Dedication: The Judge John R. Brown Papers

3 Pages Posted: 27 Jun 2020

See all articles by Craig Joyce

Craig Joyce

University of Houston - Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law

Date Written: March 13, 1997

Abstract

“To eradicate this evil, the attack need not be made piece by piece. It may be made by a frontal assault on the whole structure.”

So wrote Judge John R. Brown, dissenting vehemently from the majority opinion of a three-judge panel that refused to enjoin racially discriminatory state practices in United States v. Mississippi, 229 F. Supp. 925 (S.D. Miss. 1964).

Three years later, as Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (which then stretched from Texas to Florida), Brown would begin systematically dismantling racial discrimination in public schools throughout the Old South, and much, much more.

Slavery is America’s original sin, a legacy of evil that we ourselves, not God, made. On March 13, 1997, members of the University of Houston Law Center Community gathered to celebrate the donation of Judge Brown’s papers to the University of Houston Law Library and to honor his contributions to the Fifth Circuit’s heroic efforts, in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), to make the promises of the Declaration of Independence, and the guarantees of the Constitution, a reality for black Americans, and for all Americans.

The event, entitled John R. Brown and the Civil Rights Revolution, included a principal address by Prof. Jack Bass of the University of Mississippi, author of Unlikely Heroes (the story of the four moderate Republican judges who together wrought the revolution which Judge Brown directed), and tributes by John Minor Wisdom and former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell, both long-time comrades-in-arms to Brown.

The moderator of the event, the author of this abstract, summed up as follows: “On school desegregation, on voter registration, on jury selection, on affirmative action--across the whole range of wrenching issues he confronted as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for 38 years--John R. Brown walked the walk.”

Keywords: John R. Brown, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, John Minor Wisdom, Griffin Bell, Jack Bass, Unlikely Heroes, Old South, School Desegregation, Voter Registration, Jury Selection, Affirmative Action

Suggested Citation

Joyce, Craig, Dedication: The Judge John R. Brown Papers (March 13, 1997). 34 Houston Law Review 1489 (1998), U of Houston Law Center No. 2020-A-26, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3635624

Craig Joyce (Contact Author)

University of Houston - Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law ( email )

4604 Calhoun Road
Houston, TX 77204-6060
United States

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