietnam to the Gulf to fish, had come to the United States. 

And they moved. [01:30:07] And the American, Association of American Fishermen. 



30 
 

American Fishermen, though, invited the Klan to join hands. The Grand Dragon was 

someone named Louis Beam, and the Klan also had a, well, I say paramilitary camp outside 

of Houston. And they had kind of been in the news. Somebody had made a film or whatever. 

But they would practice their paramilitary warfare type activities there. So, the attorney 

general intervened, state attorney general intervened, because only the state could operate a 

militia. So, you had the Vietnamese Fishermen versus the American Fishermen who brought 

in the Klan. Then the attorney general, state attorney general. The case was really, it was a 

civil case, obviously, a challenge under the Sherman Act of competition, because the 

allegation was made that the American Fishermen and the Klan were interfering with their 

economic rights, the Vietnamese. They burned boats, they burned a cross nearby. At that point 

[01:32:02], we did not have detectors to come into the courthouse, but they put up some in 

front of my courtroom to make sure that armed people did not come in. All of the events 

really were public. That is, they took place in public. They weren’t hiding.  

[Break] 

 GKM: So, anyway. That’s the case. There were eight judges in the Southern District 

then. [01:32:48] The activity, shall we say, took place in a town about 30 some miles from 

Houston. It was really in a different division, so to speak, of the Southern District. So, if the 

Klan wanted to get rid of me, all they had to do was to file a motion for a transfer for the 

convenience of the parties. They didn't do that. Instead, they filed a motion asking that I 

recuse myself, saying that because of my prior experience, they said, with the Equal 

Employment Opportunity Commission, that I couldn't be fair and that everybody knew that 

the Negros hated the Klan and that I was partly Negro. I received four one-way tickets, bogus 

tickets to Africa with the – they went to our law office, my husband’s and I, law office – with 



31 
 

targets in there of a, what do you call it? A profile, a caricature of a Black running. I had a, in 

our bedroom I had a kind of a walkie talkie type thing. I was under guard by the federal 

marshals. The chief judge called me into his office. Well, this was a new, he had become 

chief. [01:34:49]. He was, anyway – no, I take that back. It wasn't the chief judge. It was 

another judge, called me into his office, and he said, “This case that you're handling is a very 

serious matter.” He pulled his bottom drawer out from his desk. I heard things clanging. It 

was guns. And so, he pulls out this big gun and I don’t know, it was a Colt .45 or something. 

He said, “Here, you need to take this.” I said, “What am I going to do with that?” And so, 

then he reached back and gave me another one that was a .38 that didn't have a, what do you 

call it, on the top so that you could put it in your purse and it wouldn't trigger. And I did carry 

it. I’d put it in my purse and I’d leave carrying my purse with my hand in there. I went to a 

conference, judicial conference, in the Galveston Division, where the case could have been 

transferred. There was a judge who sat in the Galveston Division, and I told him, I said, 

“Judge,” I said, “That case should be transferred to your division. You know, it's because it's 

convenience of the party.” “Oh, Gabby, don't do that. Don't do that. I've got to live here.” I 

said, “Well I have to live here, too.” So, I refused to recuse myself, saying that they weren't 

entitled to their judge of their choice. Instead, they were entitled to a judge who would give 

them a fair trial. And I was sure that I could do that, which I could, because I had learned 

about unfairness when I was with the Legal Defense Fund traveling the South. [01:36:55] All 

of those judges, trial judges, just gave us the dickens. We had to go to the Fifth Circuit, which 

then was much more liberal. So, I didn't recuse myself and they didn't appeal. 

 SP: And at the time, were you aware of the cases in which Judge Motley had refused 

to recuse herself? And Judge Leon, is it –  



32 
 

 GKM: Judge who? 

 SP: Leon Higginbotham and – 

 GKM: I don't know about Higginbotham, but Judge Motley, definitely. She had a 

case involving, it was a sex discrimination case against a law firm. Women were plaintiffs 

and they sought her recusal because she was a woman. And she said, “No way.” She said, “If 

I am biased because I'm a woman and the plaintiffs are women, then no one can try this case 

because my colleagues are men.” So, I guess they’d have bias against them. Yes, I did cite 

that. I did cite that. But again, I swore that I would be fair and not treat the litigants like the 

Legal Defense Fund staff attorneys and cooperating attorneys were treated. I remember the 

disgust almost that some trial judges had. It was like, you know, they can look at you like, do 

you really have to be here? So I sat down when I became a judge and told my law clerks, I 

said, “This is a people's court and don't make people tiptoe around here.” [01:38:53]. And 

they understood.  

 SP: So, what was the principal reason you stepped down from the bench? 

 GKM: Probably the real reason is that I had had it and didn't really want it in the first 

place. But if I hadn’t have taken it, a Black person wouldn't have gotten it. That’s the real 

reason. Now you can see me doing an interview saying that. But there were other reasons, 

financial reasons. I had spoken or subsequently had spoken with Judge Higginbotham at a 

congressional committee about the pay for federal judges. Also, the sentencing guidelines 

then in effect, I was very much against. I said that they took the judge out of the judgment. 

And when I left, I gave an abacus to each of the judges, telling them, “According to 

sentencing guidelines, all you have to do is just push up this, and that's your sentence.” 

 SP: And had that loss of judicial discretion, had that changed over your time there? 



33 
 

 GKM: No, I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I don’t really know. I don’t know. 

But I wasn’t challenged either. The cases were supposed to be assigned on a random basis. 

Now, what are the chances of me getting a case against the Klan? And I ruled against the 

Klan. [01:40:57] And not only that, granted the relief that the attorney general sought and 

closed the camp, but that was a pretty easy decision. They didn't appeal either. They wanted 

the publicity of a Black judge trying the case. But anyway. 

 SP: I want to ask one thing before we move on to you serving on the war crimes 

tribunal, and that is you were Sherrilyn Ifill’s cooperating attorney in the Houston Lawyers 

Association case. What were your early impressions of that case? 

 GKM: It was a very important case because if we wanted any Black judges, it needed 

to be changed. Judges then ran countywide and there was no way that they [Black candidates] 

could amass the votes needed. And, you know, justice is supposed to be blind, but Lady 

Justice is not supposed to be anyone’s color either. So, it was an important case. This was 

Sherrilyn’s, she said, first trial, and she was so capable. Yes, I was a cooperating attorney, but 

I was basically carrying her briefcase. Really. And I taught law a lot. And I like it. I like 

working with young people and encouraging them. And I made sure I think in my heart that I 

was not trying to take over because I had been a federal judge, particularly when I saw that 

she knew more about it than I knew [laughs], anyway, the issues. [01:43:24]. Other than 

living there and seeing the impact. Anyway. But she won on the trial level. 

 SP: But the Fifth Circuit. 

 GKM: Fifth Circuit reversed. 

 SP: Right. And didn't want to accept that judges have biases. 

 GKM: I'm sorry? 



34 
 

 SP: The Fifth Circuit didn't want to accept that judges also have biases, that judges 

can be biased. 

 GKM: Yeah, I know better. I, because I tried so many cases before them. When I 

went to the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal that was an issue, too. 

 SP: So, let's talk more about that and we have spent a lot of time with you, so we're 

close to the end. Thank you. 

 GKM: It’s my pleasure. If I just keel over.  

 SP: We hope that doesn't happen. So, tell me about how your pathway to that, to the 

War Crimes Tribunal. I mean, talk us through that process. 

 GKM: Let me tell you, on many flights on either KLM or Delta to the Netherlands, 

once I was elected, the person sitting next to me would ask me, look me in the eye, “How did 

you get that job?” [01:45:06] And they weren't saying, “How did you, Gabrielle McDonald,” 

but “How did you, Black lady, get that job?” You're not doing that, but it's a legitimate 

question. You want to know, how did you happen to get that? Maybe I was imagining, but I 

don't think so, sometimes. Anyway. Conrad Harper, my colleague at the Legal Defense Fund, 

became the legal adviser for the state department. And in 1993, the Security Council created 

the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal because of the conflict that was ongoing. And they found 

that it was a threat to international peace and security. So, under the U.N. charter, they could 

select the mechanism to stop that. For the first time, they created a tribunal and 11 judges 

were on it. The United States – one of the big proponents of the tribunal was Madeleine 

Albright. I like to call her the mother of the tribunal. But 11 judges were finally elected. 

[01:46:43] I was the only – each state could submit the name of one person to be considered, 

or one national, that state, to be considered. United States submitted my name. Conrad Harper 



35 
 

put my name up. And there were others that came. Warren Christopher was the Secretary of 

State, and he contacted me. I said, “I don't have a resumé that would do me justice for this 

position.” Just as I had told Lloyd Bentsen, when they wanted me to be a federal judge. And I 

did that. And they do their thing. Justices in the tribunal and federal judiciary, the FBI does 

their thing. And I received the highest number of votes by the General Assembly, as I said, 

the Security Council created. But the vote was by the full General Assembly because, I think 

I was Black. And also had been a civil rights attorney. And this, a former, a judge on the 

International Court of Justice told me – he was from Sierra Leone at the time and he was in 

their mission. And he said, “When we found out that you were a sister and you had been a 

civil rights lawyer, you became our choice.” The United States is popular, but it's unpopular 

in other segments. So, went to The Hague in 1993 and we created this tribunal. It had no 

rules. Can you imagine? [01:48:50] That’s what was so wonderful. Had no rules of criminal 

procedure. When I became a judge, I brought a photograph of my kids and my plant and my 

purse. When I went to The Hague, I had my federal rules of criminal procedure, the U.S. 

rules, and I played a very active role in the creation of the rules because they were really 

more common law than civil law. There were two women, myself and a woman from Costa 

Rica. So, the rules were created. Then, how do we get accused? Because again, we had no 

police force. We had to rely on the States or U.N. agency, enforcement agency, to arrest. And 

they didn’t. Finally, one Bosnian Serb was found in Germany and he was arrested and 

transferred. I had been appointed by the president to be the presiding – to be on one trial 

chamber. And then there were two trial chambers of three judges each. You asked me about 

bias. When we were drafting the rules, for example, some of the judges coming, particularly 

from civil law systems, said, “We only drafted ten or eleven rules of evidence.” They said, 



36 
 

“We don't need any more because we’re judges and we're not biased.” I had to give them my 

lecture of my experience as a federal judge. Not talking out of school, but telling them I knew 

of some who were biased. [01:50:53] So the case was assigned to my trial chamber. And so I 

presided over the first full trial of the court. And the court was really the first international 

tribunal because the Nuremberg really was multinational. So, we found Duško Tadić guilty. 

Over there is a clipping from The New York Times that says, “Sometimes it takes an entire 

world to try someone.” Because it was the world. We had to decide everything. What do we 

wear? What color? As I said, what are the federal rules of [criminal] procedure? We had to 

create a detention center and rules for the detention. A whole system. And it was fantastic. 

And just the opportunity to work with the international community, so to speak, was just 

fantastic. 

 SP: So, I know that – Sherrilyn made a note saying it was through you that she first 

heard about Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services. 

 GKM: JAMS. 

 SP: Can you talk a little bit about that? 

 GKM: Well, before I was appointed to the Yugoslavia Tribunal, after I left the bench, 

I joined JAMS in Houston, which was interesting. Again, you know, it never ends. [01:52:46] 

There were no Blacks. There was a woman who had been a judge. She actually, Ruby 

Sondock was her name. She was responsible for my getting a position – a position, accepted 

on the roster. That's all you had to do. They didn't pay you. I mean, you earned your keep 

mediating a case. JAMS, Judicial Arbitration Mediation Services, was there in Houston. All 

white judges, former judges, again. And Ruby had developed quite a mediation practice and I 

had spoken – you know, you don't apply, but I had spoken. No movement. She talked to them. 



37 
 

You know, an insider, a white insider. And someone contacted me. “Oh, would you be 

interested in working with JAMS?” And I did, and I handled some cases. I liked it because I 

had seen the judges sometimes, even federal judges, mess up the case. The parties themselves 

sometimes can agree on a resolution that more specifically, I guess, addresses the issue. 

Sometimes people just wanted an apology, an acknowledgment of what happened. So, the 

sensitivity, I guess, that you gain as a civil rights lawyer, I think, again, helped me. [01:54:58] 

Because I heard criticisms that judges, particularly federal judges, former federal judges, 

were not good mediators because they tended to instruct, to tell the parties what they should 

do. And the whole notion of mediation is for it to bubble up. And so once again, kind of my 

experience – and my experience as a civil rights lawyer, I think helped me at the Yugoslavia 

War Crimes Tribunal, because the Tribunal was hundreds of miles away from Yugoslavia, yet 

it was supposed to do justice, right? People there didn't know what our court was about. They 

didn’t trust us. When I was president, I then became president of the Yugoslavia War Crimes 

Tribunal. The judges elected me, my fellow judges. I created something that we called the 

Outreach Program, and that was to bring the court to Yugoslavia, figuratively, but [not] 

actually, so that they understood what our court was about, because we issued judgments that 

told the story of the conflict and how it had been repeated for centuries. Who would believe 

you if you don’t know these people? When I proposed it, some of my judges said, you know 

– male judges. Don't get me started. [01:56:52] They said, “That's not a judicial function.” 

They were right. Because in a national system, you're all in it together. You know Congress or 

the state legislatures, they create the laws. And you are a member of that community. Here we 

were, an international court imposing on the federal Yugoslavia. Or when I heard the Tadić 

case, his principal was a principal of the most integrated school, so he testified, in the former 



38 
 

Yugoslavia, where Croats and Bosnian Serbs and Serbs intermarried. And a woman came. 

She was a reporter. She was killed in an accident in Iraq, I think. Elizabeth Neuffer was her 

name. She wrote a book called The Key to My Neighbor's House. And she interviewed me 

because of the dialog that I had with the principal about integration and the effect of 

integration on one’s behavior. This, the accused was a Bosnian Serb, but they had friends who 

were Croats and friends who were Bosniaks, Muslims. And yet what happened? Propaganda 

took over. And the propaganda machine, led by Milosevic and Tudjman in Croatia, were 

convincing their constituents that they were going to get them, and “You better get them 

before they get you,” and that sort of thing. [01:59:01] We had some testimony on Tadić. A 

writer said, “It’s just like in the United States, if a person, if [David] Duke took over the 

media, you too would have a conflict.” One of my fellow judges, there were three judges. 

Myself, the former governor general of Australia, and a judge from Malaysia. The judge from 

Malaysia said, “Who’s David Duke?” I said, “Let me tell you.” And where are we today? You 

know. Well, I've talked enough. 

 SP: Well, you’re getting to my next question, which is, what lessons you took away 

from that experience that you see as being relevant to ongoing conflicts in the rest of the 

world but also in this country? 

 GKM: Well, it becomes complex because there's a question as to whether the 

judiciary is always the way or is the best way to bring about reconciliation. The former 

Yugoslavia has backtracked now. They've gone back to their respective religions, and they 

had been at each other's throats for centuries. And some believe that imposing, even though 

judges by their judgments are attempting to tell the stories so that it won't be repeated, some 

disagree. Some say truth and reconciliation. [02:00:54] I think that a mix is appropriate. I 



39 
 

guess, though, the biggest thing is that we at the Legal Defense Fund initially were pushing 

segregation as “separate could never be equal.” Right. And there was this movement for 

integration. And I believe in that. I was at the Legal Defense Fund in the Black Power days, 

and there was a movement to have neighborhood schools as a solution as opposed to 

integration. And sometimes I leaned toward that way, but I knew that unless the school 

became white, Blacks wouldn’t even benefit in terms of resources. But it tells you, in a sense, 

the former Yugoslavia, how your best efforts can be overcome or to be dashed by a concerted 

propaganda machine. And that's true for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. And 

it's probably more true because they have a lot of media influence. So, Milosevic, if you read 

the steps that Mr. Milosevic followed, who eventually was brought to trial, finally. [02:02:43] 

But anyway, he died. If you read his campaign, it reads like something much closer to home. 

And it has to do with dehumanizing, in a sense, minorities. Or not even minorities – 

dehumanizing “they,” “them.” And it can be done. And of course, if you don’t think 

somebody is human, there are no limits to what you will do. And I think that the Legal 

Defense Fund’s efforts have kind of morphed into addressing now, particularly under 

Sherrilyn Ifill, she was just fantastic. She really dealt with the media to get the story of the 

Legal Defense Fund out. And that's the kind of thing that Charles Hamilton Houston started, 

followed by Thurgood Marshall. So it’s a good experience. And no matter what job I had, in 

my heart, I feel like I'm a civil rights lawyer. I know I'm a civil rights lawyer, and there’s a 

place for it. You don't have to be out there handling civil rights cases. I told the Law Review, 

Law Journal Banquet several years ago, you just have to have a care. And it was the Howard 

Law Journal. You just have to have a care about civil rights. If you're a tax lawyer, you will 

experience discrimination against others. What are you going to do with that? Are you going 



40 
 

to do something about it? Or are you going to be a bystander? If you’re from Howard, you 

know that you better be a social engineer. [02:04:48] Or the Legal Defense Fund, the whole 

institution of social engineers.  

 SP: I think that's a good note to end on. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you 

want to talk about? 

 GKM: Well, again, I suppose, I want to emphasize this book by Bob. It’s so 

important. Jack Greenberg has said that the Employment Discrimination Campaign, the 

efforts of the Legal Defense Fund and the development of the campaign are, is on a par with 

the Brown campaign that led to desegregation. And I guess the names of the Legal Defense 

Fund lawyers are in the records somewhere because when I joined, there were only 11 staff 

members. 

 SP: Wow. 

 GKM: I mean, that I could think of. Or maybe 12, including Jack. There was Jack 

Greenberg and James Nabrit. Steve Ralston, Conrad Harper, Leroy Clark, Fred Wallace, 

Michael Meltsner, Norman Amaker, Bob Belton. And two that I didn't have too much contact 

with, Sheila Rush and Charles Jones, a different Charles Jones than my classmate. Only three 

of them were white. That includes Jack Greenberg. We had that one woman, Sheila Rush, 

who was there, but other than that, no women. I became the first graduate of Howard, as I 

said, to be there. [02:06:49] Of course, we had followed, we followed Judge Motley. So, she 

probably gets several votes as a woman. Then after I got there, we probably got to about 21. 

James Finney[?] Joe and Bill Robinson. Frank White, Phil Schrag, Norman Chachkin, Bill 

Turner, Sylvia Drew, Elizabeth DuBois, Peter Sherwood. And that boosted the number of 

Howard graduates to two. Sylvia, who graduated I think a year after I did from Howard was 



41 
 

number two. And again, Bill Turner was white and Phil Schrag and Norman Chachkin and 

Elizabeth DuBois, but few whites. Predominantly Black. Probably we had 200 cooperating 

lawyers over the time. But of course, the Employment Discrimination Project was so 

successful. Quarles, then Griggs v. Duke Power Supreme Court case that bought into this 

freezing concept, but they didn't cite Quarles. But then that was changed again by the 

Supreme Court. Eleven years, I guess. But Jack Greenberg has said, for those 11 years, we 

were cooking at the Legal Defense Fund. 

 SP: You’ve mentioned a couple of times being one of the only women in various 

spaces. 

 GKM: Yeah. 

 SP: How do you think it affected the work that you did at LDF and after LDF? How 

you were treated? [02:09:01] 

 GKM: I don't think it affected – well, it's hard for me to say. Well, it's not hard for me 

to say. It’s two sides. I mean, you need to talk with the men to find out what they really felt 

about me in terms of my gender. But it was never a factor. Maybe because it's not just the 

staff, but working with cooperating attorneys. Most of our cooperating attorneys were from 

Howard, at least initially, or I'm sure even now. And being a Howard grad, we immediately 

had this relationship. And that's curious because we've had, we’ve heard comments about the 

Civil Rights Movement, SNCC and others, even Black Panthers, that women were relegated 

to doing the dishes sometimes. That wasn’t so. Jack Greenberg recommended, selected me, 

and my competitor was a male, a Black male. And we had Marian Wright there. Lord knows 

she was a strong personality and very capable. So, I think we were spared that, as it should 

be. 



42 
 

 SP: Well, if there's anything else you'd like to talk about. 

 GKM: No, no, Susie, thank you so much. 

 SP: Thank you so much. [02:10:53] 

[END OF INTERVIEW]