Melvyn Leventhal Interview Transcript

This item is featured in:

Melvyn Leventhal Oral History

    Legal Defense Fund Oral History Project  

 

Melvyn R. Leventhal 

Interviewed by Susie Penman 

September 23, 2023 

Manhattan, New York 

Length: 02:45:20 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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 Melvyn R. Leventhal, the Southern Oral History Program, and 

LDF. It has been lightly edited, in consultation with Melvyn R. Leventhal, 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 September 23rd, 2023, about 10:45 in the 

morning. And I’m here in New York with Mel Leventhal in his home in Manhattan to 

conduct an interview for the LDF Oral History Project. Thank you very much for doing this. 

 Melvyn Leventhal: Wonderful, wonderful to be here.  

 SP: Will you begin by just introducing yourself? 

 ML: Excuse me? 

 SP: Introducing yourself. 

 ML: I am Mel Leventhal. I’m born and raised in Brooklyn and spent 10 years 

working for the Legal Defense Fund. 

 SP: So, you were born in Brooklyn in 1943. 

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: Can you describe the Brooklyn of your childhood? 

 ML: I want to describe a particular event that was extremely important to who I am. 

There was a well-known film released in 1950. “The Jackie Robinson Story.” It was filmed in 

the [19]50s and Jackie Robinson and his wife starred in it.1 They played themselves in it. 

And at the age of seven or eight, my mother insisted that I join her in the movie theater to 

watch that movie. And I was, again, a child. That left an indelible mark on me because I 

immediately felt empathy and I cried during the movie. And I think it was just a very 

important moment. And I believe that what I felt was something innate. I don’t think that it 

emerged from the film. I think it was there before, before the film. But it showed me who I 

am. Something that was important to me. And it remained an image in my life forever.  

 SP: You said your mom took you to see it and sort of insisted that y’all go see it.  

 
1 During transcript review, Mr. Leventhal noted that Robinson’s wife does not play herself in the film. 



 

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 ML: Yeah. 

 SP: Do you think she anticipated you having that reaction? 

 ML: Yes. I think she did. And I think she wanted me to have it. It was, it’s very 

important to the Jewish tradition, to the Jewish tradition to do for others what they need. You 

know, she believed very much in good works. And often said we have a responsibility to 

reach out and do for others what is needed. [00:02:46] 

 SP: Have you seen it since? 

 ML: No [laughter], I don't think I have. But I can tell you, there’s been several 

movies made on Jackie Robinson’s life. This is the only one where he and his wife starred in 

it, played themselves, which was an interesting idea. And it just was very moving. And I 

think it's also part of the bedrock of the Civil Rights Movement. I think that film was 

important. It’s a step in a process. There are so many things that combine to change a society. 

And that film might have been one of them. I think it was well-received. I think it was 

recognized as important and has made a difference. One of the building blocks, I call them. 

 SP: So, you carried that feeling with you from the age of seven forward?  

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: How did you grapple with it when you were still young and, you know, through 

the rest of elementary school, high school, and then going into college, how did it shape your 

education and the way you thought about what you wanted to do?  

 ML: I don't know. [laughter] I really don't know. I don't remember any of those kinds 

of details. There were, Anti-Semitism was, is, a big part of our country. And again, it’s 

improved over the years. I’ve always seen that. As a child, I had to walk from a yeshiva, 

which is a religious school, to my home. And there was a moment when just a group of kids 

would stop me, take my yarmulke off, throw it over a fence, and tell me I had to retrieve it. I 

figured out a way to solve that. I followed one of the kids to his home, over a period of time, 



 

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and brought his parents into it. [laughter] I rang the doorbell and I said to the father who 

answered what had happened to me. He called his boy over and said, “I’ll take care of this.” 

And it never happened again. So, to that extent, my upbringing and my life emerged from all 

of that kind of stuff. 

 SP: And college, you went to Washington Square College. 

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: Which is NYU, not too far from here. 

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: What did you study? 

 ML: Government and politics was of very great interest to me. It was economics, 

government, politics. This has been my source of both inspiration and enjoyment. I love it. 

 SP: So, at what point did you decide that you wanted to go to law school?  

 ML:  I wanted to go to law — I think I always wanted to go to law school. I had, and 

I also wanted to be a leader. My parents were divorced. Very hotly contested divorce. And I 

was in court as a child many times. And I remember when I, in a cab ride home from one of 

the court appearances, I said to my mother, “I know what I want to be. I want to be a judge 

because he tells everyone what to do.” [laughter] And that’s said at the age of nine. So, I 

think I always wanted to be a lawyer without knowing I wanted to be a lawyer. 

 SP: And so, you started at NYU Law School in 1964? 

 ML: Yes. Fall of [19]64. Yes.  

 SP: Can you paint a picture of what NYU Law School was like in 1964? 

 ML: Very male. There were only a handful of females in the class. And devoted to 

textbook learning, which was not a whole lot of practical work. It’s changed dramatically to 

have more practical programs so that you get out into a community and you serve as an 

assistant to others. So, I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t like law school. It just wasn't real. It was 



 

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all theoretical. It was all textbooks and that's my recollection of the law school. It's a great 

law school. Don’t misunderstand me. And the program, the course materials were great. The 

professors were great. It just didn't resonate with me because it was not a practical approach 

to the law. The moment I started working for the Legal Defense Fund, my first work in civil 

rights was as a law student, and I went to Jackson, Mississippi, during the summer of 1965. 

Worked for Marian Wright under her supervision and it was a phenomenal experience 

because it was real. [laughter] The moment I started having clients, obviously indirectly as a 

law student, I enjoyed it enormously. 

 SP: [00:08:17] To go back a little bit, still at NYU when you're in law school there. 

So, it was more textbook focused. But what was the community of students like? Was there 

in 1964 a certain, like a community that you tapped in that influenced you? 

 ML: Yes. The Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, LSCRRC, Law Students 

Civil Rights Research Council, had a unit, had a branch at the law school, and that was the 

branch that interviewed me and gave me the position of the opportunity to go to Mississippi, 

to Jackson, to serve at the Legal Defense Fund. So, it was a liberal community. I was 

introduced to it and wanted very much to get into it. And the Law Students Civil Rights 

Research Project is the entity that I used to enter the world, and that was in the fall of 1964. 

Yeah. And I went to Mississippi because I said I would go. Mississippi was just the hardest 

place to work. And I said I would go to Mississippi. So, there were law students sent to 

Alabama, to Mississippi, to Georgia. I don't know how many of our students, LDF students 

— NYU students — went, but I went to the Mississippi office and it was the best decision in 

my life. Without a doubt. 

 SP: Can you talk about first hearing of the Legal Defense Fund, when you first 

realized that it was an organization and learning about the work it did? [00:10:05] 



 

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 ML: I thought it was spectacular. I thought the Legal Defense Fund was doing 

extremely important work and that I was privileged to be a part of it. The history of the 

organization speaks for itself. It’s often not understood that it is a separate entity. People 

confuse it with the NAACP. And there was litigation between the NAACP and LDF over the 

right of LDF to use NAACP. And the Legal Defense Fund won the lawsuit. But I also think 

that, well, we’ll get into other things, but the answer to your specific question is, I greatly 

admired it. I was thrilled that I could be a part of it. Barack Obama described it as the most 

important civil rights law firm in American history. And what could be more important than 

his view? You know, he is, he was a lawyer. He was a great lawyer, an important lawyer, as 

well as the president of the United States. And he understood the special role that LDF 

played. And I was just thankful that I could be a part of it.  

 SP: So, summer of 1965. This is your first summer after you started law school? 

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: You have not just agreed, but volunteered to go to Mississippi, specifically? 

 ML:  Right. Yeah. 

 SP: How did your friends, family, react? 

 ML: They thought I was crazy. They couldn’t believe it. My mother was in tears.  

 SP: What did you say to her? And them? 

 ML: I said, “This is important work.” 

 SP: I mean, it must have been terrifying leaving, summer of [19]64 —  

 ML: [00:12:10] Yeah, it was. It was right after the civil rights workers were killed. 

And that brought an additional spotlight to it, yeah. But, you know, when you, the fact of the 

matter is, and this must be true of all people who do what I did. You live in a small 

community. You’re part of a community where you create a moat around yourselves so that 

the day-to-day living is, in a sense, removed from all the dangers. And I think that helped. I 



 

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think that one of the things my wife used to say was that we had, we were happy. [laughter] 

We were happy in Mississippi. So, my friends and family thought I was crazy, especially 

since I went down as an interracial couple several years later, as a law student I met Alice 

Walker in Mississippi. But when we moved to Mississippi, that’s when my mother had a real 

crisis. She really thought it was insane. 

 SP: I mean, you kind of had everything against you. 

 ML: Yeah. Yeah. But not within our community. You know, the people I hung out 

with every day, I interacted with every day. We were closely knit and supportive of one 

another, and we never experienced the dangers as someone outside of that community might 

envision it. You know, it’s — yeah.  

 SP: I want to hear more about that community, but first, I do want to ask you some 

nuts and bolts questions about, well, your assumptions about Mississippi before you went. Do 

you remember, and this is asking you to remember something very specific from a long time 

ago, but do you remember first arriving there? 

 ML: Yes. Yes.   

 SP: What it felt like, what it looked like, what it smelled like? 

 ML: [00:14:29] So alien, so frightening. We drove to Mississippi. It was a car full of 

people who were going to be dropped off at different places. I was dropped off in Jackson 

and others in the car were going to different states or places. I was the only one in that car 

who was dropped off, and I was dropped off on Farish Street, 538 and a half North Farish 

Street. And I still remember walking up the steps. They were rickety, the building was 

rickety. [laughter] Several years later, they installed one of the first copying machines, a 

Xerox machine. And the men who were delivering it said they couldn’t get it — they would 

not, the floor wouldn’t hold it. And they, we had to reinforce the floor before they could 

deliver it. So, the building was definitely usable, don’t misunderstand me, but it — and then I 



 

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met Marian. Marian was in the office and she got me settled into the office. And there was 

also somebody who showed me where my house, where I would be living. That was a 

modern apartment complex. And several people were part of the movement were being 

housed there. But it was very intimidating because it was just alien and because it was 

Mississippi. [00:16:08] The very first books, very first pieces of literature that I read, and I 

remember this like it was today, were these books handed out by the Mississippi Department 

of Education, which listed all schools in the state, and they were listed by race. You had, 

“Here are the Negro schools and here are the white schools.” And they provided data for each 

of them. And this required a certain amount of naiveté. I said, well, “How can they be doing 

this? The Supreme Court in 1954 said this is something they can’t do.” Not only were they 

doing it but they were doing it openly. Their literature said they had Negro, white schools. 

And there were differences. The Negro schools in many counties had six-month terms so that 

the Negro kids could pick cotton in the fields. So, there were these facts that jumped off the 

pages, literally jumped off the page, that seemed impossible given the law. But interposition, 

nullification, never integration. Not now, not never, just took over the state, just blatant 

violations of law. But there because the people in control of the state said we were going to 

do it that way. Yeah. So that’s sort of my first impressions of Mississippi. That was as a law 

student. 

 SP: And so, what were some of those early tasks before you'd taken the bar? 

 ML: Right. 

 SP: And before you finished law school. And I know that you began gathering some 

information for what would become Alexander v. Holmes. 

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: But can you tell me —  



 

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 ML: Yeah, well I, my first responsibility. Marian Wright gave this to me. And we 

also had Henry Aronson, also an excellent lawyer. I really was fortunate to have both of them 

as mentors during that time. They sent me to Holmes County to find clients, to find plaintiffs 

for the lawsuit. And I got retainer agreements from them. And statements from them to 

establish first that their children were in the public schools and that they could serve as 

plaintiffs. And also, some specific facts about each of the children of the families. I spoke at 

churches and community locations throughout that summer, and I did that in several counties. 

[00:18:55] 

 SP: I’m interested in hearing more about that work because it’s very social. It’s very 

hands-on work. Can you just tell us a little bit more about it? What was it like to enter these 

churches in Holmes County, which for people who aren’t familiar with Mississippi, you 

know, Jackson is the capital. It’s an urban place. Holmes County is not. 

 ML: Yes. It's in the Delta. First, Holmes County is unique. It really was unique. As I 

established later during the fall of 1965, a total of 1,000 — this is a, these are approximations 

— a total of 1,000 Black kids enrolled in white schools in the entire state. Two hundred of 

them were from Holmes County. That’s extraordinary. It had a very strong community, a 

very active civil rights community. The number of people with extraordinary courage who 

were there, and who filled up the rooms and filled up the churches with people to hear what I 

had to say. And I enjoyed the experience. My themes were, put your children where the 

money is. These children have to grow up learning that we’re equal, that there are strengths 

and weaknesses in every individual. We are more alike than different. That was one of my 

themes. We are more alike than different. We have to focus on how we can interact as equals. 

And without the children, we’ve got to catch these kids when they’re young, which is exactly 

why there was so much hostility to us. We may very well change the very fabric of the 

society by working with children who could grow up with less prejudice and in time 



 

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recognize that we all have strengths and weaknesses and that we are all equal. The message 

to me, in my life, was always that the single most important concept is that the moral arc of 

the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. And the long part is a very important part of 

that. It’s long. By the way, that was not, Dr. King had adopted it, but it was first started by 

the 19th century theologian Theodore Parker. Not many people know that. So, it was part of 

the movement of the 19th Century, not the 20th Century, which Dr. King picked up on. And 

he’s right. It is just a problem. It’s a fact. So, that’s always the way I saw what I did during 

the summer of 1965. Right through the present as the bedrock. [00:22:02] 

 SP: And I know you would have encountered parents who were just terrified of 

getting involved in this work. How would you talk to them?  

 ML: I would tell them that they were right. I would tell them that the FBI would be 

notified, but we couldn't assure that they'd be there. That they were taking a position, they 

were doing something that could endanger their children. And they always, one of the most 

common questions is, “Will the FBI be there or will there be any protection?” And I said, 

“We’re going to try to get protection.” We were going to insist that the sheriff be there to 

protect, not to attack, but that it was dangerous. And this often involved fights between 

parents. You know, one parent says, “I’m not sending my kid into that school. They’re going 

to be —” and another parent saying, “We have to, it’s what we should be doing. And it's 

going to serve their best interests in the long run.” One of my, I wrote a play on precisely 

such a family debating whether they should do it or not. And it was in, not in Holmes County, 

it was a meeting with the family and neighbors in, upstate. Near the border. What was it, 

Quitman County. Quitman County. One of my favorite clients who insisted on being, his 

children going to the white school. And just enormous courage involved and determination 

and conviction that it was the right thing to do. [00:24:02] 



 

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 SP: So, after that summer, you go back to law school. It must have been like whiplash  

going to Mississippi back up to New York. What was it like for you to continue your legal 

education after having this experience? 

 ML: I was a terrible law student, really. I really was, I was not — I was focused on 

the work I had done. I went back during the winter recesses. So, I, my first time in 

Mississippi was the summer of [19]65. But then throughout my school career, my law school 

career, I found time to go back. So, I was there in the winter, spring break, winter break. And 

on one such occasion, Marian asked me to participate in the Meredith Mississippi March, 

which was really probably shortly after my final exams and, or may even, I may have missed 

an exam. I don’t — so, it was a presence throughout my law school. 

 SP: So, you mentioned the Meredith March. I just want to ask you about that. That 

was the summer of 1966. So, you came back down for your second summer, can you tell us a 

story of being invited to come back down for that march specifically and what it was like? 

 ML: Yes. Marian reached out to me and said that Dr. King was going to — James 

Meredith had been shot. He started to march in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel, as I 

remember. I’ve written about this. And he and a few of his buddies were going to march from 

Memphis to Jackson to eliminate fear, to overcome the fear that Black people felt when they 

traveled in Mississippi. And he was shot on the first or second day of the march. [00:26:08] 

Wounded, not killed. He was hospitalized. And the Civil Rights Movement convened around 

his hospital bed and said, “We’re going to take this, your march, and make it of a national 

significance. And we’re going to march from Memphis to Jackson together with you.” Well, 

he wasn’t, he recovered pretty quickly, as I recall. He did get involved. But in essence, the 

national Civil Rights Movement took over his march. And Marian called me at the law 

school and told me that she wanted me to serve as the Legal Defense Fund’s liaison to the 

march and to meet with Dr. King and take a role in the march that King wanted a lawyer for. 



 

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[laughter] But to make a long story short, or shorter, I went. And I spent the two, two or three 

weeks, with Dr. King and his key aides on the march, from — spent time in Memphis, spent 

time walking, walked about 100 miles of the 200 miles, slept in tents overnight. And yeah, 

and it was great. [laughter] It was wonderful, but very, I was always dehydrated. So, that’s 

the hardest thing to overcome. The dehydration. 

 SP: Mississippi in the summertime. 

 ML: [laughter] Mississippi in June. Mississippi in June is, they had to have water 

trucks. And I was always looking for the water truck. 

 SP: You’ve written about this and said, and you write about that summer, witnessing 

this really remarkable transformation in the way that local law enforcement and political 

establishment reacted to civil rights demonstrations. How they sort of evolved to react so that 

there wouldn't be this ugly backlash that would then get them bad press. Could you talk a 

little bit about what it was like to realize that that's what was happening? I think when you, 

one might look at it as, “Oh, this is progress,” you know, but it wasn’t, you know, it was just 

evolving.  

 ML: [00:28:45] It was a strategy that Dr. King acknowledged was a new problem. 

The strategy that was used during the 1965 Selma March worked because it brought into the 

foreground the racism, the violence that the Civil Rights Movement had experienced. The 

image that everybody remembers from Selma is troopers on horseback. And billy clubs, 

pounding demonstrators on the Pettus Bridge. That made national, international headlines. 

What had happened by 1966, one year later, the police forces, the governors, the mayors, had 

decided this was the worst way to deal with demonstrators. “Let them march, protect them. 

Don’t give King the opportunity to say that we’re brutalizing people.” And that took the form 

of allowing there to be voter registration in Grenada, Mississippi. Closing the, or taking down 

the signs showing the segregated toilets in the courthouse. There was a toilet for all Black 



 

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people. And then there was a toilet for white “ladies” and [a separate one for] white men. 

They took the signs down so that the press couldn’t see the facts. They had Black registrars 

registering people at night, no less. And then, in a number of locations, efforts were made to 

make sure there would be no violence. Now, there were exceptions. There were exceptions to 

that, but the overall message that Mississippi wanted to convey and successfully conveyed 

was that they were perfectly capable of providing protection for civil rights demonstrators. 

They made a big deal out of the person who had shot Meredith actually going to trial. And he 

was convicted and he served [time] at Parchman. So, they presented a different façade and it 

was successful overall. [00:31:03] There were several incidents of violence, but the overall 

impression conveyed was, “If there’s violence, we don’t really want it. If there’s violence, it 

was something that the demonstrators insisted upon because they wouldn’t listen to lawful 

orders.” So, it was an important march because it diffused the Civil Rights Movement. We 

also alienated President Johnson. What a mistake that was. You can’t — one of the things I 

write about on that march is that we made mistakes and there are lessons learned. You can’t 

accomplish anything nationally without the president, without the Congress. So, there was 

dissension within the civil rights leadership. So, it was a very different, a very different 

experience. 

 [31:57 - 32:21 pause while phone rings] 

 ML: We alienated President Johnson and you don’t alienate a president, especially a 

president like Lyndon Johnson who is very sensitive to political support and opposition. He 

thought we were ungrateful. He had been critical in the enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights 

Act. He had been critical in the [19]65 Civil Rights, the Voting Rights Act. And here we 

were, we’re badmouthing him and all kinds of things were happening that resulted in him 

essentially telling us that we’re on our own. [00:32:59] 



 

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 SP: And that was [19]66, that was before you were done with law school. So this was 

before — you have all these experiences in Mississippi before you made the bigger decision 

to actually move down for years. I’m impressed that you still made that decision after these 

two summers. Did those two summers only strengthen your convictions or did you have 

second thoughts about coming? 

 ML: No, it strengthened my convictions. I thought this would be my life’s work. It’s 

what I wanted to do. Again, it’s not — I never saw it as heroic. I thought it was something I 

wanted to do. Yeah. That I had to do. 

 SP: And so, I want to go back to Jackson. I want to go back to Jackson when you 

moved down. You’ve talked a lot about Marian Wright. Tell us a little bit more about her. 

Your first impressions. 

 ML: A dynamo. A dynamo in complete control who was on a mission. Very smart. 

But she was the boss, and I needed that. And I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to work 

with her. One of the highlights of my life was that later, many, many years later, she 

introduced me as her law partner to somebody, and I was thrilled that she saw me as that. 

That we had that relationship and she saw me as her law partner. That was a privilege. That 

was, she’s special.  

 SP: And she, she was the head of LDF Jackson. 

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: Can you describe to us what the office was on Farish Street in Jackson and also 

describe Farish Street because it’s, you know, a special part of Jackson, too. 

 ML: [00:34:57] The office, itself, was modest. We all had desks made of plywood. 

We had spaces that were more like cubicles than offices. The walls didn’t go to the ceiling. 

And we were a group of people, lawyers and support staff that just worked well together. We 

all chipped in, in different ways that we chip in. That makes us successful. I can’t say enough 



 

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about Marian because she was so important. But Marian eventually decided that litigation, 

lawyering was not sufficiently comprehensive in addressing and solving the needs of the 

Civil Rights Movement. So, she moved to Washington and set up the Children’s Defense 

Fund, which was, has been, a very important organization over the years. She’s [recently] 

retired. Well, just, think a year or two ago, she retired and turned the reins over to a successor 

at the Children’s Defense Fund. I’m just trying to think of the atmosphere. We were 

constantly working. We worked, I think that there were years when I had two shifts, my day 

shift and my night shift. I took a nap between shifts, you know, I could work, I could work 20 

hours a day very easily. Very often worked 20 hours a day to develop a very large docket of 

cases covering many, many different areas. [00:36:57] One of my favorite, un-favorite 

experiences were with Judge Cox, Harold Cox, who was just quite a character. So many 

stories about him. But one of the things I remember doing. I think it was as a law student. I’m 

not, no, maybe, I just don’t know when, but he called me into his — I had submitted an order 

to him of some kind. Actually, it was an order [denying my motion that he] make an 

immediate decision [on a long pending matter]. And I prepared an order and put it [before] 

him. And I waited for a long time to see him because he wanted me to. He calls me in and 

said, “You see this? This order is not sufficient.” He says, “You’ve dated it June 17th, 1967. 

It’s, that’s not the date. The date is June 17th, 1967, A.D. This is a Christian country. So, this 

has to be redone.” So, I took it back and I [added] “A.D.” and he said, “No, no, you take it 

back to your office [and retype it].” He was that kind of person. And there’s a certain humor 

as well as offense to Judge Cox. When you try a case before Judge Cox, I tried cases before 

Judge Cox where he, somebody would make an objection and he hadn’t been listening. He 

just was, he says, “I’m writing a letter to my sister.” [laughter] He’d say, “He’s just going to 

take this down to New Orleans to some emergency squad.” He called the Court of Appeals an 

“emergency squad.” “So, let him make his record.” And then he’d just take his pen and go 



 

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back to writing his letter. So, he allowed me to make my record. He didn’t cut me off. 

[laughter] “Just go on and put in what you want.” But he wasn’t paying any attention. He was 

telling me he’s going to rule against me, but eventually these judges in — so, all of these 

things created an atmosphere in which we all worked, you know. [00:39:05] There was a time 

when we were getting people out of jail and everyone, you needed a “removal petition.” A 

removal petition would move a case from the state courts to the federal courts. And we tried 

to file these things with 100 different people under one caption, and he would say, “No, we 

need a separate one for everyone.” And this was not the days when you can print a hundred 

copies, you know. We had to turn on our mimeograph machine. So, the atmosphere in the 

office was always [a crisis]. Things were going on that we had to get done yesterday. But we 

all knew that. We all worked together to get them done. That was the atmosphere and it was 

all under Marian’s direction. And Henry as well, Henry Aronson. Wonderful, wonderful 

leaders. And I couldn’t have been better mentored as a student or even as a young lawyer, 

although it’s very important to understand that at the Legal Defense Fund, you sank or swam 

on your own. There was very little — if I wanted to file a lawsuit, there were people available 

in New York to guide me. But we were supposed to figure it out on our own and do what we 

thought was appropriate on our own, so I don’t really think I got a lot of, well, the support 

was always there, but [not] a lot of instruction. It was just — Marian, when Marian left, we 

had all the lawyers come in and we all worked under that rule. Paul Brest was there. Iris 

Brest. And the lawyers at the Legal Defense Fund were involved, always nationally. Their 

names appeared on documents and they were always available. [00:40:45] 

 SP: The stories about Judge Cox are legion. Just like the one you told just now are 

kind of unbelievable. He’s a caricature. 

 ML: Yes, he is a caricature. Yeah. 

 SP: I imagine that you all would just share these stories with each other. 



 

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 ML: Yeah. There is, one of my favorite stories is that of Frank Parker, a great civil 

rights lawyer, wonderful lawyer, who worked at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights 

Under Law, which was up the street. It was the one created by the president, was often called 

the President’s Committee for Civil Rights. He came into my office after an appearance 

before Judge Cox, plopped himself down on the chair opposite my desk and said, “Mel, 

you’re not going to believe this.” “What’s up, Frank?” He said, “Judge Cox just called me a 

scurvy individual, and you know, Mel, it hurt.” I said, “Frank, that’s a compliment. He’s 

never called me a scurvy individual. You must be doing something right.” [laughter] So, 

that’s exactly what happened. I said, “Gee, that’s fantastic. What did you do? You must have 

done something that really was useful for us.” He said, “No, Mel, let’s be serious. It hurts, it 

hurts when a Judge looks down on you.” I said, “Come on Frank, we have to be thick 

skinned. This is just par for the course.” There are, everyone’s got these stories. That was 

Frank’s story. He died at a young age. But he was wonderful lawyer. 

 SP: I mean, yeah. You have to have a thick skin. You have to have a sense of humor. 

 ML: Yes. Yes. You had to have a sense of humor. And I developed an approach to 

Judge Cox that tried to take it as humor. I saw it, a lot of it is as funny. And I meant it when I 

said to Frank, “That’s phenomenal.” And he says, “I’ve never heard that word.” By the way, 

[Cox] was erudite. He was not a stupid guy, stupid judge. [00:42:54] He had a vast 

vocabulary and really could fine tune language in ways I appreciated as a lawyer. [laughter]. 

That’s an example of it. He calls you a “scurvy individual.” Wow, that’s very clever. 

[laughter] Those judges who sat in New Orleans, he called them an “emergency squad.” You 

see what I’m getting at? That’s, there’s a gift in that. He’s a caricature. He’s a character. And 

as much as he was a problem, we all had to deal with him and we all wish he was not a judge. 

It’s one of the ways to survive in his presence.  



 

19 
 
 

 SP: There’s a story about an encounter that you’ve had with him where it was after 

the conviction of the men who murdered Chaney, and Schwerner, and Goodman [at a trial 

before Cox]. And he, well, you can tell it better than I can.  

 ML: Yeah, I saw him after that. I was in his office with some document and I said, 

you know, “The civil rights community really appreciates that you” — I think he also pressed 

the jury. There was a hung jury for a while. He didn't let them stay hung. He pressed them for 

a verdict and he got a verdict of guilty. I think for, certainly for the sheriff and his deputy, 

Rainey and Price, and he sentenced them to prison. And I went to the courthouse to say that 

the civil rights community, of course, had followed the trial. And I wanted to tell him that we 

appreciated that he kept the jury in the box. He kept them deliberating and ultimately 

sentenced them to some years of imprisonment. And his reaction, he said, “Well, you know, I 

could understand them beating him up, but I think they went too far.” This is classic Cox. 

This is his sense of justice. “Beat them to a shred, pistol whip them. Do whatever you have to 

do to get them to stop. I mean, killing them [went too far].” Yes. That's exactly what he said 

to me. [45:17] 

 SP: Did he ever offer you any other types of concessions like that, or is that the only 

time that he —   

 ML: That is the only time he ruled in our favor. And I always was able to get him 

reversed on appeal. Not always. That's not — no, that’s, most of the time we succeeded in 

getting him reversed on appeal. 

 SP: There's developing a thick skin, but then there's also facing the threat of very real 

violence that I'm sure you were very aware of. Can you talk a bit about how you handled that 

when you were living in Jackson?  

 ML: Yeah. I handled it in ways that I cannot imagine I would do it today. One of my, 

the incident that I remember. And as I reflect on it, I can't quite figure out how I reacted as I 



 

20 
 
 

did, was, there were two times when a business card, a business card size, of a message from 

the Klan, "The eyes of the Klan are on you.” And it was just two eyes. The eyes of the Klan. 

And it was on my porch. I was angry. I cannot get over the fact that I reacted more with anger 

than fear. I don't understand my reaction. My wife, Alice, at the time, thought it was bizarre. 

She couldn't believe that I was not frightened. And I said, “Well, we're frightened, but we 

can’t —” And the, I had a couple of other incidents like that. And it was always, for some 

reason it was, it was fear but laid over with anger and “I'm not going to stop.” Yeah. Yeah. 

 SP: Was that — I'm asking you to reflect on something you just told me that you can't 

get over yourself so I’m sorry. But do you, what was that anger directed towards specifically, 

like the Klan specifically, was it bigger than that? [00:47:33] 

 ML: It was always bigger than that. It was always that, that we were doing important 

work. God's work. And that we shouldn't allow them to stop us. And by the way, the 

inspiration for that is my clients. My clients were out in these rural counties, getting such 

business cards. You know, they were the source of strength for me. And if they could do it 

and I'm in Jackson and I'm a lawyer protected by the court system, how can I not do it? It was 

very much, very much tied to the extraordinary courage of my clients. And my clients in 

Leake County got such cards. And they were in the rural part of the state. I'm in Jackson. I'm 

buffered. And so, I think the only explanation I could come up with was, “How can I not be 

behind the people who are experiencing it in a much more dangerous manner?" You know. I 

have a list of people who I just couldn't believe that the courage they brought to their work. 

 SP: Dealing with that sort of threat more logistically, I mean, you have this beautiful 

dog, you get a German Shepherd.  

 ML: Yes. Watchdog. Yeah.  

 SP: A gun?  

 ML: Yes, I had a rifle. Yeah.  



 

21 
 
 

 SP: How would you talk to your colleagues and your peers in Jackson about that? 

You know, like, “Do you guys have a gun too?” Did you ever?  

 ML: No. No. I don't think we ever did. The Sears Roebuck rifle I had, I did not have 

a pistol. I was, I’m afraid of guns. [laughter] I hate them. I can’t. I bought that rifle and I kept 

it in my car. I don't think I ever told my partners that I had it. Just think about that. I’ve never 

thought about that. Did we ever talk about it. No. I think we all felt insulated by one another’s 

presence, from the violence. I really don't think we dealt with it. We just, to the extent it was 

there, to the extent the hostility was there, we just absorbed it and we were too busy to be 

talking about anything that, like that. And I think we felt safe. There must have been such a 

feeling because as I said, my wife said we were happy. It's just incredible. That's her memory 

of those years. We were a happy family. So, it's very complicated, I guess. [00:50:32] 

 SP: It seems like you have similar memories, too.  

 ML: Yes, we do. When she wrote that, she wrote that in one of her books. I 

remember reading it. Saying, you know, she's absolutely right. You adapt. And you surround 

yourself. You build a moat, you build a moat. And I'm sure that's the way my clients dealt 

with it as well. You protect yourself in that manner.  

 SP: Can you talk more about that community in Jackson? Like, how would you guys 

unwind? What would you do? 

 ML: Poker. I had a poker game every weekend. And yeah, we had lots of fun at the 

poker table. You know, a little game behind — there’s a pharmacy right next door to 538 and 

a half. Harmon, George Harmon had a pharmacy. He was a pharmacist, Black pharmacist. 

And in the back of his store, we had a poker game a couple of times a week or maybe once a 

week. And we had a great deal of fun together. Just, just lots of funny things around the poker 

table. What's that, there’s a movie which focuses on a poker table. The Odd Couple. 



 

22 
 
 

[laughter] The Odd Couple. Where we all just found ways to joke around. And yeah, that was 

one thing we did. Then we spent other times together relaxing. [00:52:18] 

 SP: What about some of the other attorneys you worked with? We’ve talked about 

Marian Wright and Henry Aronson.  

 ML: Yes. Yes.  

 SP: Did you ever work, there were three, only three Black lawyers practicing in 

Mississippi when she arrived, so did you ever work with them? That’s Jack Young, Carsie 

Hall, and R. Jess Brown. 

 ML: Yes. All three of them, wonderful lawyers and very courageous. They were, 

before we had lawyers in Mississippi admitted to the bar — Marian Wright and I were the 

only two outside lawyers, coming from out of the state of Mississippi, that are admitted to the 

bar. Both of us took the exam to be admitted. At the time, Ole Miss, University of Mississippi 

Law School, you were automatically admitted to the bar. You didn't have to take the bar 

exam. I don't know, I think it's probably still true. But I don't know. So, we took the bar 

exam. But the other [local] lawyers, my partners, Reuben Anderson, a wonderful, a 

wonderful person and lawyer. Fred Banks, wonderful. John Nichols, wonderful. We played 

different roles in the office. Reuben always saw, I think Reuben always saw his role as 

developing a presence politically. He went to Ole Miss. He was the first Black graduate of 

the University of Mississippi [Law School]. He had a good practice, but not a heavy 

concentration in civil rights. He did other work. And then rose to prominence in the 

Mississippi Bar. He was president of Mississippi Bar Association. Incredible. That's who he 

was. He was very personable. Very balanced person and very skilled in what he did. And he 

tried cases. Don't misunderstand me. He had a full career as a lawyer and successful career as 

a lawyer. [00:54:40] And Fred Banks was similarly, but more — Fred was oriented to the 

civil rights work, the pure civil rights litigation. But also a wonderful person. Loved being 



 

23 
 
 

with him. Fred Banks was the person, whenever I didn't know what I wanted to [do in a 

case], when I said, “I can do this five different ways,” I'd go up the hall and ask Fred, what 

does he think? And he’d always figure out the best way to do it. You know, that one guy who 

could cut through all of the chatter, all of the, you are looking at 37 different things, and he 

would say, “You know, Mel, here's what I think we ought to do.” And it was always perfect. 

[laughter] That’s my memory of Fred. Very smart, gifted intellectually, in my opinion. Yeah. 

And then Paul Brest. I have a great Paul Brest story. Yeah, Paul Brest, who was later the 

Dean of Stanford Law School and Chairman, Head of the Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, I 

think he headed. Paul was a wonderful, extremely — he was a scholar. He was not admitted 

to Mississippi Bar. So that for him to practice, he needed to apply for permission to be in a 

particular case. It's called appearing pro hac vice. Latin phrases are disarming. But essentially 

it means for the purposes of a case. And he had to submit his resumé with some evidence of 

where he was admitted to the Bar and his credentials. And [Marian’s] job as a member of the 

Bar was to introduce him [to the court]. And he was admitted before Judge Cox, Judge Cox 

admitted him. But the great story — Paul Brest graduated from Harvard Law School with A’s 

in everything. His resumé included all A’s at Harvard College. All A’s at the law school. 

[00:56:43] Okay. I mean, I had never seen anything like that in my life. I had never seen such 

a [transcript]. So we had to submit it up to Judge Cox to show that he was qualified to appear 

in a particular case, in one case that he was in charge of. And I remember Judge Cox looking 

at this, not taking his eyes off it. Looking through these pages. He didn't know what to do. 

So, he said, “Yeah, I guess Mr. Brest is qualified to appear in the case. Proceed Mr. Brest.” I 

just found that moment exquisite. That Judge Cox, who was looking for something to object 

to, he was going to say something snide, something very clever. That he was so good at 

doing, which would probably make me laugh. He would have approved it. He would, but he 

was going through this trying to say something that it would be offensive, you know, and he 



 

24 
 
 

just [says], “I guess you're qualified, Mr. Brest.” [laughter] So that's Paul. He was a great 

scholar, but I don't think he wanted to be a litigator. Litigation requires a certain kind of 

presence and articulateness that I don't think, though, that Paul had. He was more of an 

academic. And I think that he learned from his experience in Mississippi that he'd rather be a 

professor than an advocate in a courtroom. He also flew an airplane. He was a pilot. So, he 

would travel around Mississippi in these single engine planes, as well as Henry, Henry 

Aronson, who was also a pilot. And I flew with them occasionally.  

 SP: That was going to be my next question. 

 ML: Oh, yes. 

 SP: Can you tell us what it was like to go up? 

 ML: [00:58:41] You were in a plane that if there was any wind you couldn't land 

because you'd just be blown up. This was, I remember traveling with Henry. We had to be at, 

was it Grenada? I don’t know where we were going, but the court was waiting for us, we 

couldn’t land. We had to fly to a different. I think we had to fly it in Neshoba or somewhere 

to land. And we missed a court appearance. Something happened. Yeah. I was terrible, I was 

terrified. I remember those flights as just being terrifying. I've never been a good flier. But 

being in a single engine plane is a different, is a wholly different experience [laughter] from 

flying commercially. But these were wonderful relationships. We all hung out together in 

multiple ways and just great camaraderie. 

 SP: We’ll be talking to Paul and Iris. 

 ML: Really, Paul? Send him my best. And Iris. There's an Iris story that she may or 

may not remember. Well, she'll tell you if she wants to. [laughter] I don't want to. I don't 

want to tell that story. 

 SP: I did get the impression that for both of them, that it was the philosophical side of 

law that that they had gone on to. 



 

25 
 
 

 ML: Yeah. Yeah. But, but wonderful people. I very much enjoyed working with 

them. But they were of a much quieter temperament than the typical litigator.  

 SP: So, of course, we've talked about this a bit, and I know we're jumping around, 

there’s so much to talk about. You weren't just in Jackson. You were all over Mississippi. 

You were in the Delta. Can you talk about how your experiences differed across the state and 

what you, this is a big question, but what you came to learn about Mississippi in your time 

there? Maybe some things that even surprised you? [1:00:42] 

 ML: I learned in going about Mississippi that there was far more diversity in the 

attitudes of the white community than we really appreciated. We had in the Northern District 

of Mississippi judges who were much more responsive to our claims. Either because they felt 

they had a duty as judges, they had signed an oath. And they were bound by it. Or because 

they felt strongly about the issues and they were “Moderates.” And we had Orma Smith and 

Bill Keady, and before them, Claude Clayton, who was there. So, you can go back to the 

[19]60s, the mid-[19]60s, the early [19]60s, when Claude Clayton presided in the Northern 

District of Mississippi and was responsive to some of our claims. I remember a lawsuit that 

was filed, probably during the Meredith March that I got involved in as a law student. And 

Henry tried the case. And Henry had shown police misconduct, brutality, in Grenada. The 

first thing you learn when you go to Mississippi, by the way, it’s Gren-ay-da, not Gren-ah-da. 

The easiest way to get yourself into a lot of trouble in Mississippi was to say you're going to 

Gren-ah-da. So, we had a trial that came out of an incident in Grenada. And Judge Clayton 

was presiding. And it was a question of whether the police had engaged in misconduct, police 

brutality, in the face of an order issued by Judge Clayton to protect the marchers or the 

demonstrators. And Henry established, Henry was a great trial lawyer. He established the 

brutality through images that we got from the press, the ABC News or NBC News coverage 

gave us all of their film, all of the tapes. [01:02:52] And when Judge Clayton saw the 



 

26 
 
 

misconduct [by the police], he was furious. Well, had it been Judge Cox, he might have said, 

“Well, you know, they beat him up a little bit, but it was all right.” So, the first thing you 

notice was a distinct difference in the courts. Greenville was a liberal town, Hodding Carter 

and the Delta Democratic Times. Hodding Carter became an important part of the Carter 

Administration. And the second thing is even within each community, there were differences 

and stereotyping everybody was a mistake. The lawyers were different. Some lawyers were 

more receptive than others. There is no doubt that the overall experience was one of 

resistance. I don't want to suggest that there wasn't, but it had different shapes and sizes. And 

in terms of my clients, in every case, I saw extraordinary courage that was unbelievable. Just 

unbelievable. People willing, facing — when Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the great civil rights 

figures of the country, was just an inspiration. She, you couldn't intimidate Fannie Lou 

Hamer. Just brought so much courage, so much integrity that you just couldn't help but say 

what you were experiencing was nothing in comparison. People who lost their jobs because 

they put their children in schools. In Holmes County, Mississippi, which had the 200 kids 

enrolled in it, in white schools, I remember driving into Lexington, which is the county seat. 

And on every utility pole, just one after the other, was a flier which said, “Here are the names 

of the children integrating the Lexington school.” [01:04:58] You know. That flier I took, I 

took down. I stopped. Took down a couple. And one of them is in the book by Jim Loewen, 

the textbook I mentioned to you [Mississippi: Conflict and Change]. And I stopped and I 

took it down. And you realize as you look at this flier the danger that these parents had 

exposed themselves and their children to, and what it does for you is it makes you humble. It 

makes you realize that, you know, whatever I faced was nothing.  

 SP: Targeting the kids like that. 

 ML: Yeah, just extraordinary. So, what it does is it teaches humility and it gives you 

the courage to move forward. Some of the judges did that for me. John Minor Wisdom sat on 



 

27 
 
 

the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Great, great judge. The courthouse in New Orleans is now 

named after him. John Minor Wisdom. He deserves every bit of that, that brilliant, wonderful 

advocate for civil rights. I relied on him so often in my advocacy. But I will always 

remember that I argued before him once in New Orleans. And one of the judges said, “Well, 

how long are we going to be supervising these school districts?” And I said, “Well, it took at 

least a hundred years to create the dual racial school system. It's probably going to take 

another hundred years to undo it.” And one of my favorite memories is John Wisdom looking 

at me, smiling. These are things that inspire you. These are the things, when you have that 

kind of backing, you can keep going. So, there were so many different facets of life that 

influence you in so many diverse ways that they just all come together. And so that's my 

answer to your question. What did I see as I moved? I saw courage. [01:07:00] And then 

there were, and I always admired the judges. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was an 

extraordinary court. Extraordinary court. Elbert Parr Tuttle, John Brown, the Chief Judge. 

John Minor Wisdom. [Irving Loeb] Goldberg, we had Goldberg. I remember a story, one of 

my fun cases. My law partner, Reuben Anderson, called me one Saturday and he was in Pass 

Christian Isles, Mississippi, and he was trying to play golf with his best friend. He calls me, 

said, “Mel, they won't let us play. They say it’s a private club.” And I filed a lawsuit. I filed a 

lawsuit on behalf of my partner to eliminate discrimination at the Pass Christian Isles Golf 

Club. And Judge Cox ruled against me, found there was no discrimination. [laughter] I had 

the head of the golf course testify that certain things had happened when my partner and his 

friend appeared to play. It was an open and shut case, one of the easiest cases I’ve had to try. 

Judge Cox said, “There's no discrimination.” What I remember — so I took an appeal. And 

what I remember is, I think his name was Irving Goldberg. Irving Goldberg was the judge. 

And he said, “You know, this is crazy. Are we really here arguing about this case? What's 

going on in Mississippi?” So, you had that kind of encouragement. I get up to argue and, 



 

28 
 
 

“You don't have to argue this case. This is outrageous.” So, you had that kind of support 

which could counteract all of Judge Cox’s work against you.  

 SP: I want to ask more about the Fifth Circuit, but I want to ask about it after we talk 

more about Alexander v. Holmes. First of all, can you just outline briefly if possible what 

Alexander v. Holmes is all about? Because this is sort of a lesser, I mean, it is a lesser-known 

case, of course, than Brown v. Board. But it really hasn't gotten quite as much of the 

historical spotlight it deserves. Can you talk about some of the issues at the heart of it? 

 ML: [01:09:29] Well the original, the case Alexander v. Holmes was the first [listed] 

case [in a caption that consisted] of a number of cases that were consolidated for decision in 

the Fifth Circuit. The case itself, as the larger monumental case, started with the United 

States asking for more time to desegregate schools. We were at a point where we had 

schools, all of these school districts under a court order to develop plans to fully integrate 

their schools, to move from Freedom of Choice to totally nondiscriminatory schools. The 

problem with Freedom of Choice was that the burden of desegregation was imposed on the 

Black community when it should have been imposed upon the school district. 

 SP: [01:10:24] Can you just spell out for us what Freedom of Choice meant? Because 

it sounds like one thing. 

 ML: Yeah, well, Freedom of Choice meant that all the white kids went to the white 

school and a handful of Black kids with the courage went to all white schools. So, we had a 

dual school system. One all Black and the other all white with just a handful of Black 

students. So, the systems themselves were maintained to dual racial systems. And that we had 

to take the next step to accomplish more. They were also, every time you went to court there 

was another excuse for not doing more. These school desegregation cases began with, in the 

1960s – this is an embarrassing fact for Mississippi – with the school districts arguing that 

there were rational reasons for segregation, that Black kids did better in Black schools and 



 

29 
 
 

they had a right to maintain them. Because Brown v. Board of Education “didn’t require 

integration, it only required desegregation.” It's just some nonsense. And we actually had 

trials where [school district] experts testified, on behalf of the school districts, that schools 

were better segregated for the Black community. So that's the backdrop for 15 years after 

Brown, we are faced with schools that are segregated. And very little accomplished. And 

schools successfully resisting the 14th Amendment. So we were in New Orleans trying to get 

more substantial relief. And Nixon, his Civil Rights Division, announced [without any 

warning] that it was going to support the additional delays, that all of these plans should not 

be implemented when they were scheduled to be implemented. [01:12:36] They completely 

changed the government's position. School desegregation cases were brought by private 

plaintiffs, like my cases and [consolidated with] government cases, the United States of 

America v. [various school districts], versus Alexander v. When they did that, I did one of the 

— I just love what I did in that case. [laughter] I made it a political issue: I filed a “motion to 

realign the parties.” That is, I said I wanted the United States to be a defendant because it had 

moved against the clients’ [the Black school students’] best interest. And in fact, the 

government was no longer advocating [for] desegregation or unitary systems. And therefore, 

they should be a defendant in the case. My favorite reporter for The New York Times [Roy 

Reed] picked up that — so I made that motion orally, before a three-judge panel. He put that 

on the front page of The New York Times, that the Legal Defense Fund has moved to make 

the United States a defendant. That made it a, once you generate that, it became a national 

story. It was also a great story luckily, because Justice Black, Hugo Black, had argued, we 

learned in the original school desegregation cases in Brown that these delays are just going to 

be terrible. He didn't want the delays. He did not want “all deliberate speed.” And he was 

assigned as the [Justice] to supervise cases out of the Fifth Circuit, so it became a national 

story. And it became just a great vehicle for getting the old “deliberate speed” doctrine 



 

30 
 
 

changed to “at once.” So that's my summary of the case. And all of the work in that case was 

done by a battery of lawyers, not just me. We had some lawyers from LDF New York. 

Melvyn Zarr, who worked on it, Melvyn teaches at [Maine University School of Law] — is a 

phenomenal lawyer. And just a bunch of lawyers. We got the Dean of Yale Law School, 

Black, I think his name was. He worked on the briefs, he worked on the case along with me 

and others. And then Jack Greenberg, our leader, argued it in the Supreme Court.2 

 SP: [01:15:20] I want to know what it was like to sit there and listen to his arguments. 

I know you were there.  

 ML: I was there, I second chaired, well, I was supposed to second chair. But the dean 

of the [Yale] law school, second chaired. It was important that he wanted to, Jack needed the, 

we needed the backing of someone of stature rather than — I was a kid, a young kid. But 

what was amazing about that day was there were, the crowd circled the block. We had a huge 

turnout for the oral argument. Very supportive of our position. To me, it illustrates the role of 

non-legal issues in the way that determine the outcome of cases. I think that circumstances 

came together, which, as I say, I initiated through [my] motion [to make the United States a 

defendant], making it a national story. And then we all converged on it and made it happen. 

 SP: I mean, you must have felt so invested. This is like your, your — . 

 ML: Oh yeah, it was great. And I wish I could have argued it. [laughter] That wasn’t 

possible. I was a junior lawyer, I was a young lawyer, I was a kid. And it needed the head of 

 
2 During transcript review, Mr. Leventhal added: “After we won Alexander in the Supreme Court there was a 
follow-up case in the Fifth Circuit, our lawsuit Singleton v. The Jackson Municipal Separate School District – 
which was also the lead case in a list of cases consolidated in the Fifth Circuit for decision. The specifics of our 
case was a motion I had filed to prevent the Jackson district from constructing a new school building in the 
middle of a Black community, which would encourage it being an all-Black school. And I argued that the law 
required that, as part of school desegregation, all of the different things that had to be done, we had to try to find 
neutral sites to build new schools. And the appeals court had granted us a temporary injunction until the appeal 
was concluded. And in fact, the construction was stopped, and they had to locate it differently. That was an 
unusual case. It was the first that I knew of where we claimed that the location of a school was relevant to 
compliance with the Constitution. But the most important outcome of this case was that the Court entered an 
order establishing the content of a “uniform decree” containing all of the terms of a desegregation plan that had 
to be adopted by all school districts within the geographic area under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit.” 
 



 

31 
 
 

the Legal Defense Fund to argue it, but I wanted to argue it, and I think I could have done a 

better job. [laughter]  

 SP: I’ve read a little bit about his argument, can you talk a little bit about it? 

 ML: What I remember about it is the court was very receptive. You know, you can 

get up in a case, whether it’s before the Supreme Court or any court, and you immediately 

learn what’s going to happen. They will indicate, most courts will indicate, at least one of the 

judges on a panel, will indicate the court’s leaning. So we immediately recognized that we 

had lots of friends on this case. That — and we had, Hugo Black. What I remember most 

about that, about that oral argument. Funny, I remember it now and I don’t think I 

remembered it before just now. Hugo Black leaned forward and said, “What do you want the 

order to say? What do you think the order should say?” And he had a pen in his hand. 

[laughter] [01:17:41] In other words, he was exasperated with the problems we were facing in 

Mississippi, where we couldn’t get results that we were clearly entitled to. Fifteen years later, 

after the Supreme Court said that “all deliberate speed” — actually, the order said more than 

— the original Brown order said “all deliberate speed,” but it also said “at the earliest 

practicable date.” There was a little more substance in “earliest practicable date” than “all 

deliberate speed.” And both of those phrases appeared in the Brown decision of 1955, and we 

had the court recognizing that it had failed the civil rights community. It had failed the Black 

community. Ordinarily, human rights are for the here and now. You can’t defer them. You 

can’t tell somebody, “Well, you’ve got this constitutional right, but you’ll realize it 10 years 

from now.” It’s entirely inconsistent with the notion of a constitutional right. So, we had all 

of those principles working for us. We had the nation behind us. And we got, but then we 

faced the problem of white flight. We faced the problem of white flight, the problem of 

massive resistance coming down on us. The most important fact in my mind about that, the 

most I can say, is that it varied from community to community. And there were — great 



 

32 
 
 

successes were realized through Alexander v. Holmes County. We did accomplish a great 

deal, looking at the picture, but it was not nearly enough. And we faced massive resistance 

continuing. So, [white kids] all pulled out of the school. That’s not what I thought we needed, 

you know, again, we needed these children to be together. And I was always disappointed 

and frustrated and felt somewhat responsible for the white flight and the segregation of 

schools, while my colleagues said, “Mel, that’s ridiculous. This had to be done. We had to 

take that step.” [1:19:40] 

 SP: Private schools have, you know, you had seen private schools start sprouting up 

before that, of course. Did you anticipate at all the degree to which they just exploded? 

 ML: No. No. No, I did not anticipate that. I didn’t expect it. And then we fought it. I 

mean, I filed lawsuits, follow up lawsuits, to prevent — Frank Parker filed a very important 

lawsuit to prevent these schools from getting tax exemptions. And I filed a very important 

lawsuit, Norwood v. Harrison, to eliminate textbook assistance. And I also filed suits, I filed 

suits against, one of my suits that nobody ever heard of, was against a school, a private 

school for disability. Disabled children in northern Mississippi, insisting that they integrate if 

they want to receive any state benefits. So, it’s not that we acquiesced. We did everything we 

could. The Supreme Court decided Norwood v. Harrison, the textbook case in our favor. But 

— where did I start on this? [laughter] 

 SP: Just asking about private schools. [1:20:56] 

 ML: Oh, yes. 

 SP: Anticipating that reaction, I mean, it’s just — they’re everywhere now. 

 ML: Yes, they are.  

 SP: That is the, that’s just —  

 ML: Well, there are, again, going back to what I consider the most important theme. 

“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends to justice.” I believe that ultimately each 



 

33 
 
 

generation improves significantly from its positions, its philosophy of life from what’s moral 

and immoral, to some extent. And that it’s just a necessary part of progress. So, I’m 

optimistic, but optimism of long term is [progress]. And there are always setbacks. It’s 

always a couple of steps forward and one step back. It’s just the nature of progress. And we 

can fight it. We can say it’s wrong. [We never admit this in litigation]. You know, you say 

you’re in favor of progress and gradualism, and you’re attacked. [But] to me, it’s just the 

history. It’s what history proves.  

 SP: Even reading about Alexander v. Holmes and its own very long arc is so 

frustrating. I can’t imagine what it was actually like to work on it.  

 ML: Well, it was wonderful work, but the outcome frustrated me, saddened me. This 

is not what I thought we needed. And I’ll never know whether it was the right decision or not, 

but again, most people said it was a necessary step. There are some very good stories that 

come out of it and that all of that, while the record might be checkered, it’s been overall a 

success. We moved, we moved significantly along that moral arc in a positive way. 

 SP: [1:23:01] So much of LDF’s strategy seemed to be trying to extricate these cases 

from the smaller courts, up and up and up. And the Fifth Circuit was so instrumental in, the 

Fifth Circuit at the time, was very instrumental in helping with these civil rights cases. Can 

you talk about the Fifth circuit at the time? Was it the “Fifth Circuit Four,” the judges who 

tended to learn towards positive outcomes for civil rights cases? 

 ML: I have a letter from Judge Brown that, well, we were very fortunate to have a 

number of judges that were appointed by Republicans, backed by Republicans, and I’m not 

clear on why it happened, but these judges were supportive in so many different ways. I 

created something called, I mean, others might have used it. I had no precedent for it. I filed a 

motion for summary [reversal]. I didn’t want to have to argue. These cases were there 

because the district court judges were just, Judge Cox was one of them. So, you file a motion 



 

34 
 
 

[for “summary reversal”] in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. I had never heard of such a 

motion, [I made it up], a “motion for immediate decision,” doesn’t need oral argument, here’s 

what the court did, here are the precedents. Summary. Those motions were granted. Other 

judges would not have done that. Other courts wouldn’t have done it. There was a time when 

I missed a deadline and the lawyer on the other side said, “Appeal is lost.” I had filed the 

notice of appeal, but I missed the deadline for a brief. And Judge Brown was on the panel and 

just wrote to the lawyers, and said, “Let’s give Mr. Leventhal a date that he feels he can meet 

given his docket, to file it timely.” [1:24:27] That’s a wonderful courtesy. He didn’t have to 

do that, but he did it because he was sensitive to my docket and wanted to be 

accommodating. And as I gave you, when you argue, when I argued this case on behalf of my 

partner [Reuben Anderson], the Pass Christian Isles Golf Club, you had a judge who says, 

“What is this? What’s going on here? I just read this record, of course they discriminated 

against him, and of course it was, it’s a public course, not a private course.” Anyway, I 

established all this beyond — and Judge Cox just said, “No, there’s no discrimination.” So, 

you had this court that was so sensitive to these cases, and they all went to the Fifth Circuit. It 

just made life more, it made it possible, gave us, it gave us all the knowledge that we’d win 

eventually. And it was not futile.  

 SP: So, you must have spent a lot of time going down to New Orleans. 

 ML: We spent time in New Orleans, yes. 

 SP: Did you all drive down there together? 

 ML: Yes. Well, no, no, we drove down. We had cases. We had, well, I guess we 

didn’t have that many cases in New Orleans. Maybe I didn’t have that many. I had a handful. 

And I drove down for it and always had some great meals in New Orleans. I remember 

restaurants that my friends said, “You’ve got to, it’s off the beaten track. But you should get 

to such and such a place.” New Orleans is a great restaurant city. 



 

35 
 
 

 SP: It must have been such a relief to get down there and feel like —  

 ML: Yes, it was a relief to — and Jack Greenberg, on occasion, brought me to New 

York just so that I could unwind, which was very generous. He just said, just sort of said, 

“You got to get out of there, Mel.” And I spent, I either worked or just went to get away. 

 SP: [01:27:31] So, you would come up here sometimes, to go to LDF offices and just 

do a little —   

 ML: Yes. Yeah. And work with the LDF lawyers. LDF was a great law firm. It really 

was. Very, very skilled, and committed lawyers, just wonderful, wonderful law firm. I agree 

with anyone who says it’s the best civil rights law firm in American history, let alone a 

president saying it. Obama was right.  

 SP: I want to talk about Norwood v. Harrison, which is your Supreme Court case in 

1970. 

 ML: Yes. Yeah. I actually argued that one. [laughter] 

 SP: And I want to hear about that. First, before hearing about that, can you just tell us 

a little bit more about the case, which you talked about a little bit before.   

 ML: Yeah. It was, it was a very hard case in the sense that I took depositions all over 

the state of Mississippi to establish that desegregated, that these academics were segregated 

and that they were discriminating. So, I was able to compile a brief which contained a great 

deal of information on a vast number of private segregationist academies. That required that I 

serve subpoenas in the school districts, set up depositions in those school districts, and then 

traveled around the state taking those depositions, because to me, the record I needed to 

establish was that they were discriminating. Private schools have every right to exist, but that 

they had been set up to circumvent, to escape the obligations of the public-school systems. 

And those depositions did not go smoothly. They were, there was a lot of hostility. They were 

there because the lawyers said, “Leventhal can do this. He can take these depositions, we’ve 



 

36 
 
 

got to appear.” So, the part of it where I compiled the data that I needed to convince the 

Supreme Court to act on our claims took time. Then I had to go to the district court, and that 

was, I lost in the district court. [01:29:49] 

 SP: Is this the Northern District or the Southern District? 

 ML: Northern District. But I even lost in the Northern District. Judge Keady ruled 

against me with a three-judge panel. As I remember, was it — geez, I think, I’m not sure 

now. Yeah, I think it was Judge Keady. And so that’s the part of the case that no one knows, 

but that just shows you how, what you have to do to win. And then the best part of all, my 

favorite lawyer of the Legal Defense Fund, Jim Nabrit, who was deputy to Jack Greenberg — 

we’ve lost him. We’ve lost all of these people. Jim was wonderful. He was the closest thing I 

had, I think, to a mentor at LDF, brilliant lawyer. He was the son of one of the lawyers who 

argued the Brown case. His father argued Brown, and his father was the Dean of Howard 

Law School. So, he was raised as a civil rights person. So, I argued it with Jim Nabrit second 

chairing me. And what I remember is I had to get Jack Greenberg’s permission to argue it, 

which Jim Nabrit facilitated. I was still young. Well, we were all young, all the lawyers at the 

Legal Defense Fund. So, but what I remember about the oral argument is a key question. 

There is a moment in an oral argument where some judge is baiting you, either to help you or 

hurt you. And the question was, “Are you saying that all private schools can’t get — all of 

these schools, not one of them is entitled to state textbook assistance?” And I said, “No. I‘m 

saying those that discriminate.” If I hadn’t answered that question the way I did, I might have 

lost the case or part of it would have been, part of the decision would have been more hostile. 

And I remember, personally, Jim said to me, “That was the question.” You have to be careful. 

That’s what I remember about the argument. And you’ve got to make sure you don’t lose the 

case at oral argument. So, I might have had the court, but I had to say that to get the 

unanimous decision I got out of the Supreme Court. In fact, I won. That case was won with a 



 

37 
 
 

very good decision that was used by judges and in later cases, widely circulated and widely, 

widely cited. [01:32:15] 

 SP: There are so many aspects of arguing in court that, of course, apply at every level 

but are magnified of course when you’re in the Supreme Court. You know, you can prepare 

so much, you can anticipate all of these questions, but you can only do so much. You have to 

think on your feet like that, and it sounds like this was an instance where you managed to just 

get the right — how did you, can you talk about preparing? 

 ML: Well, you prepare for the Supreme Court — first of all, your briefs reflect most 

of your preparation. And the briefs always entail, at the Legal Defense Fund, reviews by 

other lawyers at the Fund. Drafting by lots of lawyers. I think, no, Alexander was where I — 

I did a lot of work on both Alexander and Norwood v. Harrison. But I think the preparation 

for arguing in the Supreme Court often involves a panel of lawyers giving you a dry run and 

being hostile, you know, “Here’s what you might face, so be ready for it.” I do not think we 

did that in Norwood. And I’m sorry we didn’t do it, but it was fine. I think it was just people 

weren’t available and I don’t know what it was, but I had a lot of backup from other lawyers 

in preparation. But we did not do the dry run of the oral argument, which is very important 

ordinarily, so. But that’s the preparation, you know, every case, every possible issue that 

could be raised by the court, every hostile question that might be raised. And you think them 

through and make sure — I once had a bunch of high school kids present in one of my oral 

arguments in the Fifth Circuit. The teacher wanted them to come hear the argument and the 

argument was in Jackson, and one of the students said to me afterwards, he said, “That was a 

great answer you gave.” And I said — he said, that was — I said, “I knew the question. I had 

anticipated the question.” I’m not that fast on my feet, really, I’m not. That’s not my strength. 

But I just, I knew that was going to be a question. That’s part of the preparation for it. And 

that’s what he learned from appearing, from being there, that the hard part is to not be, not 



 

38 
 
 

forget, not get hit with a question that you can’t answer because you’ve already thought of it. 

[laughter] [01:34:49] 

 SP: What was it like to, I mean, if I’m doing the math right, you were either 26 or 27 

when you argued that. So young. What was it like to walk up to the Supreme Court that 

morning? You know, like, how did you sleep the night before? How did you feel? It just 

seems so overwhelming. 

 ML: I was excited. I was nervous. I’m always nervous before an argument, but it’s 

just wonderful. It’s invigorating. It keeps you alive. 

 SP: And, you know, it’s great, you can listen to these cases. They’re all online, you 

can listen to them. And so, when I was listening to, it was William Allain, who argued. 

 ML: Bill Allain, who was the Attorney General of Mississippi. 

 SP: And there were a couple of moments where it seemed to get a little bit heated 

between him and Marshall. 

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: Do you recall that? 

 ML: Yes, I recall that. 

 SP: What was it like? 

 ML: Well, it’s wonderful to have a judge on the bench who’s supporting you, and I 

knew, I knew Marshall was going to come — Marshall was our, Marshall headed the Legal 

Defense Fund. And I remember that moment, and I didn’t realize it was online. And I haven’t 

listened to it since, but I remember it. Yeah, and Marshall was a presence on the Supreme 

Court. We all miss him, especially since his successor has proved such a catastrophe, you 

know. [Clarence] Thomas was, actually occupies Thurgood Marshall’s seat. He was 

appointed. So, we have Thurgood Marshall followed by Thomas.  



 

39 
 
 

 SP: How would you, and this is not just about Norwood v. Harrison, but really all of 

the cases, how would you celebrate the wins and on the flip side, handle the losses? And 

alone and but within the larger community of Jackson LDF? 

 ML: [01:37:01] I think we handled the losses by saying, “We have to continue 

working.” I always said that losses are a step towards winning and they’re often necessary as 

an intermediate steps, something to fight, to overcome. All of the adverse decisions of the 

19th century incredibly arose, the same issues arose 100 years later, and you just don’t give 

up, you just continue to say, you’re right and the country will catch up to you. And you do 

not, despair is not part of advocacy. You know, it’s always optimism. It’s always “The 

court’s wrong and we will correct it.” And I don’t think there was ever a significant loss that 

we didn’t feel we could grapple with ultimately, and the successes we celebrate like everyone 

else, you know. I remember in Norwood v. Harrison, I needed the Supreme Court to grant 

review. They didn’t have to grant review. You apply to the court for permission to appeal. 

That’s the way they keep their docket under control. They don’t have to hear everything. And 

at the time, you’d get a telegram from the clerk’s office, a telegram, saying your petition for 

writ of certiorari has been granted or it says denied. And these telegrams were sent the day 

after the Court had met to consider which cases they were going to grant or deny certiorari to. 

And I was not in my office at the time, and I told my secretary that when it came in, and we 

didn’t have cell phones, so wherever I was, I had to phone it in, probably by paying the long-

distance fee. And she said, “Mel, here’s the telegram, it says certiorari granted.” I cried. It 

was a cry of success, you know. You react to these things as you react to any great, great 

moment. I was thrilled. I was sure I was right, that this decision was wrong. That I should 

have won it in the lower courts. But I will always remember that call from my secretary. I 

called her and she said, “Here it is. The court’s going to hear your case.” And it’s just 

exhilaration, you know? And when we had them, we all rejoiced together. 



 

40 
 
 

 SP: [01:39:46] Were there places in Jackson and where y’all would go to celebrate? 

 ML: No, I don’t think there were — we just, we just kept working. We did, you 

know, it was, “Hey, we won this case, nice work, great. Yeah, so let’s implement it.” Or 

something like that. We didn’t go to any, we didn’t have time for that. I don’t think we ever 

— when the court granted the writ of certiorari, what I remember about it is I was thrilled so 

that I came to tears.  

 SP: It’s an exciting moment. 

 ML: Yeah. And then I had to figure out how I could get Jack Greenberg to let me 

argue it. [laughter] 

 SP: I mean, was, what was that process? Was that you saying to him — 

 ML: I came to New York. We were working on the briefs. We went into Jack’s office 

and Jim Nabrit was there, and he said, “Jack, Mel has to argue this case.” And Jack said, 

“Yeah, I agree.” I thought it would be more difficult, but I got it. Nice to know that he had 

confidence in me, it was an important case. 

 SP: Well, it’s such an interesting one because it gets too at this, the bigger issue of 

private and public schools and private schools trying to, as I perceived it, and correct me if 

I’m wrong, but like, leach this money intended for public schools. 

 ML: Oh, yes. Yeah. And we had to stop it. And, you know, they’re — going back to 

these private schools. First of all, I can give you counties in which it wasn’t devastating, 

where the schools were integrated. There were always problems, but there was, there are 

variations. And the other thing is that even within a community, there were, there were 

differences in the reaction to them. 

 SP: I want to hear more about that. [01:41:54] 

 ML: About the variations. 

 SP: Mm-hmm. 



 

41 
 
 

 ML: And today we look at them. There are a couple of school districts that, where the 

football teams of these private schools now contain many Black students. And become big, 

very popular schools. Yet there’s always, there’s still — I’m not, there’s a lot of 

discrimination. But this is one, it was Reuben, Reuben Anderson who sent me a news story 

on one of these “seg academies”, as they’re called, which was well integrated. So, you need 

those stories to help you keep going. And I expect that in the years to come, we’ll have, my 

hope is and my expectation is we’ll, we’ll continue to move forward. 

 SP: So, in sum, like the work that Alexander v. Holmes is, it’s still going. 

 ML: Always going on, yeah. And there’s a lot of stuff going on locally that no one 

knows about. The national stories are fewer. The helpful national stories are fewer in number. 

But if you go into the, each community may be engaged in some very important work to 

uproot discrimination based on race or on, poverty is a huge issue in America, and in 

Mississippi. And you’ll find examples of very positive activities that don’t make The New 

York Times, that you only know as you, as you live in a community.  

 SP: You alluded to this earlier when you were talking about the Nixon 

Administration, I think it’s really interesting. I want to ask how changes at the federal level 

like that, like a presidential administration, how that work, how those changes affected the 

work that you did at LDF? It just had — it really did change things. 

 ML: [01:44:09] Yes. I’m an optimist. It’s three steps forward, one or two back. So, 

what’s happening during the steps back, the achievements are eroded, undermined by actions 

of a hostile administration, and there’s no way to escape them. If you look at the Donald 

Trump era, you’ll see there was a Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, but its 

goals have changed. And they don’t get the publicity that they should receive. We should 

recognize that Donald Trump has left us with a gap in enforcement of all of the statues that 

civil rights lawyers [enforce]. And these gaps are created by a different attitude, a different 



 

42 
 
 

constituency. And our goal is to live through them and fight during those periods so that the 

setbacks don’t become entrenched, and we can continue to have positive developments 

despite them. But the head of the Civil Rights Division under Trump is a very different 

person from the head of the Civil Rights Division under Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights 

Division or Jimmy Carter’s Civil Rights Division. It varies very much from, and in other, and 

other agencies as well. In Health and Education [and anti-trust] there are influences at work 

[in hostile administrations] that undermine our progress on issues of importance to the so-

called liberal community. Without a question, without question there are setbacks and they 

occur during the administration of presidents that are hostile. Nixon was the one who 

invented the Southern Strategy. The South always voted Democratic. Nixon realized that he 

could convert that to a Republican constituency, and he has. The change in the South [from] 

Lyndon Johnson since Nixon is dramatic. We can’t get a Democratic, I don’t think a 

Southern state has voted Democratic on a national level in maybe, I don’t have the data, but 

it’s not good. [01:46:30] 

 SP: And you wrote about this in regards to the, Meredith’s March. About how that 

really fascinating moment of time in summer of 1966 when you see an increase in language 

about Black power versus Dr. King’s nonviolence and how Johnson felt so slighted by the 

way that he was being talked about and the affect that it had on your work. 

 ML: Yes. There’s the white backlash, it’s called, you know. And the backlash is 

always triggered by what I consider mistakes, you know, that a failure to recognize that 

whether we like it or not, gradualism is an imperative. We can’t get around it. And it’s just, 

what can happen as part of this reversal is exactly what happened in the Meredith March, 

where the single most important thing that we got, that the opposition got, was that the Black 

community had created fear in the white community. That creation of fear through the phrase 

“Black Power,” whether intended or not, set us back. So, the setbacks were partially political, 



 

43 
 
 

but some of the political changes are caused by mistakes in the movement. Right now, I think 

we’ve got a huge problem, because we’ve got academics talking about the extent of racism in 

America. Focusing on police misconduct cases, when nationally we’re doing much better in 

so many areas, you know. Black people — employment discrimination has been dramatically 

improved. We no longer have to worry about being discriminated on the basis of race when 

you go to a hotel. These are taken for granted now. But they were major accomplishments. 

There’s no question that police misconduct is a huge problem in America, has always been a 

huge problem in America. It’s been intractable. We can’t seem to get our arms around it 

because it’s so complicated. But to speak of everything in terms of [that] one niche is a 

setback. It creates hostility that we don’t need. [01:45:08] 

 SP: There were waves of violence that would sometimes follow these victories in 

Mississippi. You know, a civil rights victory, as you're just, you're using the word backlash, 

could often result in very real ground-level violence in these communities. Did you ever, you 

know, how would you handle your fears about that? Do you ever anticipate, especially I’m 

thinking after Alexander v. Holmes, which the media after that, you know, it was a huge loss 

for these Southern conservative communities. The newspapers had it in banner headlines. 

Were you worried about the effect of that? 

 ML: Yes, I was worried about the effects on the Black kids in the schools, which was 

a huge problem. And I don’t think we devoted enough resources to that moment. We really 

owed these children more than we gave them. And in terms of violence generally, I don’t 

have any specific recollections of them, but I probably, if I sat here for 10 minutes. At this 

moment, I, they’re not popping into my head. 

 SP: How did the work that you did for LDF, the years you spent in Mississippi, affect 

the rest of the work that you did throughout your life? 



 

44 
 
 

 ML: I always had a civil rights docket. I’ve moved on to a private practice, but I 

always had civil rights cases on my docket. And I always found them important, and near the 

end of my career, I had fewer. I became an art lawyer, primarily, representing some very 

special people. Very prominent individuals and companies. And I always was an advocate 

for, and always welcomed, and did a lot of pro bono stuff that no one knows about. So, I 

think it’s always been a part of my life. It’s always been something important to me. It’s just 

part of my nature. [01:51:45] 

 SP: We’re wrapping up. 

 ML: Oh, okay. Good. 

 SP: Well, part of wrapping up is asking if, you know, if there’s anything I haven’t 

asked that you would like to talk about. You know, there are, I have a whole list of cases I 

could ask you about, but is there anyone in particular you’d like to discuss? 

 ML: Yes, I’m going to mention one that’s gotten very little press. Bell v. City of 

Jackson. I represented an applicant for the fire department. Jackson, the fire department was, 

of course, entirely white. And my client, Bell, was a firefighter in the Army. And a very 

successful, highly decorated firefighter in the United States Army. When I met him, I didn’t 

realize we had a fire department in the Army, but that was his specialty. He applied for a job 

at the Jackson Fire Department, was turned down because he didn’t pass a certain exam. And 

the bottom line is the exam was failed because it was irrelevant. He failed it because the 

questions asked were not germane to whether he could be a good firefighter. The great part of 

that story is that we won the case. They agreed to an injunction. We settled the case. They 

agreed to a comprehensive injunctive relief. What makes the story so, so interesting is he 

turned out to be one of their top people [laughter] and he rose through the ranks and achieved 

prominence in the Jackson Fire Department, which illustrates something I always try to teach 

people that when you discriminate on the basis of race, you’re denying yourself the 



 

45 
 
 

opportunity to find people who are qualified. And they changed the exam. And I was saying 

he was promoted, not during the era when the city was now all Black, but he was promoted 

by white, by the whites who ran the fire department. And it illustrates that point so 

graphically, emotionally, that you deny yourself access to the most qualified people when 

you’re judging them on the basis of arbitrary, arbitrary variables. And this exam was just — 

what I had is, I had evidence that the exam was not measuring whether you were successful 

or could be successful. The [exam] might ask you questions, you know, “Name five 

presidents of the United States.” You see my point? My point is that you come up with an 

exam that can keep [qualified] people out. You’re just keeping the best people out, come up 

with an exam that really helps you screen people for [the job] they’re being hired for. Pretty 

soon after [Bell] was hired, he [was] promoted. [01:54:41] 

 SP: Did you keep in touch with him? 

 ML: You know, I haven’t, I haven’t. I’ve lost touch with so many of [my clients]. 

Well, a lot of people have passed away. My favorite clients have mostly passed away. Yeah. 

But there are, there are lots of books that refer to my work in Mississippi and the work of 

these, my clients. And just a lot of it is going to be lost, but that’s — I probably can think of a 

few other cases where I found something unusual and useful. Let’s just take a break. Let me 

think about that for a moment. 

 SP: Well, and I have a list of them here. This is, I’ve got three, four pages.  

 ML: They did come up with another exam, by the way. 

 SP: Another one. 

 ML: [Yes]. I had it reviewed. And it was approved. 

 SP: Do you want to take a break and you can look over this? 

 ML: Yeah. 



 

46 
 
 

 SP: So, next. Let's see if I have a tidier physical — so this is pulled from a docket 

report. 

 ML: Oh, yes, you’ve got a lot of cases. 

 SP: And it sums them up. I know, I know. We could, there’s a lot to talk about. 

 ML: Wow, where did you get this? 

 SP: This was compiled with the help of LDF. And, of course, I can send this to you 

later. 

 ML: Wow. 

 SP: Looks like there’s a similar one with a test. 

 ML: [pauses] I’m going to, I have, I have — yeah. [pauses] There’s a lot of these. I 

want to talk, let me talk about one now, alright, and then we can go over, and I’ll talk about 

another one, maybe. 

 SP: Sure. 

 ML: I want to talk about the case where I represented Aaron Henry, one of the great 

civil rights figures of Mississippi [and really the nation]. Phenomenal. [01:56:58] He was a 

pharmacist in [Clarksdale]. [He brought the lawsuit to desegregate the Clarksdale Separate 

School District.] I had several cases for Aaron Henry, a wonderful client. Great, great figure 

in Mississippi, was president of Mississippi NAACP, a pharmacist, which made him a 

professional, unusual. Pharmacists, doctors were small groups. [John] Mitchell, the [U.S.] 

Attorney General at the time under Nixon, was speaking in Coahoma County, and the civil 

rights movement found Mitchell offensive. He was very, very conservative [on race 

discrimination issues] and he was making a speech at Coahoma [Junior] College. And the 

question was whether the demonstration that Aaron Henry had planned for Mitchell’s arrival 

at the school, which involved getting a group of several hundred people there to protest his 

appearance — before the demonstration and the event, Aaron called me and said, “Mel, we’re 



 

47 
 
 

doing this and I want to make sure we have access. They’re going to keep us off the grounds. 

They’re going to keep us far away so that we can’t make the point we want to make.” And he 

said, “I don’t want to find myself unable to bring my group within 100 feet or 200 feet of the 

entrance to Coahoma Junior College, what are we going to do about that?” So, I said, “Aaron, 

I’m going to be in before Judge Orma Smith the day of this event, this demonstration, and 

Mitchell’s appearance. And I will stop the proceedings and seek from Judge Smith an order, 

protecting your [demonstration].” He said, “That’s crazy, Mel.” I said, “I guess we could try 

beforehand, but you’re calling me the day before the event.” [01:59:24] And sure enough, the 

clerk’s office gets a call and they bring me this note and it says, “Aaron Henry says [the 

demonstration has been stopped].” Aaron Henry managed to convince the clerk to bring that 

to me. I said [to myself], “What am I going to do?” But I’m before Orma Smith. You see, this 

is part of the story of how, if it had been Judge Cox, he might have held me in contempt for 

interrupting the proceedings. So, I told Judge, I said, “Judge Smith,” — it was not a jury trial. 

It was a bench trial or a hearing. And Judge Smith and I prepared an order, a handwritten 

order entered against the police department, the highway patrol, making sure that the 

demonstration could be held within 100 or 200 feet and they had the right to be around 

Mitchell, and we go into his chambers and I say, “Well, can we get a Marshall to serve this?” 

And Judge Smith said, “I’ll make you a Marshall for the purposes of service.” He writes on it 

“services permissible by attorney Melvyn R. Leventhal,” and he gives this to me, and I get in 

my car and I drive at 100 miles an hour [to the college], such idiocy. And I get there, and I 

served the order, and Aaron Henry and his group [laughter] held their demonstration. So, 

these are things that no one’s ever heard of, but were very exciting. And I think of Aaron 

Henry. I also think of this great case where he called me up and said, and it was like in 1973, 

he says, you know, “They got, I’m here at this restaurant, which I never go to, in Clarksdale. 

He’s telling me to go around the back.” He says, “We’ve got to sue these people.” So, we 



 

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sued them. What I remember is Judge Keady, here’s another example, Judge Keady 

immediately enters an order barring the discrimination. And Aaron Henry was my witness, 

and I always remember how animated Aaron was during these moments. You know, furious, 

and — furious and fearless was Aaron Henry. So, if I looked at this list, I’m sure, just lots of 

other cases with special messages for me. And memories of them. And I, all of them 

involving the courage of my clients that just were, it’s inspirational. [2:01:55] 

 SP: I think it’s interesting, and we can take a break in a second, but stories like that 

that you’ve just told illustrate how legal action and like, on the streets activism worked hand-

in-glove. I think there’s this perceived dichotomy, like you’re either on the streets or in the 

courts, you know? But here you were, and many other LDF lawyers like you, at the 

intersection, with very immediate results. 

 ML: Yes, that’s true. So much of major activity is marked by that quality. Jim Nabrit, 

who was the senior person at LDF, who I interacted with regularly, had his stories. One of the 

things I, you know today, there’s a lot of talk in Critical Race Theory about separate but 

equal might have been a good result and one of the things, and there’s a lot being written 

that’s very worrisome to me. This is not helpful. And one of the things you have in the people 

who lived through these eras is such a keen awareness of the problems of separate but equal, 

and we lose it. So, I remember Jim being furious at the time with those who thought that that 

was the solution because they were always there, you know. The separatists. One of the key 

points about every separatist movement is that the Black community as a whole has no 

interest in leaving America. But then there are people who say, “We’re better off going to 

Liberia,” or what have you, or “Let’s do separate but equal, but make it equal.” What people 

like Jim Nabrit, who lived through the era, can tell you is it doesn’t work. You need people 

like that alive and functioning. And often we don’t have it, it’s one of the things I worry 

about today. People are reactionary in that sense, and they just don’t know, they didn’t live 



 

49 
 
 

through it. They don’t understand what, the dynamics of that kind of effort. And the people 

— you say to Thurgood Marshall, “Separate but equal works.” He argued Brown v. Board of 

Education. He’s going to tell you you’re an idiot. “Let me tell you how separate but equal 

works. It’s not equal. On a hundred levels, it’s never going to be equal. This is our country. 

We’re not leaving and we’re not going to stop fighting for total equality.” So, these are 

troubling times when they’re, when we have this, and it will affect elections. [2:04:38] 

 SP: So, Hawkins v. Shaw, which of course involved basic services, paved streets. 

 ML: Sanitary sewers. Street lights. Yeah, great case.  

 SP: Can you lay it out for us? Tell us. 

 ML: So, this was an unusual program because — and we made it a program. There 

were a number of lawsuits [that] followed after Hawkins based upon Hawkins, because it 

sought equalization. It acknowledged the ever-present circumstance of segregation. And 

that’s typically not the focus of the Legal Defense Fund, it’s integration. So, that was an 

unusual feature, but it was one that LDF had no problem working [on]. I mean the moment 

we started talking about it, it was recognized as a very important project. And it involved fact 

gathering. So much of winning cases is fact gathering, it’s not law, it is fact gathering. And 

so, what we did, and this was Jonathan Shapiro and just the two of us primarily. I’m trying to 

remember others who were involved in the work, but I think it was Jonathan Shapiro and I 

and Yale Rabin, who was a community development kind of person [urban planner], got 

together and figured out how we can prove the discrimination and then establish it is 

unlawful. And it involved finding [pronounced residential segregation] in small towns. 

You’re literally driving on every street in the town with someone riding shotgun saying, 

“There’s a fire hydrant. There’s a streetlight. There’s a ditch, so there’s no sanitary sewer.” 

And so on. And Yale then providing as a witness the backdrop for the trial. And we found 

two towns that were perfect for the case. [02:06:51] They were small. They involved a good 



 

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civil rights presence, that is the civil rights workers who supported it and would get plaintiffs 

for it and would be in courts in the northern district of Mississippi. We were going to avoid 

Judge Cox, so they had to be in the north. They had to be with dynamite facts and with a 

good civil rights presence. And Shaw, which there should be books written about the town of 

Shaw, there really should be. It had a very strong civil rights movement. And the Shaw 

family was a very important family in the northern part of the state, and they backed the 

lawsuit and there was paving and streetlights and sanitary sewers throughout the white 

community and none in any Black community. So, that difference established discrimination. 

When the only variable is are you white or Black, you get the service or you don’t, there’s a 

compelling evidence of discrimination. And then the other part, the legal part was arguing 

that you didn’t have to prove intent, that the “arbitrary quality of thoughtlessness” was as 

damaging as a pervasive scheme, which was written by a great judge. Learned Hand, Learned 

Hand wrote that. The arbitrary quality of thoughtlessness is as damaging as a pervasive 

scheme. The Supreme Court would later disagree with that, by the way, that you needed to 

prove intent. But that was our case. And then we found we lost the cases in the trial court. 

And again, I think it was Judge Keady who ruled against us and found the lawsuit 

unprecedented, which it was. You never say a case is unprecedented, by the way. It’s the 

worst thing you can say to a judge. You always say, here are the cases that support what 

you’re saying. [02:09:00] But he didn’t agree. I always tell young lawyers, don’t begin by 

saying, “This case is unprecedented.” You say, “Here are cases that, they may not be 

identical, but you are going to use them.” Okay. So, we lost the case, and we took it to the 

Fifth Circuit. And we won in the Fifth Circuit and then we won again on rehearing en banc. 

What’s great about that case is the court, the Fifth Circuit recognized it as a unique case 

requiring lengthy decisions to implement it. And it was very gratifying a couple of years 

later, because of its impact on the law, the Supreme Court went out of its way in a decision 



 

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called Washington v. Davis to drop a footnote [rejecting the precedent]. This was a 

conservative we were now in a conservative era. They dropped a footnote and said the 

following cases, which held that you did not have to prove intent, even though I thought we 

had proved intent, are not good law. And one of those cases was Hawkins v. the Town of 

Shaw, which is, of course, discouraging, because they reached out to [reverse] it. I don’t think 

anybody mentioned it in the context of that case. But going back to the underlying case, we 

had a wonderful decision out of a three-judge panel and then another wonderful decision out 

of the full court en banc. All 16 judges decided that case, and it was a marvelous exposition 

on the importance of uprooting discrimination at the municipal level and in the provision of 

municipal services. It’s a really great case.  

 SP: But there’s tragedy attached to it. 

 ML: Yes. Yes. And that’s going to be written about. The Hawkins family suffered. 

They were killed. We had deaths in the family caused, hard to prove that it was caused by 

their role as — and what’s shocking to me is that Jonathan Shapiro and I learned about these 

deaths [only] recently. [02:11:17] Within the last five or 10 years. They never contacted us 

about those events. And I talked to Jonathan. Jonathan still practices in Boston, by the way. 

He’s a criminal defense lawyer. You should reach out to him. He’s wonderful. He’s trying 

capital punishment cases. He’s a phenomenal lawyer. So, when I talked to Jonathan about 

this, he and I agree, we, no one ever contacted us about it, and we have now somebody trying 

to write a book on the Hawkins family as a very important civil rights family that suffered 

greatly and is really not recognized. You know, they were, I think one of them was murdered. 

 SP: You know, Mary Lou was Andrew’s wife. Andrew Jr. was their son and Mary 

Lou was murdered by one of the town’s policeman two months after it was decided. And 

their home was set on fire twice, the second time their son was killed.  



 

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 ML: And Jonathan and I did not know about it. We were never called about it. I don’t 

know why. Just a —  and the person who’s really very active now is Timla Washington, who 

is an aide to [Representative] Bennie Thompson. She’s an aide to Bennie Thompson, and 

she’s very active in the Shaw community. [02:13:22] She lives in Shaw and hopefully we’ll 

have some, something written on it. Yeah. You see, this is why I’m saying to you it’s hard 

not to be, appear courageous when you have clients like that. So, they really set the tone that 

gives you the courage and a feeling that you, how do you complain when they’re on the front 

lines? How do you boast about it? You know, you did these things. It’s got a very different 

feeling.  

 SP: I imagine that they still have family. The Hawkins. [inaudible] 

 ML: Yes. Yeah, they are. Yeah. Yeah. But if you look at the book, Voices of Civil 

Rights Lawyers, there’s an entry on some of the cases that were filed after Hawkins that were 

very successful. The lawyer, he’s a member of the board of the Mississippi Center for Justice. 

David Lippman. David Lippman took cases, filed cases in the northern district of Mississippi 

and many others throughout the South by the way, based upon Hawkins. And I helped him 

file those lawsuits. 

 SP: I’ve encountered —  

 ML: He was friend too, for a while, when I lived in Washington with my family. He 

and his wife, Barbara, I think, Barbara Lippman were neighbors, we hung out together.  

 SP: Those cases are interesting because they’re so visible. 

 ML: Yes. 

 SP: The marked contrasts. Would you see changes in these towns afterwards? 

 ML: Yes. Yes. They did, they had to take action, yeah. But what happens is, the era 

ends and the works might wear out, you know. And there’s no renewal, there’s no follow-up. 

It’s very hard to keep, to follow up. You move on to other things. You need that community 



 

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to make it happen, which no one has ever called me about. I was never called by anyone in 

Shaw or anywhere about the death, the murder of Mary Lou’s life. I never heard about it until 

I learned it from Timla Washington, Bennie Thompson’s aide, many years later. [02:15:47] 

 SP: I think that speaks to the power of the, the white power structures. 

 ML: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So, there’s — I have these fantasies that — there was a 

swimming pool in Shaw. It was for whites only. And when they were ordered to integrate, 

guess what they did? They filled it up with mud and sand, rather than share it with people of 

color, and I have this fantasy that someday they’re going to dig it out and put that pool back 

in service. I mean that. I actually think about it. I say, I remember when they did it and I said, 

“What? What? This is stupid.” So, no one has this public swimming pool because you can’t 

tolerate — this is crazy stuff. And I actually have this image of everybody getting together 

with shovels and restoring the swimming pool. Stupid thing, just sort of haunts me. Yeah.  

 SP: There’s a book. There’s a great book called The Sum of Us, written by a scholar, 

Heather [McGhee]. And her theory, or her thesis, is we all suffer, and she uses swimming 

pools as an example of when people refused to integrate.  

 ML: And yes, we do suffer. Yeah. And you also suffer because you’re losing contact 

with people who can improve your life and make you a better person. Our friendships are so 

important to us. Why exclude people who can enrich your life? It’s stupid. But that’s what 

racism is. That’s what any discriminatory — women. Let’s talk, I mean, we’ve had civil 

rights movements in so many areas. Look at all the great women we’ve had who’ve made our 

lives so much better, who would ordinarily be excluded from the dialogue. These are 

wonderful advances. We might have a woman president, hopefully. They’re not as interested 

in war, whatever. We need, we need diversity to improve our lives, all of our lives.  

 SP: [02:18:06] This is jumping way back, but that makes me, what you just said 

makes me think about Marian Wright, and her role as, at LDF Jackson for a few years. She 



 

54 
 
 

was a Black woman, a lawyer, in Mississippi doing this work. I mean, it must have been 

remarkable.  

 ML: Yes. Very important work that they saw a woman doing it. Now, by the way, the 

three lawyers that — Carsie Hall, Jess Brown, and Jack Young, which you raised. They were 

there before any of the civil rights lawyers and enabled us to practice because they were local 

and some of them, they were just, they were important practitioners and they’ve been 

acknowledged recently as important practitioners.  

 SP: Now would they come into the office with y’all and did you all work together? 

 ML: Not enough. They did, Jess Brown tried with Constance Baker Motley, the suit 

on behalf of James Meredith to integrate Ole Miss. He was part of the trial team in that case, 

and Jack Young had helped us in the Jackson school desegregation case. I remember that, in 

working, working up the facts and presenting the case, yeah. But it was basically, the bottom 

line is that the staff of the Legal Defense Fund in New York played a very significant part. 

And then Marian, of course, when she was there, was in charge of everything. But she didn’t 

like practicing law. That was my feeling. She — it wasn’t big enough, didn’t have the impact 

that she [thought was] needed for children. She was devoted to children and children’s rights. 

And she said, “Well, you know, the courts, we could do more if we moved beyond the courts. 

Work in communities.” And, you know, the motto of the Children’s Defense Fund — “God 

help me. My boat is so small and the ocean is so [big].” It used to be on their logo. [02:20:26]   

 SP: Do you ever reminisce with her or anyone else? 

 ML: I haven’t seen her. I don’t see her often, no, I see [her] once in a blue moon. A 

very important figure, and you’re right. You’re right to say this is a woman. You’re right. It’s 

very important what you just added. Yeah. And everybody in Mississippi probably gave her 

more hell because she was both Black and a woman. I mean, Judge Cox had no tolerance for 



 

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her, because she was a woman, I’m sure. I mean, that was outrageous for a Black woman to 

appear in the federal court. 

 SP: Did you ever witness that? 

 ML: No, I never saw. I always assumed that whenever she was there, she caught hell. 

[She was required to appear before] Judge Cox, was the son of a sheriff, was a former sheriff 

of Sunflower County, so he was raised by a sheriff of Sunflower County, Jim Eastland’s 

county. 

 SP: Right. And Judge Cox had his position as a favor, right, from JFK — 

 ML: Yeah, he was, he might have been appointed by JFK. 

 SP: He was appointed by JFK as a favor to Eastland, who then promised that he 

wouldn’t object to Thurgood Marshall’s appointment. 

 ML: Oh, is that right? 

 SP: I think I've got it. I mean, it’s all —  

 ML: Oh, yes, they’re all interrelated. I didn’t know. That makes more sense to me 

now. I always blamed JFK for making that appointment, but if that got us, if that got us 

Thurgood Marshall. That’s a great story. 

 SP: I hope I've got that right.  

 ML: Yeah. I think progress has also been achieved in large part because of the 

women’s movement. I think that they’ve worked together in ways that are not fully 

appreciated. And, you know, Frederick Douglass was supportive of women’s rights in the 

19th Century, recognized the importance of that coalition. So, that’s been very helpful. 

[02:22:28]   

 SP: Do you feel like there was work that LDF did to help progress — 

 ML: With women? I don’t think it has, I don’t, not that I know of. Now remember I 

haven’t been at LDF for many years, but they certainly in hiring Marian to run Jackson made 



 

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an important statement to us. She came out of Yale. She was also close to Martin Luther 

King. People don’t know that SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was 

created at the suggestion of Dr. King and Marian Wright participated in some of the 

organizational meetings that King put together to create SNCC. You know of SNCC? Student 

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Yeah. So, she’s been involved from a very early days 

as a lawyer and as a law student and as a community organizer. So, you know, I’ll always 

remember that she called me her law partner.  

 SP: What an honor.  

 ML: Yeah. It was. Made me feel real good.  

 SP: So, you were in Jackson when Dr. King was assassinated? 

 ML: Yes. Yes. 

 SP: What was that like? 

 ML: It was my partner, my partner Reuben Anderson walked down the hall, opened 

my door, and he said, “They got him.” I knew exactly what he meant. He said, “They got 

him." 

 SP: And you’ve written about meeting him at the Lorraine, which is — thinking 

about him being in that space years before.  

 ML: Yes. Yeah, that [Meredith] March, being with him was a real, real honor. I was, 

I, you know, I had, I had copies of all of his books, but I couldn’t bring them to — it would 

have been, asking him to autograph the book, would have sounded a little bit peculiar. So, I 

always regret I didn’t ask him to autograph something for me. And there’s so much we can 

talk about. And, you know, we can go on for hours. [02:24:41]   

 SP: So, you tried all of these cases, a lot of which on paper look the same, like 

workplace discrimination, school desegregation. You know, address these same things over 



 

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and over again. But were of course, all very different. How did you and your colleagues work 

on strategy for these cases? And how did it differ sometimes?  

 ML: You begin a case with someone coming to you, ordinarily, with a problem, let’s 

use, as an example, the lawsuit to eliminate discrimination in the fire department of Jackson. 

And your first encounter with the case involves a person who’s been discriminated against. 

And he’s made an appointment to see you. He comes to see you. And you have to decide 

whether to take the case. And you begin by evaluating your client. What kind of a person is 

he? Is he articulate? Has he thought about the case, and does he have any evidence with him? 

And as you’re evaluating him, you must decide that this is a good plaintiff. That is, what 

would make a good plaintiff? Someone who will appear to a jury or to a judge as reasonable, 

as intelligent, as honest, and open. And if you don’t have that quality, can you teach the 

quality? Can you guide the person into what it’s going to take to be effective? And there’ll be 

times when you conclude that no matter how good the case is, this is not going to work. And 

you either give up on the case, or you find others who can play a role. But this is part of the 

process that you need to go through to decide whether to take the case. And this was 

particularly in civil rights, because you always began with two strikes against you. The law 

was hostile in one way or another, or the client was insufficient in one way or another. 

[02:26:51] And from there you just build the case through a number of steps over a 

significant period of time. Taking on, filing a lawsuit can take months to decide whether 

you’re going to do it, because all of these questions have to be answered before you begin. 

Because once you start, once you file the claim of the lawsuit, you’re in it. You’re in the 

fight. In the case of, the case against the fire department, my client showed up with 

documents showing that he’d been an outstanding firefighter in the United States Army. He 

had received awards for firefighting. I didn’t even know we had firefighters in the Army, you 

know. So, he started to educate me about the kinds of things he had done, and as I’m listening 



 

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to him, I’m seeing why he will come off as a credible witness who was a great fireman, both 

in what he sounds like and what these credentials are. He also came with a copy of the exam, 

which the fire department had given him. He had a copy of it. I say to myself, “Well, how do 

I deal with this? Can I get some expert to look at it and say it’s on its face discriminatory, that 

it’s clearly one not designed to show whether he’s going to be an effective fireman?” Then 

you ask, is it going to be in the Southern District or the Northern District? That’s always an 

issue for us. Can you file it in the Northern District? You cannot file this case against the 

Jackson Fire Department in the Northern District. It’s a Southern District case and then, if the 

case is strong enough, will we receive a good review in the appellate courts? And I also 

wanted to know who was running the fire department. Might I be able to make a deal through 

which the discrimination could be eliminated in this person hired? So, that’s the process you 

go through. And as I said before, one of the great feelings you have when it’s over, is to learn 

that this person was hired and he’s risen through the ranks. It’s a wonderful fact that the very 

people who refused to hire him recognized his skills and promoted him, which is an 

enormous, they did it voluntarily, you know. So, the process is complicated, but it always 

involves an appreciation of the facts as least as much as the law. And who’s going to be your 

sponsor for achieving this change. Is that helpful? [02:29:29] 

 SP: Yeah, very much. There’s an irony to Judge Cox being in the Southern District, 

and that being of benefit sometimes to you all. Can you talk about that? That the results that 

would happen from him versus the more sympathetic in some ways, Northern District 

judges? 

 ML: Well, what we knew was that when we got to the Fifth Circuit, they would all 

already know about Judge Cox. That’s very significant. The courts are more down to earth 

than we realize. They’re more human beings than judges than we fully appreciate. And they 

all knew Judge Cox, and they knew, “Oh, this is a case, Leventhal’s got this,” and “Oh, this 



 

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Leventhal, Legal Defense Fund. Cox probably screwed this up,” you know. So, in a way, if 

you had a strong case, you were better off before Judge Cox. In a bizarre way, it’s, you’re 

better off because it’s the community. The judges are essentially a community who deal with 

lower court judges every day. So, all of these things go into it, go into the formula. And as I 

said, it requires an ability to think over a long period of time as opposed to when you’re on 

your feet and someone throws something at you. 

 SP: You raised an interesting point when you mentioned trying to find out things like 

who the fire chief was, which speaks to a willingness to just address an issue and settle the 

matter. Can we get this guy hired? There’s that. But then there’s the larger issue of what can 

this case bring and what can the wider effect of the case be.  

 ML: Yes. And that made the fire department case so important to me. You’re 

absolutely right. When that, when I got that case, I said, “We’ve got to do something about 

this fire department. This is ridiculous. It’s all white. For obvious reasons, it’s all white.” And 

I thought we could do something substantial. [02:31:44] Actions against the police 

department, I think were brought by [civil rights lawyer] Frank Parker. I think Frank Parker 

took on the police department. These lawsuits against major entities have both a practical 

effect creating jobs and a human effect on the community to have diversity in the people 

serving you is so important. As we know today in police forces, it brings a whole different 

quality to life when the people who are government employees are a part of the community. I 

remember saying, this case has to be filed. I’ll figure out a way to get it done. I definitely said 

I wanted to file this lawsuit, even if the particular person, Bell, was not going to work out. I 

thought, I think I would have found somebody. 

 SP: Well, it’s an interesting line that you have to walk between clients and immediate 

needs, what can envision as broader change. Can you think of any instances where you were, 

I hate to use the word disappointed, but a client might not have understood that the work 



 

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you’re trying to do was part of the bigger picture and that maybe their immediate case 

wouldn’t be quite as manageable as they initially thought?  

 ML: No one comes to mind. I think, because the civil rights community, we really 

had it, they had it down. I mean, we, you know, one of the things they used to, one of my 

favorite — well, when I prepared a witness — so many things are coming back to me. When 

you prepare a witness to be deposed, I used to say to clients, “They’re going to make you feel 

that when you went to see your lawyer,” these are country people now, “that it was wrong, 

you made a mistake.” You know, you, so say, they’d ask you the question, “Did you talk to a 

lawyer about this?” And, you know, the instinct of somebody who’s got a sixth-grade 

education, “Oh, gee, I did something wrong. I talked to my lawyer.” So, I would always have 

to say to them, “You’re going to be asked that question, and the answer is, of course I talked 

to my lawyer. Didn’t we talk? Did we talk? Tell the truth. Of course you talked to me.” So, in 

preparing witnesses, you dealt with some issues that are peculiar. But I remember saying, and 

that, and they always asked, “Oh, so did you talk to your lawyer about this?” And they 

always said, “Yes, of course we talked to Mr. Leventhal.” I loved those moments. [laughter] 

 SP: Well, it’s designed to be intimidating. [02:34:26] 

 ML: Yes, of course. Intimidating. And “Gee, well, I’m not supposed to talk.” And 

that’s an instinct that you have both because you don’t really know, although it’s obvious, 

and because he’s asking a question in a hostile manner, so there are special ways to deal with 

it. And it’s always so important to be able to anticipate the questions that are going to be 

asked of a witness. There are so many times that you have to get that right. You don’t realize 

that it’s, preparing a witness for depositions is very, very important. To anticipate what’s 

going to happen. It’s always being truthful. Don’t ever misunderstand me. There’s nothing 

devious about it. It’s just getting your clients to appreciate what’s going to be asked and how 

best to deal with it in a professional and intelligent manner. 



 

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 SP: Can you tell us what that work looked like? Was it you sitting across from 

someone, was it usually with another attorney present? 

 ML: Usually alone. Saying, “Here’s what’s going to come up. This is going to come 

up and here’s a weakness in our case. Be ready to answer it truthfully.” Very important part 

of advocacy. 

 SP: It’s such a social aspect of this work as compared to what you described during 

the law school, reading textbooks.   

 ML: I hated that, oh, it bored me to death. Couldn’t stand textbooks. But the practice 

of law is very exciting, yeah. 

 SP: Well, let’s talk about this case, which is, we’re leaving Mississippi first and this 

is Alabama, it’s Hadnott v. Prattford? 

 ML: Prattville. Prattville, Alabama.  

 SP: Can you lay out the case?  

 ML: Yes. First, I want to mention Frank Johnson as one of the heroes of the Civil 

Rights Movement. I am determined for people to learn that there are lots of white heroes in 

the Civil Rights Movement, and we’re forgetting them today. There’s this emphasis on, to the 

point of excluding the invaluable contributions throughout the history of the United States. 

[02:36:38] There was never a time when it was not Black and white together. And people 

must learn that. Frank Johnson was a great judge. One of our most important advocates as a 

judge. He eventually got to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, sat there, but was a brilliant 

judge who helped us in enormous ways and deserves to be recognized for what he 

contributed to advancements in civil rights. As I said to you earlier, the issue of whether the 

Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Montgomery, the Selma to Montgomery March could take 

place, depended upon Frank Johnson saying, “It’s not so disruptive. You know, you can 

manage it. You’re not going to be cutting off traffic.” The State came in and said, “No way 



 

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this march can proceed without it being chaotic and disruptive.” And Frank Johnson put all 

that aside and said, “This march is going to happen.” He did that in many, many cases. And I 

just want his role appreciated. Now in the Hadnott case, it was a lawsuit modeled after Shaw, 

brought in Alabama where I tried that case and put it together. And it involved a community 

with discriminatory municipal services and also parks. Community parks created in white 

communities and none in the Black community. And what made that case so interesting was 

that I had to fight on the issue of whether the ability of a community to fund a project would 

be a legitimate basis for not providing a service so that the town put services in communities 

that put money into it, put tax money into it. And that part of the case I lost. And I think I 

should have won, of course, but I never appealed that. But the part of the case that was won 

was Judge Johnson saying, “The issue of the parks, however, is in a different area.” And he 

ordered the town to build a park, to maintain a park in the Black community. And what I 

remember is visiting the park. That’s what I remember about it. But I don’t remember, but I 

haven’t been there since. Maybe this is now, you know, a patch of grass that’s not being 

cared for. But I remember it because I had the privilege of trying a case before Frank 

Johnson, he looked down from the bench and said, “You did a nice job.” He complimented 

me on my work, and it had a measure of success in it. And I, and it was before, it was in 

Montgomery, Alabama, before Frank Johnson. [02:39:44] 

 SP: So, you did some cases in Alabama. 

 ML: I did cases in a number of states, I did a — but without, I had input in cases in 

Texas as well. But it was not, I didn’t, I tried [that] one case [in Montgomery]. I only second 

chaired in the other states, yeah. 

 SP: Because you didn’t take the bar. 

 ML: I wasn’t admitted to the bar. No, I was admitted to the New York, Mississippi, 

and D.C. bars. [But I did try the Hadnott case.] 



 

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 SP: Is there anything else you want to talk about? 

 ML: I think, I think we've covered a lot. Oh, yes. Yes, I’d like to cover. I told my 

wife there’s something I have to get to. And I want to say that there’s a community that’s not 

receiving sufficient attention. And it’s the disabled community, which has been too often on 

the fringes of the Civil Rights Movement, when it really needs far more attention. We have a 

wonderful statute. [Also], the Age Discrimination Acts are powerful, but getting them 

enforced, getting them interpreted in ways that can help all of us, terribly neglected part of 

our civil rights community, neglected and we’ve got to do something more with it. And I 

think the Legal Defense Fund should recognize that there are disabled people of color who 

are victims of discrimination. They’ve got to see these issues in more global terms.  

 SP: Well, you said you’ve worked on a case —  

 ML: Yes, I actually brought a case in Mississippi against a private school for disabled 

children and they were not admitting Black kids. And I used their need for state support 

through textbook support. I used the Norwood v. Harrison case. And instead of giving up the 

textbooks, they admitted Black disabled children, the ones I think they admitted that I 

represented were deaf.  

 SP: Did you work with Iris Brest on that case? 

 ML: Yes. Yes, I think I did.  

 SP: The Mississippi School for the Deaf. 

 ML: Yeah, the one I filed was up in the Northern District, but there was a number of 

deaf schools in Mississippi and Black kids were not, just were recognized as eligible for one 

discriminatory reason or one pretext or another.  

 SP: [02:42:04] It’s an interesting part of the school desegregation work, because these 

are much smaller schools. So, the focus is a little sharper.  



 

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 ML: Yes, it is. And the damage is more, has greater clarity, because there are not that 

many schools out there. Many, many of the parents of these children enrolled them from 

distances and take them to and from school through long trips, because they’re the only 

things available, the only schools available for their children. 

 SP: There are a couple of questions here at the end that are sort of broad reflective 

questions. So, looking back on the years you spent in Mississippi, and LDF’s much bigger  

civil rights work, what do you think is LDF’s legacy today? And how do you think about the 

work that you did in Mississippi?  

 ML: Well, I agree with President Obama that it’s the finest, most important civil 

rights law firm in the history of the country. I think that there should be far more attention 

paid to the long history and the cases that came before you. I think that’s always important 

and I’d like to see more of that. I’d like to see more reaching back to the communities and the 

lawyers who worked in that era because it’s part of history and part of success that is 

overlooked. As I said, when you’re looking at community services and how to improve 

municipal services, you can’t ignore cases that came before. You can’t ignore Hawkins and 

Hadnott. And you’ve got to reach out to the people that are still available to help you think 

them through. I’d like to see more of that. I think each generation isolates itself. And we, 

maybe we did it. Maybe we didn’t do enough when we were, maybe we didn’t reach out 

enough and do more. Dr. King always said that in everything he’d look for precedent. When 

he conducted the Montgomery Bus Boycott, he reached out to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 

which had one. He reached out to New York, which had such demonstrations. And you need 

that background to be effective. To bring wholeness to your advocacy. Yeah. But it’s a great, 

it’s been such an important part of my life. And so much has been accomplished by the Legal 

Defense Fund that these criticisms are strictly constructive criticisms. This is a great, great 

law firm.  



 

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 SP: I think that's a good note to end on. 

 ML: Great, great, great. 

 SP: Thank you so much for your time. 

 ML: Oh, it was great to do it. We had fun. 

 SP: So much of your time.  

 ML: Yeah, it was my pleasure. 

[02:45:20] 

[END OF INTERVIEW]