Introduction

Abstract

Introduction Melvin I. Urofsky Four of the six articles that appear in this issue come from the highly successful Leon Silverman lectures sponsored by the Society each year. Those members who live in the metropolitan Washington area are familiar with the events, which take place in the Courtroom of the Marble Palace. They include an introduction ofthe speaker by one ofthe Justices, a talk by a well-known scholar, and then a reception in the Conference rooms. I am sure that I speak not only for myself, but for others who have given these lectures, that it is a wonderful experience. So those of you who live outside of Washington, next time you have to travel to the nation’s capital, please check ifone ofthe Silverman Lectures is scheduled that week. The theme for this series involves the plaintiffs in some very important civil rights cases, and this reflects a trend among many constitutional scholars to look notjust at what the Justices say about a case, but about the people involved and the factual background. Philippa Strum, a former professor at Brooklyn College and then director of U.S. Studies at the Wilson Center, ran across a relatively unknown case involving the segre­ gation of Mexican-American children in California. She decided to explore it, and discovered that while it is unknown to the general—and even to much ofthe scholarly— community, Thurgood Marshall and his staff at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund knew it well. It is one ofthe first cases in federal court that tackled racial discrimination head on, and she here tells the stoiy of the Mendez family and their ultimately successful fight. Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) is considered a landmark case in many ways, although it is overshadowed by the more famous cases of the following decade attacking statesponsored segregation. Jeffrey Gonda, a history professor at Syracuse University, goes into a relatively unknown area of how houses could be bought and sold by AfricanAmerican families, and the restrictions—both legal and customary—that restricted those sales in post-war America. One of the most fascinating, and at the same time somewhat confusing, aspects of Warren Court jurisprudence is how the Justices dealt with the arrests following sit-ins v vi JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY by civil rights protestors prior to the enact­ ment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Professor Kenneth Mack of the Harvard Law School explores these cases, but espe­ cially that of a young man, Robert Bell, who would go on to attend law school and eventually become chiefjudge of the Mary­ land’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. The case of Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) is still studied in courses on constitutional law, the First Amendment, and education law. Two students, Mary Beth and John Tinker, were expelled from school for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. They and their family fought the case all the way to the Supreme Court, where they won a 7-2 decision. As Justice Abe Fortas put it, students do not abandon their rights as Americans when they walk through the schoolhouse door. Professor Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of the Liberty Institute, spoke about the Tinker family, the courage of their convictions, and the ultimate meaning oftheir victory. What made the lectures come alive even more for the audiences was the presence of some of the participants—Mary Beth and John Tinker and members of their families, Judge Robert Bell, and David Duran, a Mendez grandson of the plaintiffs. A number of years ago scholars discov­ ered John Knox’s diary of the year he served as law clerk to Justice James Clark McRey­ nolds. It was not a happy tale, but it led Professor Barry Cushman ofthe Notre Dame Law School to wonder what happened to the other clerks of the Four Horsemen— McReynolds, Pierce Butler, George Suther­ land, and Willis Van Devanter. He has discovered that, unlike poor Knox, who had a hard time remaining employed, they went on to respectable and sometimes even stellar careers. Naturally, to cover the clerks of four men whose combined tenure on the High Court surpassed eight decades led to a...