Antiracism, Cultural Competency & Civil Rights

Who is Robert Morris:     Born in Salem Massachusetts in 1825, Neither Morris, his siblings, nor his parents were enslaved. This foundatio...

"Author Donald Jelinek offers a powerful, first-hand account of his time working as a civil rights attorney in Mississippi and Alabama during a three-year period from 1965-1968. Originally Jelinek, an NYU-trained lawyer in his early 30s, volunteered only to spend a few weeks working pro bono for the ACLU in Mississippi. Instead, he ended up quitting his job with a New York City law firm and staying in the South for several consequential years. Jelinek provides compelling testimony of the work that he and other movement activists did during that time. Perhaps the richest portions of the book come when Jelinek describes his interactions with the local people who formed the core of the Movement in the Deep South. The passages describing conversations with Black sharecroppers and fellow civil rights organizers provide highly readable discussions of the nature of on-the-ground organizing that will be valuable both to scholars of the Movement and interested parties more generally. His account highlights the long, slow, hard work of organizing, work that was built one house at a time, through the cultivation of relationships and trust"--

In this episode, Mike talks about race, both in America generally and the legal system specifically. He uses the story of Italian internment in World War II to explore the idea of "otherness." Out of preferences and perceptions, as well as a history of identifying white culture with professionalism, the legal industry has created a context that's hostile to African Americans. Resolving that distance will only come after first owning our ugly history.   Episode Resources Connect with Mike Whelan    White Lawyering by Russell G Pearce:   Why the US Needs Black Lawyers:   Police killings can be captured in data. The terror police create cannot.   Thomas Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior: