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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[melancholy music]

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[Gary Duncan] We thought
we'd have been all right on
the boat,

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00:02:15,178 --> 00:02:17,572
which we was, you know?

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00:02:17,702 --> 00:02:19,922
'Cause when the water rise,
the boat gonna rise.

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00:02:20,052 --> 00:02:23,099
[wind howling]

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00:02:29,323 --> 00:02:32,674
[man] It's one
continuous blow.

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I'm telling you, she's
a-blowin'
and she's a-shakin'.

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00:02:38,462 --> 00:02:39,985
[Gary] So we still
on the boat.

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[man] By midnight,
Betsy's overwhelming the city.

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Gusts are reaching 150
miles an hour,

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00:03:00,789 --> 00:03:03,966
and all the church bells in
town are tolling wildly in the
wind.

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00:03:04,096 --> 00:03:06,534
[bells clanging]

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00:03:12,496 --> 00:03:15,064
[Gary] And it's just the next
day that we didn't have no
communication.

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00:03:17,588 --> 00:03:21,940
We couldn't get in touch with
our family, and we was
worrying about them.

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00:03:24,508 --> 00:03:28,077
They had been bringing dead
bodies up
from out of the river.

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00:03:34,779 --> 00:03:36,346
My daddy, he cried.

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00:03:37,217 --> 00:03:38,914
Everybody cried.

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We were all hugging, you know,
so...

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00:03:44,224 --> 00:03:45,834
And he vowed, he said, no,

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he said I'm never going out
there, no more of that.

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00:03:48,837 --> 00:03:51,143
He's not gonna let any of his
children stay on the boats
during a hurricane.

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00:03:52,406 --> 00:03:53,798
He said, "The hell
with the boats."

25
00:03:53,929 --> 00:03:55,974
He said he always could
get another boat.

26
00:04:04,635 --> 00:04:07,159
You trust God that
everything'll be all right.

27
00:04:08,987 --> 00:04:11,033
Guess what? You got another
hurricane coming at you.

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00:04:15,820 --> 00:04:18,301
There's eight of us,
four boys and four girls,

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00:04:18,432 --> 00:04:22,392
and I'm the baby,
[chuckles] and, uh...

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00:04:22,523 --> 00:04:26,178
and pretty much all of them
to their twenties beat me.

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00:04:26,309 --> 00:04:27,789
[chuckles]

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00:04:33,273 --> 00:04:34,709
I used to trawl.

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00:04:35,797 --> 00:04:37,538
I would trawl for shrimps.

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00:04:37,668 --> 00:04:40,410
And my brother Calvin,
he was a fisherman.

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00:04:41,542 --> 00:04:43,544
I started out, I don't know,

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00:04:43,674 --> 00:04:46,590
12 years old, I guess,
foolin' with Calvin,
going out,

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00:04:46,721 --> 00:04:51,378
and we'd put a net in the
water and we'd drag it
for a couple hours.

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00:04:51,508 --> 00:04:52,857
We'd pick up and...

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00:04:54,424 --> 00:04:55,251
put the catch on the deck
of the boat and we...

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00:04:55,382 --> 00:04:57,122
we'd sort it out.

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Throw the bad catch away,
and we'd keep the shrimps.

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My daddy, he was a
boat captain.

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They started...

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00:05:13,313 --> 00:05:15,532
harassing us.

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00:05:21,408 --> 00:05:23,671
When the boat was on the job,

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00:05:23,801 --> 00:05:26,151
and we'd come back to the
dock, we had to sleep on 'em
because...

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00:05:27,718 --> 00:05:29,590
they had set one of
them afire.

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00:05:30,939 --> 00:05:33,898
Anything can happen to you,
you know?

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00:05:34,029 --> 00:05:36,423
You could go to jail for,
back then, eye-rape,

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00:05:36,553 --> 00:05:41,428
or, you know, you-- hey, you
stay away
in your Black community,

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00:05:41,558 --> 00:05:44,300
because you could get--

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00:05:44,431 --> 00:05:48,043
they just could trump any kind
of-- put any kind of
charges on you, you know?

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00:05:48,173 --> 00:05:50,567
For anything.
So we stuck to ourselves.

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00:05:50,698 --> 00:05:52,439
Hey, you know, nobody
want no trouble.

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00:05:52,569 --> 00:05:54,658
We couldn't afford no trouble,
you know?

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00:05:54,789 --> 00:05:57,400
'Cause my mama always said,
"Trouble's easy to get into,

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00:05:57,531 --> 00:05:59,620
but hard to get out of,"
you know?

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00:05:59,750 --> 00:06:03,232
And a Black person
back when I was coming up,

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00:06:03,363 --> 00:06:09,020
he didn't stand a chance
of having his...

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00:06:09,151 --> 00:06:11,240
We didn't have no rights.
We didn't have no rights.

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Well, I was working.

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00:07:01,551 --> 00:07:03,684
And I was married,

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00:07:03,814 --> 00:07:07,209
and my wife just had
my first child,

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00:07:07,339 --> 00:07:08,428
and I had to go get her--

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she was in Charity Hospital--

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00:07:10,647 --> 00:07:12,823
to pick her up from
the hospital,

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00:07:12,954 --> 00:07:15,217
and I was driving south
on Highway 23.

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00:07:31,625 --> 00:07:36,325
The school was just letting
out, and children...

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00:07:36,456 --> 00:07:39,546
the ones that wasn't riding
the school bus,
they was walking.

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00:07:39,676 --> 00:07:42,244
That's when I seen--
I just passed by the school,

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00:07:42,374 --> 00:07:44,202
and a little further out
from the school,

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00:07:44,333 --> 00:07:47,597
I seen my cousin and my
nephew, one of my nephews,

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with four white boys
standing on the side
of the road.

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00:07:53,429 --> 00:07:56,954
[boys arguing indistinctly]

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00:07:58,173 --> 00:08:00,218
But what really got my
attention was a couple of
white fellas.

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They was watching,

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so I stopped.

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00:08:04,919 --> 00:08:07,138
I told Harry, I said,
"Something's going on."
So I backed up.

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00:08:07,269 --> 00:08:10,838
I got out of the car. I said,
"What's the problem?
What's wrong?"

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00:08:10,968 --> 00:08:13,754
And they was just
about in tears.

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"They want to fight us."

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I said, "Fight y'all? What?"
You know, "Why do they
want to fight y'all?"

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And...

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00:08:20,935 --> 00:08:23,198
Bud Landry, said,

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00:08:23,328 --> 00:08:25,026
"We don't want to fight 'em.
We just wanted to
know their names."

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00:08:25,156 --> 00:08:26,549
You know?

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00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:28,464
So I told him,
"Well, my name is Gary."

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00:08:28,595 --> 00:08:31,249
And I touched him on his arm.

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Didn't hit him, just touched
him, just from talking.

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00:08:34,339 --> 00:08:36,080
And that was it.

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00:08:36,211 --> 00:08:37,952
I said, "Y'all, come on, let's
go. Get in the car."

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00:08:53,358 --> 00:08:55,796
[Richard Sobol]
He touched him on...

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00:08:55,926 --> 00:08:59,234
he touched one of the boys
on the elbow, kind of...

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00:09:01,366 --> 00:09:02,454
"Go on home."

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00:09:03,717 --> 00:09:07,024
And the father of
one of the boys

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00:09:07,155 --> 00:09:09,810
was within eyesight of this.

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00:09:09,940 --> 00:09:12,856
And he reported that Duncan
had slapped his son.

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00:09:12,987 --> 00:09:14,031
I don't know what time it was.

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00:09:15,859 --> 00:09:17,252
Early part of the night,
I think it was,
my mama called.

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00:09:19,297 --> 00:09:21,604
She said, "They got a warrant
out for your arrest.
Come back home."

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00:09:21,735 --> 00:09:24,476
So I came on back home,
and the next day I turned
myself in.

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00:09:26,174 --> 00:09:28,916
And they had the charges on
me. Cruelty to a juvenile.

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00:09:32,180 --> 00:09:35,357
[Sobol] They claimed that by
touchingthe white boy, he had
committed a crime.

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00:09:39,709 --> 00:09:42,712
People talk about
totalitarian regimes

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00:09:42,843 --> 00:09:45,889
as being so regimented
and so predictable,

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00:09:46,020 --> 00:09:48,152
and that's the nature
of their oppression.

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00:09:49,414 --> 00:09:51,808
But in fact, it's the
exact opposite.

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00:09:51,939 --> 00:09:57,466
The arbitrary nature
of the totalitarian regime's
actions

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is what makes it so
oppressive.

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00:10:00,382 --> 00:10:02,863
You never know
when you've crossed the line.

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00:10:08,651 --> 00:10:10,566
[Gary] Perez was
making them do that.

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00:10:10,697 --> 00:10:16,528
Perez made Landry
file charges on me

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00:10:16,659 --> 00:10:20,271
'cause they wanted to use me
for an example for the rest
of the Blacks.

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00:10:21,490 --> 00:10:23,144
[William F. Buckley] Have you
been very wildly misquoted?

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00:10:23,274 --> 00:10:24,580
For instance, you're quoted
as having said, quote,

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00:10:26,669 --> 00:10:30,238
"Yes, the Negro is inherently
immoral. Yes, I think it's the
brain capacity."

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00:10:30,368 --> 00:10:31,674
Is that a misquotation?

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00:10:31,805 --> 00:10:32,719
It's not a misquotation.
It's the truth.

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00:10:32,849 --> 00:10:35,547
Because I know Negroes.

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00:10:35,678 --> 00:10:39,116
We have a number of Negroes
in our community,

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00:10:39,247 --> 00:10:42,380
and I know that basically,
fundamentally, they are
immoral.

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00:10:42,511 --> 00:10:43,512
They're un-moral.
I know that to be a fact.

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00:10:43,643 --> 00:10:45,253
-I--
-[Buckley] Yes.

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00:10:45,383 --> 00:10:47,864
-Why should I try to hide it?
-[Buckley] Well--

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00:10:47,995 --> 00:10:51,520
I'd be untrue to myself if I
tried to deny it
out of cowardice.

126
00:10:51,651 --> 00:10:52,913
Of course.

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00:10:54,697 --> 00:10:56,133
And I wouldn't-- I wouldn't
plead guilty to that, could I?

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00:10:56,264 --> 00:10:59,397
It's been said of you
that you have a--

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00:10:59,528 --> 00:11:01,356
that "you can grudgingly
admire his blunt talk.

130
00:11:01,486 --> 00:11:03,793
He is honest about
his bigotry."

131
00:11:03,924 --> 00:11:06,056
-And--
-I'm not a bigot, son.

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00:11:06,187 --> 00:11:09,103
-I'm not a bigot at all.
-[audience laughs]

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00:11:09,233 --> 00:11:11,409
Well, look, whatever you are,
Judge Perez,

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00:11:11,540 --> 00:11:13,716
and I'm sure you're a
great many things,

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00:11:13,847 --> 00:11:15,370
what you don't have is
sovereign power
over the English language.

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00:11:15,500 --> 00:11:17,198
-[audience laughs]
-I am just a good American.

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00:11:17,328 --> 00:11:19,635
[indistinct chanting]

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00:11:19,766 --> 00:11:22,769
[Sobol] Leander Perez fought
like no one ever had before

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00:11:22,899 --> 00:11:24,814
against desegregating the
public schools.

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00:12:06,551 --> 00:12:09,685
[screams and shouts]

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00:12:09,816 --> 00:12:11,600
[dogs barking]

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00:12:32,360 --> 00:12:34,405
[Dan Rather] A year ago,
newspapers throughout America

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00:12:34,536 --> 00:12:37,495
front-paged a four-column
picture of the protestors.

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00:12:37,626 --> 00:12:40,411
Prominent in the picture
was the rural political boss

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00:12:40,542 --> 00:12:43,240
credited with making sure
the school had no students,

146
00:12:43,371 --> 00:12:45,677
Leander Henry Perez.

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00:12:45,808 --> 00:12:47,897
I'm not bragging, sir,

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00:12:48,028 --> 00:12:51,683
but I said we are not
surrendering our schools

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00:12:51,814 --> 00:12:54,338
to anybody, and that
means anyone.

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00:12:56,471 --> 00:12:58,821
[Gary] If it wouldn't have
been Perez,there wouldn't
have been a case.

151
00:12:58,952 --> 00:13:01,737
I know there's, in one of
the old Encyclopedia
Britannicas,

152
00:13:01,868 --> 00:13:04,174
they had an article on that
by a British scientist.

153
00:13:05,219 --> 00:13:07,221
He says that the Negro child
will develop

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00:13:07,351 --> 00:13:09,701
until he gets to be
about 11 years of age,

155
00:13:09,832 --> 00:13:12,879
and then because of the
thickness of this cranium,

156
00:13:13,009 --> 00:13:18,232
and the limited size
of the brain area,

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00:13:18,362 --> 00:13:19,755
he stops expanding.

158
00:13:20,887 --> 00:13:22,932
He goes so far, and
no further.

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00:13:23,063 --> 00:13:25,805
That's a pretty good 'un.
A friend of mine wrote that.

160
00:13:25,935 --> 00:13:27,676
-[indistinct remark]
-Yeah.

161
00:13:27,807 --> 00:13:28,982
-Glad you enjoyed it.
-So long.

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00:13:30,548 --> 00:13:32,289
[man] I definitely think
that he could be considered

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00:13:32,420 --> 00:13:34,378
as one of the natural
resources of the parish.

164
00:13:36,250 --> 00:13:38,382
[Dan Rather] Plaquemines
Parishlies on both sides

165
00:13:38,513 --> 00:13:40,602
of the mile-wide Mississippi,

166
00:13:40,732 --> 00:13:44,084
on rich, marshy soil
that has over the centuries

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00:13:44,214 --> 00:13:47,957
washed down the 2,350 miles
of twisting river

168
00:13:48,088 --> 00:13:52,919
to push its delta even farther
into the Gulf of Mexico.

169
00:13:53,049 --> 00:13:55,747
In the years when Leander
Perez was growing up,

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00:13:55,878 --> 00:13:59,403
one of 13 children
of a sugar and rice planter,

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00:13:59,534 --> 00:14:03,016
the flat prairie, the swamps
and bayous of
Plaquemines Parish

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00:14:03,146 --> 00:14:06,541
were the source of its chief
industry, the trapping
of muskrats.

173
00:14:08,108 --> 00:14:08,717
Today all that has changed.

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00:14:10,327 --> 00:14:13,243
Oil, discovered in 1928,

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00:14:13,374 --> 00:14:15,985
has altered both the
parish and Perez,

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00:14:16,116 --> 00:14:17,552
and neither have been
the same since.

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00:14:20,294 --> 00:14:22,644
As the money began to roll in,

178
00:14:22,774 --> 00:14:27,257
Leander Perez, through shrewd
manipulation in the state
legislature,

179
00:14:27,388 --> 00:14:29,564
managed to siphon off
a good deal
of it for the parish.

180
00:14:32,959 --> 00:14:34,656
There is only one Judge Perez.
Let's not kid ourself.

181
00:14:36,353 --> 00:14:38,181
There is only one Judge Perez,

182
00:14:38,312 --> 00:14:40,444
and as I said, that man
was a gift from God to us.

183
00:14:40,575 --> 00:14:44,579
[man] To me, Judge Perez
is a very egotistical sort of
character.

184
00:14:45,667 --> 00:14:47,974
He's arrogant, generally.

185
00:14:48,104 --> 00:14:53,762
Self-righteous, but I think
most of the time
completely wrong.

186
00:14:53,893 --> 00:14:56,808
Everybody in that parish
better play ball
with Leander Perez.

187
00:14:56,939 --> 00:15:00,073
One way or another.
They better.

188
00:15:00,203 --> 00:15:03,728
'Cause there's too many ways
that he can make it
very obnoxious.

189
00:15:04,904 --> 00:15:07,297
It is my personal
opinion that...

190
00:15:07,428 --> 00:15:11,649
Mr. Perez, over a period of
years, has established a
tighter dynasty,

191
00:15:14,783 --> 00:15:18,178
and has a better setup,
than Mr. Khrushchev has.

192
00:15:18,308 --> 00:15:23,052
[Dan Rather] You now have
as your enemies, your
opponents,

193
00:15:23,183 --> 00:15:26,142
at least the last four
presidents
of the United States,

194
00:15:26,273 --> 00:15:27,970
President Kennedy,
President Eisenhower,

195
00:15:28,101 --> 00:15:30,581
President Truman,
President Roosevelt.

196
00:15:30,712 --> 00:15:33,497
The Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court,
Earl Warren,

197
00:15:33,628 --> 00:15:37,719
the other justices of the
Supreme Court,
the late Pope John.

198
00:15:37,849 --> 00:15:41,157
You also have as your enemies,
your sworn opponents,

199
00:15:41,288 --> 00:15:42,898
such institutions
as the United States
government,

200
00:15:43,029 --> 00:15:46,815
parts, at least,
of the Roman Catholic Church,

201
00:15:46,946 --> 00:15:49,687
the Departments of Justice,
Interior,

202
00:15:49,818 --> 00:15:52,299
to some extent
the Department of Defense,

203
00:15:52,429 --> 00:15:55,215
the United States Navy,
United Nations.

204
00:15:55,345 --> 00:15:56,999
This is a formidable list.

205
00:15:57,130 --> 00:15:59,436
[Perez] What is the future
of our country?

206
00:15:59,567 --> 00:16:04,093
Why the communist conspiracy
to deprive our white youth

207
00:16:04,224 --> 00:16:06,400
of educational opportunities?

208
00:16:07,705 --> 00:16:10,665
Does Mr. Kennedy see that,
or does he give a damn?

209
00:16:10,795 --> 00:16:12,928
-[man] No!
-Did President Eisenhower
see it,

210
00:16:13,059 --> 00:16:16,410
surrounded by his Zionist
advisors, Max Rabinowitz?

211
00:16:16,540 --> 00:16:18,673
Goldfein and company?

212
00:16:18,803 --> 00:16:22,155
Did Harry Truman see it? No.

213
00:16:22,285 --> 00:16:24,679
[Gary] Well, he was a
dictatorship.
Perez was a dictatorship.

214
00:16:24,809 --> 00:16:28,552
He wasn't elected into office.
He took that position.

215
00:16:28,683 --> 00:16:30,250
Then everybody called
him a judge.

216
00:16:30,380 --> 00:16:32,078
Oh, yeah. He was the man.
He was in charge.

217
00:16:32,208 --> 00:16:33,601
He ran this parish.

218
00:16:33,731 --> 00:16:36,343
And at one time he was
a judge. Yeah.

219
00:16:38,127 --> 00:16:40,303
[Robert Collins] He didn't
have any problem
with Black folks

220
00:16:40,434 --> 00:16:42,044
living in his parish as long
as they were
agricultural workers,

221
00:16:42,175 --> 00:16:45,047
as long as they were
working on farms,

222
00:16:45,178 --> 00:16:47,919
as long as they were
domestic servants.

223
00:16:48,050 --> 00:16:50,835
He hated Jews for the
same reason,

224
00:16:50,966 --> 00:16:52,054
not only because they were
active in the
civil rights movement.

225
00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:56,363
They didn't really fit
into his view

226
00:16:56,493 --> 00:16:59,496
of white Protestant
family life

227
00:16:59,627 --> 00:17:01,977
in white Protestant America.

228
00:17:25,566 --> 00:17:28,438
Let's think about what
Gary Duncan did.

229
00:17:28,569 --> 00:17:30,092
He's attempting to
break up a fight,

230
00:17:30,223 --> 00:17:33,400
and he puts his hand on
this white man.

231
00:17:33,530 --> 00:17:35,880
He didn't punch this man.

232
00:17:36,011 --> 00:17:38,187
He didn't engage in the fight.
He's attempting to break up
the fight.

233
00:17:39,406 --> 00:17:40,711
That's illegal?

234
00:17:42,409 --> 00:17:46,413
Under no circumstances
are you supposed to see
yourself

235
00:17:46,543 --> 00:17:48,458
as being equal to
this white man.

236
00:17:48,589 --> 00:17:51,200
And, in fact, we will
charge you legally

237
00:17:51,331 --> 00:17:57,728
for this failure to understand
the nature of your existence.

238
00:17:57,859 --> 00:18:00,992
You know, and I thank God
that I had parents that I had.

239
00:18:01,123 --> 00:18:05,345
'Cause me, I probably would
have just run on up
there and pled guilty,

240
00:18:05,475 --> 00:18:09,436
figure I'd pay a fine and go
on about my business,
you know?

241
00:18:09,566 --> 00:18:13,744
He could have gone home that
night, but he chose not to.

242
00:18:13,875 --> 00:18:15,094
Uh...

243
00:18:17,574 --> 00:18:19,620
I don't think there's one in a
hundred people
that would do that,

244
00:18:19,924 --> 00:18:20,925
make that choice.

245
00:18:24,538 --> 00:18:29,325
The guy is of steel
about his rights,

246
00:18:29,456 --> 00:18:33,634
and justice and what's fair,
and...

247
00:18:34,417 --> 00:18:34,983
and he still is.

248
00:18:42,295 --> 00:18:44,862
[Gary] F.J. and Wilbur,
the policemen,

249
00:18:44,993 --> 00:18:46,951
stopped me and asked me
what happened,

250
00:18:47,082 --> 00:18:48,997
and they told me
to get in the police car.

251
00:18:49,128 --> 00:18:51,260
They brought me back
to the scene.

252
00:18:51,391 --> 00:18:54,437
That's where the four white
boys were
standing there, and...

253
00:18:54,568 --> 00:18:56,657
one of them said I hit him.

254
00:18:58,049 --> 00:18:58,789
And the rest of them
didn't say anything.

255
00:18:59,834 --> 00:19:01,314
They didn't. You know,
that I didn't do anything.

256
00:19:01,444 --> 00:19:03,751
Wilbur and FJ said, "Well,
hey,

257
00:19:03,881 --> 00:19:06,406
it don't matter much what
any of them say
because I know if he hit him,

258
00:19:06,536 --> 00:19:07,146
we'll be able to tell."

259
00:19:07,276 --> 00:19:08,277
They let me go,

260
00:19:10,018 --> 00:19:12,455
and so I came home and I got
my wife out of the hospital,

261
00:19:12,586 --> 00:19:15,763
and my mama called me and
said, "They got a warrant out
for your arrest."

262
00:19:15,893 --> 00:19:18,374
So I came on back and I
turned myself in.

263
00:19:18,505 --> 00:19:22,248
And they had me charged
with cruelty to a juvenile.

264
00:19:22,378 --> 00:19:24,250
I went and had an interview
with Mr. Sobol,

265
00:19:24,380 --> 00:19:27,122
and we talked, and he told me
when I go to court

266
00:19:27,253 --> 00:19:31,170
to plead not guilty,
and that's what I did.

267
00:19:31,300 --> 00:19:32,301
They had evidence,
but they couldn't charge me

268
00:19:32,432 --> 00:19:34,912
with cruelty to a juvenile.

269
00:19:35,043 --> 00:19:39,090
Which you can't be without
having authority over the
child.

270
00:19:39,221 --> 00:19:41,745
So they dropped the charge.

271
00:19:41,876 --> 00:19:44,270
They let me go,
but by the time I got home,

272
00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:47,708
the police, FJ and Wilbur,
were sitting at my house

273
00:19:47,838 --> 00:19:49,275
waiting for me,
to take me back to jail

274
00:19:49,405 --> 00:19:50,711
to charge me with
assault and battery.

275
00:19:50,841 --> 00:19:53,844
Then I realized they
was after me.

276
00:19:53,975 --> 00:19:57,152
[Lolis Eric Elie] Any time
white people would decide

277
00:19:57,283 --> 00:19:59,763
that what you were doing
was improper,
you could be arrested for it.

278
00:20:00,547 --> 00:20:02,723
And you see that
in the Gary Duncan case.

279
00:20:02,853 --> 00:20:07,554
What is impossible to
enumerate is all the
billions of times

280
00:20:07,684 --> 00:20:10,557
when Black people were
harassed for absolutely no
reason

281
00:20:10,687 --> 00:20:13,081
other than the fact that
they were Black.

282
00:20:13,212 --> 00:20:17,694
Or perhaps because white
people needed to remind them
that they were Black.

283
00:20:46,854 --> 00:20:48,290
[Armand Derfner]
Anything that put a Black
person

284
00:20:48,421 --> 00:20:50,945
out of the normal line of
submissiveness

285
00:20:52,903 --> 00:20:56,298
was a civil rights or
Constitutional case.
It became that.

286
00:20:56,429 --> 00:20:59,475
Because here's the thing:
If a Black person
got out of line,

287
00:20:59,606 --> 00:21:02,348
then they would often
be arrested.

288
00:21:02,478 --> 00:21:04,350
And they'd be arrested
on some bogus charge.

289
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:06,830
I remember I was in...

290
00:21:06,961 --> 00:21:09,485
in my office in Jackson,
and...

291
00:21:10,312 --> 00:21:13,924
somebody was arrested,

292
00:21:14,055 --> 00:21:18,407
and I asked, I called
the police station or whoever,

293
00:21:18,538 --> 00:21:19,974
and I asked what
the charge was,

294
00:21:20,104 --> 00:21:23,151
and the charge was
"using florid language."

295
00:21:23,282 --> 00:21:26,241
Okay. Or, um...

296
00:21:26,372 --> 00:21:29,244
I was representing somebody
in Cleveland, Mississippi,
once.

297
00:21:29,375 --> 00:21:31,464
It was a Black person
wearing a suit,

298
00:21:31,594 --> 00:21:33,553
which was pretty suspicious
to begin with,

299
00:21:33,683 --> 00:21:36,599
wearing eyeglasses--
that was also suspicious.

300
00:21:36,730 --> 00:21:38,688
And so they just arrested him.

301
00:21:38,819 --> 00:21:39,994
Just to show people
who's in charge.

302
00:21:42,692 --> 00:21:48,307
The essence of the Southern
system in those days
was total control.

303
00:21:48,437 --> 00:21:52,093
It was a totalitarian nation.

304
00:21:52,223 --> 00:21:54,313
[indistinct shouting]

305
00:21:57,011 --> 00:21:58,969
It was really viewed
as a separate nation.

306
00:21:59,100 --> 00:22:00,493
It was a totalitarian nation

307
00:22:00,623 --> 00:22:03,887
in which total control
was essential.

308
00:22:06,716 --> 00:22:08,588
Control of Black people
and white people.

309
00:22:08,718 --> 00:22:12,374
So, if a white person
thought differently,

310
00:22:12,505 --> 00:22:15,334
they'd find the law on them,
too.

311
00:22:16,987 --> 00:22:18,598
In Gary Duncan's case, I don't
know what he had done before,

312
00:22:18,728 --> 00:22:22,602
but if he had been in marches,
he's a marked man.

313
00:22:22,732 --> 00:22:26,867
If he hadn't been, well, then
he got to be a marked man
that day.

314
00:22:27,868 --> 00:22:30,479
And that also means that ca--

315
00:22:30,610 --> 00:22:33,917
anything that involved
him after that,

316
00:22:34,048 --> 00:22:35,789
24 hours a day, seven
days a week,

317
00:22:35,919 --> 00:22:37,268
was a civil rights case.

318
00:22:38,444 --> 00:22:40,794
Because a civil rights case

319
00:22:40,924 --> 00:22:44,754
is one where something bad
is gonna happen to you

320
00:22:44,885 --> 00:22:48,584
out of proportion to or not
related to anything
you actually did.

321
00:22:50,107 --> 00:22:55,330
So it was the white,
quote, "power structure,"

322
00:22:55,461 --> 00:22:57,898
whatever you want to call it,
the white system,
governmental system,

323
00:22:58,028 --> 00:23:00,335
they were the ones
who created civil rights cases

324
00:23:00,466 --> 00:23:01,858
by what they did.

325
00:23:02,772 --> 00:23:04,731
[chair scrapes]

326
00:23:05,514 --> 00:23:11,128
[gavel banging]

327
00:23:11,259 --> 00:23:13,392
[judge] Do you recall an
incident that occurred on
October 18th?

328
00:23:13,522 --> 00:23:15,742
[Herman Landry] Well,

329
00:23:17,700 --> 00:23:18,875
me and Wayne and this other
boy, we was coming out of
school,

330
00:23:19,006 --> 00:23:21,400
and we got out on the road.

331
00:23:21,530 --> 00:23:23,750
These two other boys was on
the other side of the road.

332
00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:25,752
We knew one of them
had got in a fight at school,

333
00:23:25,882 --> 00:23:29,538
and we asked him
what happened,
and he was telling us.

334
00:23:29,669 --> 00:23:33,673
Then that boy right over there
stopped in his car,

335
00:23:33,803 --> 00:23:35,631
and he backed up,
and he got out of his car

336
00:23:35,762 --> 00:23:37,503
and he asked us what was going
on, and we told him nothing.

337
00:23:37,633 --> 00:23:40,331
We were just asking these boys
their name.

338
00:23:40,462 --> 00:23:42,203
He said, "You want
to know mine?"

339
00:23:42,333 --> 00:23:43,683
[Wayne Scarabin]
And the two boys
said we was lying.

340
00:23:43,813 --> 00:23:45,685
[crowd murmurs]

341
00:23:45,815 --> 00:23:49,993
So Gary Duncan, he asked us
if we wanted to know his name.

342
00:23:50,124 --> 00:23:51,517
And he had his name
on his shirt.

343
00:23:51,647 --> 00:23:55,172
He says, "Can you read?"

344
00:23:55,303 --> 00:23:56,957
Herman told him yes.

345
00:23:57,087 --> 00:24:00,395
And he said, "You still want
to know my name?"

346
00:24:00,526 --> 00:24:03,877
Herman said yes.

347
00:24:04,007 --> 00:24:05,618
He told Herman
he was a smart little punk.

348
00:24:05,748 --> 00:24:07,837
[Herman] Then he told us
he was gonna beat us all up.

349
00:24:07,968 --> 00:24:11,188
And then I told that other
boy, I said,
"He thinks he's tough."

350
00:24:11,319 --> 00:24:12,842
-That's when he slapped me.
-[crowd murmurs]

351
00:24:12,973 --> 00:24:14,061
[Darryl Bubrig]
Was it a hard slap?

352
00:24:14,191 --> 00:24:15,715
[Wayne]
Pretty hard, yes.

353
00:24:17,891 --> 00:24:20,241
[Bubrig] Wayne, do you know
why the defendant,
Gary Duncan, stopped?

354
00:24:20,371 --> 00:24:21,547
[Wayne] I guess he thought we
was trying to jump the boys
or something.

355
00:24:21,677 --> 00:24:24,767
-[crowd murmurs]
-[gavel bangs]

356
00:24:24,898 --> 00:24:27,466
[Gary] Mama, she asked me,
she said, "Did you hit him?"

357
00:24:27,596 --> 00:24:31,513
I said, "No. All I done
was touch him on his arm.

358
00:24:31,644 --> 00:24:33,559
I touched him on his arm.
I didn't hit him.
I touched him."

359
00:24:33,689 --> 00:24:36,605
And she said, "Well, hey."

360
00:24:36,736 --> 00:24:39,216
She said, "I'll walk the
streets buck naked

361
00:24:39,347 --> 00:24:41,654
before I see you spend
one day in jail."

362
00:24:41,784 --> 00:24:44,874
[Sobol] It was his mother that
didn't want him
to plead guilty

363
00:24:45,005 --> 00:24:48,182
and pay a fine
and have a criminal record

364
00:24:48,312 --> 00:24:51,185
and let them get
away with this.

365
00:24:51,315 --> 00:24:53,535
She was the driving force.

366
00:24:53,666 --> 00:24:59,019
When they sat down in my
little room there,
she did the talking.

367
00:24:59,149 --> 00:25:01,108
I said, "What can I
do for you?"

368
00:25:01,238 --> 00:25:01,674
And she answered.

369
00:25:02,588 --> 00:25:05,765
And Gary was right there.

370
00:25:07,506 --> 00:25:10,421
I was working with the law
firm Collins, Douglas & Elie,

371
00:25:10,552 --> 00:25:15,731
which is the most important
firm in civil rights law
in Louisiana.

372
00:25:15,862 --> 00:25:18,081
It was important
that out-of-state lawyers

373
00:25:18,212 --> 00:25:20,519
come to handle civil
rights cases

374
00:25:20,649 --> 00:25:23,739
because no lawyer in Louisiana

375
00:25:23,870 --> 00:25:26,350
would handle civil
rights cases.

376
00:25:28,004 --> 00:25:31,094
He didn't have no license to
practice law in the state of
Louisiana,

377
00:25:31,225 --> 00:25:34,489
so he was working through
Collins, Douglas & Elie's
office.

378
00:25:36,578 --> 00:25:38,058
They was involved

379
00:25:38,188 --> 00:25:40,669
in civil rights themselves,
you know.

380
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,453
The right of the Black people.

381
00:25:45,239 --> 00:25:48,982
[Lolis Elie] It was difficult
for African-Americans
to get lawyers

382
00:25:49,112 --> 00:25:51,375
in a civil rights matter,

383
00:25:51,506 --> 00:25:54,291
and of course in Plaquemines
Parish to get anyone

384
00:25:54,422 --> 00:25:58,295
to be involved in any case
in opposition to Leander Perez

385
00:25:58,426 --> 00:26:00,602
was a very dangerous thing.

386
00:26:00,733 --> 00:26:02,822
[Lolis Eric Elie] My father
and Bob Collins and
Nils Douglas

387
00:26:02,952 --> 00:26:07,740
accepted the responsibility
of doing this work,
in part because

388
00:26:07,870 --> 00:26:12,222
so few other people were
willing and able to do it.

389
00:26:12,353 --> 00:26:15,704
My father grew up in a part of
town called Nigger Town.

390
00:26:15,835 --> 00:26:17,445
When you asked him
where he was from,

391
00:26:17,576 --> 00:26:18,272
he'd make a point of saying
he was from Nigger Town.

392
00:26:21,057 --> 00:26:23,407
It was important to him

393
00:26:23,538 --> 00:26:25,366
that you understood
the full meaning of that,

394
00:26:25,496 --> 00:26:27,586
you understood that this man
who went to law school

395
00:26:27,716 --> 00:26:29,152
and tried these
important cases

396
00:26:29,283 --> 00:26:32,286
was from a part of town
called Nigger Town.

397
00:26:32,416 --> 00:26:36,072
[New Orleans jazz music plays]

398
00:26:42,644 --> 00:26:45,342
When you talk about
those people.

399
00:26:45,473 --> 00:26:47,475
when you talked about niggers,
you gotta realize

400
00:26:47,606 --> 00:26:50,478
sometimes niggers
go to Loyola Law School.

401
00:26:50,609 --> 00:26:52,436
Sometimes niggers do
great things.

402
00:27:03,491 --> 00:27:07,887
[Lolis Elie] At what point,
or when, is it possible

403
00:27:08,017 --> 00:27:11,673
for white people to look at
Black people as being
human beings?

404
00:27:11,804 --> 00:27:15,721
I don't mean
an individual white person.

405
00:27:15,851 --> 00:27:17,810
I mean as a whole.

406
00:27:17,940 --> 00:27:20,377
I know not in my lifetime.

407
00:27:20,508 --> 00:27:21,944
Let's face it.

408
00:27:22,075 --> 00:27:24,207
You know, this is the
20th century.

409
00:27:24,338 --> 00:27:26,732
We're talking about a people
that has been on this
continent

410
00:27:26,862 --> 00:27:29,909
for over 400 years.

411
00:27:31,824 --> 00:27:34,087
[New Orleans jazz
music continues]

412
00:27:50,930 --> 00:27:53,062
[Lolis Eric Elie] When people
like Richard Sobol came here,

413
00:27:53,193 --> 00:27:57,763
it allowed lawyers like
Collins, Douglas & Elie
to have some assistance.

414
00:27:57,893 --> 00:28:01,592
Suddenly the forces
of civil rights had allies.

415
00:28:01,723 --> 00:28:03,638
[music fades]

416
00:28:05,248 --> 00:28:07,642
Sobol, Richard Sobol,
who had come to New Orleans

417
00:28:07,773 --> 00:28:12,255
from the law firm of Arnold,
Fortas & Porter,

418
00:28:12,386 --> 00:28:15,868
and I think it would be fair
to say that Sobol was
something of a genius.

419
00:28:30,360 --> 00:28:34,625
[Sobol] I'm outside.
I'm gonna wave a cab down,

420
00:28:34,756 --> 00:28:38,847
and down the street,
a cab stops.

421
00:28:40,544 --> 00:28:42,895
I look in. It's Fortas.

422
00:28:43,809 --> 00:28:46,594
He said, "Get in."

423
00:28:46,725 --> 00:28:47,726
I said, "Well, this
is very nice."

424
00:28:49,597 --> 00:28:51,904
I had never been alone with
him after a year working
there.

425
00:28:52,034 --> 00:28:55,472
You had to make an appointment
to see him,

426
00:28:55,603 --> 00:28:59,825
and lots of times the
appointment was denied.
You couldn't see him.

427
00:28:59,955 --> 00:29:02,741
And here I am sitting next to
him, and I'm feeling,
"This is great."

428
00:29:04,351 --> 00:29:09,182
But on the way, he said,
"What do you do at the firm?"

429
00:29:09,312 --> 00:29:11,227
And I told him...

430
00:29:13,490 --> 00:29:16,798
I told him, and he...

431
00:29:18,365 --> 00:29:21,194
He said, "Well, where
are you going now?

432
00:29:21,324 --> 00:29:23,370
And I said...

433
00:29:23,500 --> 00:29:27,896
proudly, because I'm talking
to a guy who really is
big-time

434
00:29:28,027 --> 00:29:30,029
in good cause work,

435
00:29:30,159 --> 00:29:32,248
I said, "I'm going...

436
00:29:33,162 --> 00:29:34,990
It's my vacation.

437
00:29:35,121 --> 00:29:36,992
It starts today,

438
00:29:37,123 --> 00:29:41,910
and I'm gonna go down
to Louisiana

439
00:29:42,041 --> 00:29:44,870
to work on civil
rights cases."

440
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,002
He said, "Well, I don't think
you should go.

441
00:29:47,133 --> 00:29:49,788
I think you should get
out of the cab

442
00:29:49,918 --> 00:29:53,052
and go inside and say
you've changed your mind.

443
00:29:53,182 --> 00:29:58,144
If you don't need a vacation,
then we don't want to give you
one."

444
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:04,541
Abe Fortas had just handled
a very famous case in the
Supreme Court

445
00:30:04,672 --> 00:30:08,458
involving the right to counsel
in state court criminal
proceedings.

446
00:30:10,025 --> 00:30:13,333
And I kinda got the mistaken,
naive idea

447
00:30:13,463 --> 00:30:15,465
there was gonna be a lot
of that kind of thing at the
law firm.

448
00:30:17,554 --> 00:30:21,297
[Fortas] At the time of
Gideon, I felt that every
man--

449
00:30:21,428 --> 00:30:26,563
the rich, the poor, and the
poor as well as the rich,

450
00:30:26,694 --> 00:30:29,653
was entitled to the
benefit of counsel

451
00:30:29,784 --> 00:30:32,047
when he was defending himself

452
00:30:32,178 --> 00:30:35,921
against prosecution by the
mighty forces of the state.

453
00:30:37,836 --> 00:30:42,188
I thought, if this guy does
that, I want to be in this
firm.

454
00:30:44,364 --> 00:30:45,626
And it didn't take
more than...

455
00:30:48,194 --> 00:30:50,109
a couple of weeks to
realize that

456
00:30:50,239 --> 00:30:53,025
they don't just sit around
doing this good work.

457
00:30:53,155 --> 00:30:57,377
This is a firm in the business
of making money.

458
00:30:57,507 --> 00:31:00,771
And I learned that the Arnold

459
00:31:01,772 --> 00:31:04,819
of Arnold, Fortas & Porter

460
00:31:04,950 --> 00:31:07,648
wouldn't allow the employment
of Black secretaries.

461
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:14,220
Which, this horrified me.
I mean, I couldn't hardly
believe it.

462
00:31:14,350 --> 00:31:17,788
But I said, okay, well, he's
old, and he's gonna be
gone soon--

463
00:31:17,919 --> 00:31:21,183
which was true, he was old,
and he did get gone.

464
00:31:21,314 --> 00:31:23,751
And then there was
Paul Porter,

465
00:31:23,882 --> 00:31:25,231
who was a drunk.

466
00:31:27,102 --> 00:31:27,711
So that leaves Fortas.

467
00:31:29,104 --> 00:31:33,935
I asked him where
he was going.

468
00:31:34,066 --> 00:31:36,807
And he said

469
00:31:36,938 --> 00:31:39,419
he's going to see
Lyndon Johnson

470
00:31:40,942 --> 00:31:43,684
about an appointment
to the Supreme Court.

471
00:31:46,382 --> 00:31:46,774
So I said, "Jesus."

472
00:32:08,143 --> 00:32:09,710
Gave it a lot of thought, and
I said, well,
"Who do I want to be?"

473
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,453
And if necessary,

474
00:32:13,583 --> 00:32:15,803
we must be willing to
fill up the jails

475
00:32:15,934 --> 00:32:17,936
all over the state of Georgia.

476
00:32:18,066 --> 00:32:21,200
-[demonstrators singing]
-[policeman] C'mon, get up!

477
00:32:22,418 --> 00:32:23,898
[protesters]
♪ Turn me round ♪

478
00:32:24,072 --> 00:32:26,988
♪ Turn me round,
turn me round ♪

479
00:32:27,162 --> 00:32:28,859
♪ Keep on a-walkin'... ♪

480
00:32:28,990 --> 00:32:32,863
1964, two friends of mine,

481
00:32:32,994 --> 00:32:34,517
colleagues at Arnold,
Fortas & Porter,

482
00:32:34,648 --> 00:32:38,391
young men like myself,
told me about LCDC,

483
00:32:38,521 --> 00:32:40,262
the Lawyer's Constitutional
Defense Committee,

484
00:32:40,393 --> 00:32:43,831
which was sending lawyers
in the summer to the South,

485
00:32:43,962 --> 00:32:46,747
to help with the arrests that
essentially were resulting

486
00:32:46,877 --> 00:32:49,924
from all the civil rights
activity that was taking
place.

487
00:32:50,055 --> 00:32:53,145
I was told that I was going to
be included, but I didn't know
where.

488
00:32:53,275 --> 00:32:56,713
And a letter came that said,
"You're assigned to New
Orleans, Louisiana."

489
00:32:56,844 --> 00:32:58,150
Which was a big
disappointment to me

490
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,282
because I wanted
to go to Selma, Alabama,

491
00:33:00,413 --> 00:33:01,936
or Jackson, Mississippi, or
someplace that I had heard of,

492
00:33:02,067 --> 00:33:04,895
where things were happening.

493
00:33:05,026 --> 00:33:06,854
Of course, things were
happening here, I just didn't
know it.

494
00:33:07,028 --> 00:33:09,335
[Bob Dylan]
♪ Far between
sundown's finish ♪

495
00:33:09,465 --> 00:33:10,771
[Sobol]
That letter changed my life.

496
00:33:10,945 --> 00:33:14,775
♪ And midnight's broken toll ♪

497
00:33:14,949 --> 00:33:18,822
♪ We ducked inside the doorway
As thunder went crashing ♪

498
00:33:22,217 --> 00:33:25,612
♪ As the majestic
bells of bolts ♪

499
00:33:25,742 --> 00:33:28,049
[Sobol] I'd been there
for eight days,

500
00:33:28,180 --> 00:33:31,313
and I had gotten relief in the
school desegregation case

501
00:33:31,444 --> 00:33:32,706
in the face of
the worst judge in the South.

502
00:33:35,056 --> 00:33:37,015
And that was just one of
several things I did
during three weeks.

503
00:33:38,494 --> 00:33:40,975
♪ Flashing for the warriors ♪

504
00:33:42,281 --> 00:33:44,761
♪ Whose strength is
not to fight ♪

505
00:33:46,633 --> 00:33:47,982
♪ Flashing for the refugees ♪

506
00:33:48,591 --> 00:33:50,854
[Sobol] I could just see
the impact I could have.

507
00:33:53,292 --> 00:33:59,037
♪ And for each and every
underdog soldier
in the night ♪

508
00:34:00,734 --> 00:34:02,997
[Lolis Eric Elie]
When you have few
Black lawyers,

509
00:34:03,128 --> 00:34:06,522
and even fewer Black lawyers
willing to take these cases,

510
00:34:06,653 --> 00:34:09,699
so it was crucial that folks
came in and were serious.

511
00:34:11,527 --> 00:34:14,356
The South was the battleground
for the nation at that point,

512
00:34:14,487 --> 00:34:16,924
and so it was, in a sense,
fashionable for a lawyer

513
00:34:17,055 --> 00:34:19,013
to come here for a couple of
weeks or a couple of months.

514
00:34:19,144 --> 00:34:22,495
A lot of the lawyers who were
being sent down by LCDC

515
00:34:22,625 --> 00:34:24,975
were also enjoying
the life in New Orleans,

516
00:34:25,106 --> 00:34:26,716
and bringing their wives
and different things.

517
00:34:26,847 --> 00:34:30,198
It seemed to me a little bit
of a messy situation

518
00:34:30,329 --> 00:34:34,028
in that I came away
with the firm idea

519
00:34:34,159 --> 00:34:36,074
that what they need is
permanent lawyers down there.

520
00:34:36,204 --> 00:34:37,553
and not people
passing through.

521
00:34:39,512 --> 00:34:42,602
While I cannot say why those
lawyers would not stay longer
or do more,

522
00:34:42,732 --> 00:34:44,647
they absolutely had
their other responsibilities--

523
00:34:44,778 --> 00:34:47,041
for the people who stayed,
for the people who were
serious,

524
00:34:47,172 --> 00:34:50,610
for the people
who took this work to heart,

525
00:34:50,740 --> 00:34:52,829
my father had infinite
respect for them,

526
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,180
Richard Sobol
perhaps chief among them

527
00:34:55,310 --> 00:34:57,878
because he stayed.

528
00:34:58,008 --> 00:35:01,925
It's one thing to say, "I'm
gonna go down there and help
those poor people,"

529
00:35:02,056 --> 00:35:04,885
as opposed to actually
taking the fight to heart

530
00:35:05,015 --> 00:35:07,453
and realizing that this
is an American struggle,

531
00:35:07,583 --> 00:35:09,629
and not merely a
Southern struggle.

532
00:35:09,803 --> 00:35:12,066
♪ The chimes of
freedom flashing ♪

533
00:35:12,197 --> 00:35:15,025
[Angela Davis] I have an
ambivalent relationship to the
term "allies."

534
00:35:17,202 --> 00:35:20,727
Because when it comes to...

535
00:35:20,857 --> 00:35:23,121
challenging racism,

536
00:35:23,251 --> 00:35:26,472
I think white people
should know that they have

537
00:35:26,602 --> 00:35:32,217
as much of a stake
in purging this society
of racism...

538
00:35:32,347 --> 00:35:34,044
[audience clapping]

539
00:35:34,175 --> 00:35:37,613
...as people who are
the immediate targets.

540
00:35:39,311 --> 00:35:41,008
[male reporter]
Why do you want to go
to this school?

541
00:35:41,139 --> 00:35:43,489
[young girl] Well, I feel
that I have a chance too,

542
00:35:43,619 --> 00:35:45,055
to have an education...
[sniffles]

543
00:35:45,186 --> 00:35:47,710
...a good education.

544
00:35:47,841 --> 00:35:49,886
And not allowed to
stare at me.

545
00:35:52,062 --> 00:35:55,196
And I'm goin' back, if I
have-- they'll have
to kill me.

546
00:35:55,327 --> 00:35:56,415
I'm... I'm...

547
00:35:56,545 --> 00:35:58,330
I'll die for my freedom.

548
00:36:02,334 --> 00:36:04,814
[jazz playing]

549
00:36:04,945 --> 00:36:08,253
[Sobol] He had been charged
with simple battery.

550
00:36:08,383 --> 00:36:11,386
We were giving, explicitly,
notice by Judge Leon

551
00:36:11,517 --> 00:36:13,083
that he could just
plead to that,

552
00:36:13,214 --> 00:36:15,129
he mentioned a small fine,

553
00:36:16,826 --> 00:36:20,134
not the maximum fine
in the statute,

554
00:36:20,265 --> 00:36:22,702
and you could walk out
of here today.

555
00:36:24,399 --> 00:36:28,751
And uh, he and his mother
didn't want to do that.

556
00:36:31,145 --> 00:36:33,234
Which is pretty extraordinary,
right there.

557
00:36:33,365 --> 00:36:37,107
Because, to this day,
all around the country...

558
00:36:37,238 --> 00:36:40,067
people are having to plead
guilty to things

559
00:36:40,198 --> 00:36:40,937
they don't feel they're
guilty about.

560
00:36:44,376 --> 00:36:45,507
It's a crime.

561
00:36:47,292 --> 00:36:50,251
[jazz blues continues]

562
00:36:57,867 --> 00:37:01,131
The judge said to the lawyer,
me,

563
00:37:01,262 --> 00:37:03,308
"Anything else you
want to add?"

564
00:37:03,438 --> 00:37:06,311
And I will say,
"Yes. I want to add a demand

565
00:37:06,441 --> 00:37:09,096
for trial by jury."

566
00:37:09,227 --> 00:37:11,141
And, uh, he kind of scoffed
and said,

567
00:37:11,272 --> 00:37:14,667
"I'm gonna deny that.

568
00:37:16,886 --> 00:37:17,931
Let's proceed."

569
00:37:19,237 --> 00:37:21,282
And that day...

570
00:37:21,413 --> 00:37:22,283
[Sobol] We didn't just raise
civil rights issues in
cases...

571
00:37:22,414 --> 00:37:23,719
...we proceeded.

572
00:37:23,850 --> 00:37:25,982
We represent-- like
any lawyer,

573
00:37:26,113 --> 00:37:29,247
raised every issue we possibly
could to help your client.

574
00:37:29,377 --> 00:37:33,686
One of them was the, uh,
Louisiana jury system
at the time,

575
00:37:33,816 --> 00:37:38,343
which did not allow for juries
in any case

576
00:37:38,473 --> 00:37:40,693
unless the punishment
was more than two years.

577
00:37:42,129 --> 00:37:43,435
So he was going to be tried
before this judge

578
00:37:43,565 --> 00:37:44,174
that Perez had appointed.

579
00:37:46,612 --> 00:37:48,918
[court spectators chattering]

580
00:37:49,049 --> 00:37:50,964
[gavel bangs]

581
00:37:53,793 --> 00:37:55,316
[Sobol]
Bert, how old are you?

582
00:37:55,447 --> 00:37:57,144
[Bert] Fourteen.

583
00:37:57,275 --> 00:37:58,754
And what school do you go to?

584
00:37:58,885 --> 00:38:00,278
Boothville-Venice High.

585
00:38:00,408 --> 00:38:02,497
When did you enter
that school?

586
00:38:02,628 --> 00:38:05,239
About the week the
schools opened.

587
00:38:05,370 --> 00:38:08,634
Do you recall an incident
on October 18th, 1966,

588
00:38:08,764 --> 00:38:11,332
involving the defendant, Mr.
Duncan, and some boys
on Route 23?

589
00:38:11,463 --> 00:38:13,856
Yes, sir.

590
00:38:13,987 --> 00:38:16,555
And me and my friend,
we was walkin' home.

591
00:38:16,685 --> 00:38:17,730
Who's your friend?

592
00:38:17,860 --> 00:38:19,601
Bernard Ste. Ann.

593
00:38:19,732 --> 00:38:21,299
Was there any reason to think
they wanted to fight?

594
00:38:22,387 --> 00:38:25,215
The way they was walkin' like.

595
00:38:25,346 --> 00:38:27,479
You know, they-- they came
on the side of the road
where we was on.

596
00:38:27,609 --> 00:38:30,264
They hollered at us,
"What are y'all names?"

597
00:38:30,395 --> 00:38:32,353
We kept walkin'. We didn't
pay no attention to them.

598
00:38:32,484 --> 00:38:35,617
They got in front of us,
and they said,

599
00:38:35,748 --> 00:38:37,750
"We asked you yo' names."

600
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:40,143
I said, "None of yo' business
what my name is."

601
00:38:41,014 --> 00:38:42,407
And that's when Gary saw
we're standin' up there,
backed up...

602
00:38:42,537 --> 00:38:44,060
-Bernard.
-...and got out of the car.

603
00:38:44,191 --> 00:38:45,279
[Sobol] You stated
that they wanted to fight?

604
00:38:45,410 --> 00:38:47,629
Yes, sir.

605
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,197
And what made you think
they wanted to fight?

606
00:38:50,328 --> 00:38:52,982
Because... the way
they was talking,

607
00:38:53,113 --> 00:38:55,420
sayin', "Yo' name is Bert?"

608
00:38:55,550 --> 00:38:57,813
And makin' fun of us.

609
00:38:57,944 --> 00:39:00,250
Had you been in a fight
in school with these boys,

610
00:39:00,381 --> 00:39:03,166
or any of these boys
who were on the road?

611
00:39:03,297 --> 00:39:04,690
I had one that day, is all.

612
00:39:04,820 --> 00:39:06,213
-You had a fight that day?
-Yes, sir.

613
00:39:08,171 --> 00:39:10,391
A boy hit me. He wanted
to jump me in the bathroom.

614
00:39:10,522 --> 00:39:13,263
Were these some of
the same boys?

615
00:39:13,394 --> 00:39:17,703
Yes, sir. Herman Landry
and Wayne Scarabin,
they were in there.

616
00:39:17,833 --> 00:39:19,792
Gary said, "What's wrong,
Bert?"

617
00:39:19,922 --> 00:39:23,273
And I said, "These boys.
They want to fight."

618
00:39:23,404 --> 00:39:26,059
He said, "Why do all y'all
want to fight, boy?"

619
00:39:26,189 --> 00:39:29,149
And Herman Landry said,
"We just want to know
his name."

620
00:39:29,279 --> 00:39:32,674
And Gary said, "Well, best
ought for you
just to go on home."

621
00:39:32,805 --> 00:39:34,589
And he touch him
on the elbow right there.

622
00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:36,243
[Sobol]
Touched him on the elbow?

623
00:39:36,374 --> 00:39:39,333
[Bert] We got in the car
and pulled off.

624
00:39:39,464 --> 00:39:43,206
And Herman Landry said,
"My people can put you in jail
for that."

625
00:39:43,337 --> 00:39:45,861
-[courtroom spectators
chattering]
-[gavel banging]

626
00:39:45,992 --> 00:39:47,341
[Sobol] Did it look to you
like Landry had been hurt?

627
00:39:47,472 --> 00:39:49,604
[Bert] No, sir.

628
00:39:49,735 --> 00:39:52,041
[Sobol] Did it look to you
as though Gary was trying to
hit him?

629
00:39:52,172 --> 00:39:54,348
No.

630
00:39:54,479 --> 00:39:55,131
[prosecutor] Could you see
all of the motions
of his hands?

631
00:39:55,262 --> 00:39:57,873
[Bert] No, sir.

632
00:39:58,004 --> 00:40:01,529
I saw when he touched
him on the arm, that's all.

633
00:40:01,660 --> 00:40:03,662
That's the only time he
raised his hand.

634
00:40:03,792 --> 00:40:06,621
[prosecutor] In other words,
you're sittin' in a car,

635
00:40:06,752 --> 00:40:08,754
and a man has his
back to the car,

636
00:40:08,884 --> 00:40:10,495
and you could see exactly
how he handled himself,

637
00:40:10,625 --> 00:40:12,148
through the man's back?

638
00:40:12,279 --> 00:40:14,673
[Bert] I could see from the
side, yes.

639
00:40:14,803 --> 00:40:16,718
[prosecutor] And you could see
through the man?

640
00:40:16,849 --> 00:40:18,590
[Bert] I could see from the
side of him.

641
00:40:18,720 --> 00:40:20,330
[prosecutor]
I have no further questions.

642
00:40:20,461 --> 00:40:22,985
My mama, she wanted
to speak her mind,

643
00:40:23,116 --> 00:40:24,683
And Mr. Sobol-- I remember
Mr. Sobol sayin',

644
00:40:24,813 --> 00:40:28,034
"Well, I can't put you
on the witness stand."

645
00:40:28,164 --> 00:40:30,036
'Cause she had too
much to say.

646
00:40:30,166 --> 00:40:31,472
[prosecutor] Did you
threaten the four white boys

647
00:40:31,603 --> 00:40:32,299
that were on the side
of the road?

648
00:40:32,430 --> 00:40:34,910
[Gary] No.

649
00:40:35,041 --> 00:40:38,000
[prosecutor] In other words,
those boys were lyin' when
they took the stand?

650
00:40:38,131 --> 00:40:40,525
[Gary] They were lyin' when
they said I threatened them,

651
00:40:40,655 --> 00:40:43,571
and that I was meanin' to hurt
the boy when I touched him
on the arm.

652
00:40:43,702 --> 00:40:46,008
If I wanted to hurt him,
I could have hurt him.

653
00:40:46,139 --> 00:40:48,533
[prosecutor] Uh-huh. And did
he consent to your touchin'
him on the arm?

654
00:40:48,663 --> 00:40:51,231
[Gary] Did he consent?

655
00:40:51,361 --> 00:40:52,188
[prosecutor] Did he say, "Go
ahead and hit me?"

656
00:40:52,319 --> 00:40:53,668
[Gary] No.

657
00:40:55,453 --> 00:40:56,758
[prosecutor] And did you have
contact with him in any way?

658
00:40:56,889 --> 00:40:58,325
[Gary]
Yes, I had contact with him.

659
00:40:58,456 --> 00:41:01,110
I touched him with my hand.

660
00:41:01,241 --> 00:41:02,982
[spectators chatter]

661
00:41:03,112 --> 00:41:06,899
I think I made a pretty
good case of...

662
00:41:07,029 --> 00:41:09,031
why they hadn't carried
their burden of proof.

663
00:41:10,163 --> 00:41:12,513
But Judge Leon had his,
uh, instructions,

664
00:41:12,644 --> 00:41:14,428
and he wasn't gonna
mess with Perez.

665
00:41:14,559 --> 00:41:17,910
And we lost the case.
We lost the case.

666
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,434
It was all fixed.

667
00:41:20,565 --> 00:41:23,132
And so, I was just surprised--
I don't know,
it's kind of silly.

668
00:41:23,263 --> 00:41:24,743
I was...

669
00:41:27,789 --> 00:41:29,965
I had a little bit of
surprise about it,

670
00:41:30,096 --> 00:41:32,751
although when I stopped to
think, "What the hell
did I expect?"

671
00:41:32,881 --> 00:41:34,796
[blues music playing]

672
00:41:34,927 --> 00:41:37,451
[Gary] I felt like I coulda
just went through the floor.

673
00:41:37,582 --> 00:41:40,410
You know? I mean... I would...

674
00:41:40,541 --> 00:41:43,457
You know, I--

675
00:41:43,588 --> 00:41:44,371
I don't know how I felt...

676
00:41:46,504 --> 00:41:47,374
because...

677
00:41:50,943 --> 00:41:52,597
And I looked around, and...

678
00:41:56,514 --> 00:41:58,951
I seen...

679
00:42:06,132 --> 00:42:08,264
I was seein' my mom, and my
sisters, and everybody cryin'.

680
00:42:12,617 --> 00:42:14,793
It was cryin', and uh...

681
00:42:16,229 --> 00:42:18,013
I just felt like
I was goin' through the floor

682
00:42:18,144 --> 00:42:19,928
in that courthouse, you know?
I said, damn. Yeah.

683
00:42:22,365 --> 00:42:24,106
Oh, God, you know,
I'm just not--

684
00:42:24,237 --> 00:42:26,456
You know, what am I
gon' do now, you know?

685
00:42:26,587 --> 00:42:28,720
Mister Sobol, uh--

686
00:42:28,850 --> 00:42:29,982
He told me, he said, uh,

687
00:42:30,112 --> 00:42:32,071
"Don't worry about it,"
he say.

688
00:42:33,028 --> 00:42:36,684
"We gonna, uh, we gonna get
you outta here," he said.

689
00:42:36,815 --> 00:42:38,860
"I got everything.
We gonna appeal it."

690
00:42:38,991 --> 00:42:41,863
[Lolis Eric Elie] Merely being
Black in this country

691
00:42:41,994 --> 00:42:43,517
is a political act.

692
00:42:43,648 --> 00:42:46,520
Walking down the street
as a Black person

693
00:42:46,651 --> 00:42:49,958
subjects you to a kind of
political scrutiny

694
00:42:50,089 --> 00:42:54,528
that has nothing to do with
your mission of going to buy a
loaf of bread,

695
00:42:54,659 --> 00:42:57,313
or even, for that matter,
going to rob a liquor store.

696
00:42:57,444 --> 00:43:00,447
Whatever it is you're doing
has a kind of racial politics
embedded in it.

697
00:43:02,580 --> 00:43:05,757
And to understand what Gary
Duncan did in the absence
of race,

698
00:43:05,887 --> 00:43:10,675
in the absence of an
understanding of the civil
rights movement of that era,

699
00:43:10,805 --> 00:43:15,331
is to fundamentally
misinterpret the nature of his
arrest and trial.

700
00:43:15,462 --> 00:43:19,553
The reason Gary Duncan is such
an exceptional human being

701
00:43:19,684 --> 00:43:22,512
is that his position was,
"I have done nothing wrong,

702
00:43:22,643 --> 00:43:25,211
yet I have been arrested
and tried for it."

703
00:43:26,429 --> 00:43:28,736
And there is, of course, the
shame of this Land of the Free

704
00:43:28,867 --> 00:43:31,652
boasting the largest prison
population on the planet,

705
00:43:31,783 --> 00:43:34,568
of which the descendants
of the enslaved

706
00:43:34,699 --> 00:43:35,961
make up the largest share."

707
00:43:38,311 --> 00:43:42,837
There were a whole lot more
people who were not like
Gary Duncan

708
00:43:42,968 --> 00:43:45,710
than there were people
who were like him.

709
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:47,929
And that's why this case
is so crucial.

710
00:43:48,060 --> 00:43:50,323
The question: What happens
when someone
actually stands forward

711
00:43:50,453 --> 00:43:51,759
to assert these rights?

712
00:43:52,978 --> 00:43:56,372
And Leander Perez's example
is that, well, when that
happens,

713
00:43:56,503 --> 00:43:59,245
we remind them that those
rights do not pertain to him.

714
00:44:00,768 --> 00:44:02,378
And Richard Sobol, of course,
was saying, "Yes, they do."

715
00:44:04,467 --> 00:44:06,687
According to the Constitution
and the Amendments

716
00:44:06,818 --> 00:44:09,255
and the recently-passed
Civil Rights Act,

717
00:44:09,385 --> 00:44:10,430
they do indeed pertain
as much to Gary Duncan

718
00:44:12,084 --> 00:44:14,739
as to anybody else in the
United States of America.

719
00:44:14,869 --> 00:44:18,917
[Sobol] The judge would
sentence Duncan to prison.

720
00:44:19,047 --> 00:44:21,833
Actually, 60 days in prison,
um, and a fine.

721
00:44:21,963 --> 00:44:26,272
I was intent on appealing,
particularly on the jury
issue.

722
00:44:26,402 --> 00:44:30,755
He presented the case
to the state of Louisiana,

723
00:44:30,885 --> 00:44:32,931
Supreme Court, and
they refused it.

724
00:44:33,061 --> 00:44:34,759
[Sobol] Each time we lost
a round of the case,

725
00:44:34,889 --> 00:44:37,587
the motions, the trial,
the appeal,

726
00:44:37,718 --> 00:44:41,026
Duncan was rearrested,
put in prison overnight.

727
00:44:41,156 --> 00:44:43,158
And each time, I had to go
down and get an order

728
00:44:43,289 --> 00:44:45,639
to get him out of prison
while the case was pending.

729
00:44:47,249 --> 00:44:50,949
I had come to the courthouse
in Plaquemines Parish,

730
00:44:51,079 --> 00:44:54,604
to get the bond that was
already in effect extended.

731
00:44:54,735 --> 00:44:56,955
I called Judge Leon first.

732
00:44:57,085 --> 00:45:00,828
I said, "Judge Leon,
I want to present to you

733
00:45:00,959 --> 00:45:03,657
an order for a stay
pending appeal."

734
00:45:04,832 --> 00:45:06,747
And I said, "When can I come?"

735
00:45:06,878 --> 00:45:09,837
He said, "Well, how 'bout
in two hours?"

736
00:45:09,968 --> 00:45:13,667
He was waiting for me.
He said, "What do you
want me to sign?"

737
00:45:13,798 --> 00:45:17,018
I gave him the piece of paper,
he looked at it, he signed it,

738
00:45:17,149 --> 00:45:18,628
he said, "There you are."
And so I'm leaving his office,

739
00:45:18,759 --> 00:45:21,370
easy as pie, "Thank you,
judge."

740
00:45:21,501 --> 00:45:24,199
And six steps away,

741
00:45:25,766 --> 00:45:27,812
there's a sheriff there...

742
00:45:29,117 --> 00:45:30,815
and behind him was
Leander Perez.

743
00:45:32,555 --> 00:45:34,122
To make sure
the sheriff did the job.

744
00:45:35,558 --> 00:45:39,954
They asked me if I was Sobol,
and I said yes.

745
00:45:40,085 --> 00:45:42,000
And he said,
"You're under arrest."

746
00:45:43,871 --> 00:45:46,439
And I was mystified. I didn't
know what in the world--

747
00:45:46,569 --> 00:45:49,659
I'd been in the court, I'd
gotten stays millions of
times.

748
00:45:49,790 --> 00:45:52,401
Why are they arresting me?

749
00:45:52,532 --> 00:45:54,360
I don't know if it was 2:00 or
3:00 o'clock in the day,

750
00:45:54,490 --> 00:45:56,710
and they asked, "What y'all--
What's wrong with your--"

751
00:45:56,841 --> 00:45:58,581
He said, "We're waitin'." I'm
waitin' for my lawyer.
I gotta see my--

752
00:45:58,712 --> 00:46:01,671
He said, "Man, your lawyer
locked up in jail back there!"

753
00:46:02,847 --> 00:46:05,763
I was afraid 'cause I, uh...

754
00:46:09,157 --> 00:46:10,855
I didn't want to be in a
jail overnight.

755
00:46:10,985 --> 00:46:15,337
They put him in jail.
They put him in jail.

756
00:46:15,468 --> 00:46:19,080
For practicing law
without a license.

757
00:46:19,211 --> 00:46:21,517
[Sobol] I was in the jail
with the white prisoners,

758
00:46:21,648 --> 00:46:24,259
and some guy started telling
me the story about
another LCDC lawyer--

759
00:46:24,390 --> 00:46:26,087
I knew this LCDC lawyer--

760
00:46:26,218 --> 00:46:28,960
in Alabama, who had been
arrested for the same reason.

761
00:46:30,788 --> 00:46:32,746
I got one phone call, and I
made it to my colleagues
in New Orleans,

762
00:46:32,877 --> 00:46:36,010
and before I knew it,
there was Juno.

763
00:46:36,141 --> 00:46:37,490
Big as life.

764
00:46:37,795 --> 00:46:40,667
[Gary] Juno came down.

765
00:46:40,798 --> 00:46:42,712
And he raised some hell
up in that--

766
00:46:42,843 --> 00:46:44,236
You could hear him hollerin'
all through that--

767
00:46:44,366 --> 00:46:46,499
the courthouse, man,
you know, he say,

768
00:46:46,629 --> 00:46:48,240
"We gonna sue every
damn body in here,

769
00:46:48,370 --> 00:46:50,546
from the trusty on up."

770
00:46:50,677 --> 00:46:55,290
I'm in front of the
Plaquemines Parish Jailhouse,

771
00:46:55,421 --> 00:46:57,989
it's gettin' dark, and I said,
"Look, if you'll bend down

772
00:46:58,119 --> 00:47:03,342
and look under the car, and
see that there's
no devices visible..."

773
00:47:03,472 --> 00:47:05,735
They didn't take my belt.
As I recall,
they took his belt away

774
00:47:05,866 --> 00:47:08,347
when they put him in jail,
which is standard procedure
with prisoners.

775
00:47:08,477 --> 00:47:10,044
they didn't take my belt away.

776
00:47:10,175 --> 00:47:11,741
And the thing is,
I was never scared.

777
00:47:13,308 --> 00:47:14,962
I just-- If it was Plaquemines
Parish, I might have been
scared.

778
00:47:15,093 --> 00:47:18,574
Because if I went anywhere,
somebody in the office

779
00:47:18,705 --> 00:47:20,750
always knew where I was.

780
00:47:20,881 --> 00:47:25,364
And the rule was,
if somebody--

781
00:47:25,494 --> 00:47:27,496
and this dates back
to the killing

782
00:47:27,627 --> 00:47:29,977
of the three civil rights
workers in Neshoba County--

783
00:47:30,108 --> 00:47:31,892
but the rule was, if you
didn't know where somebody
was,

784
00:47:32,023 --> 00:47:35,374
and they didn't turn up
for say, an hour,

785
00:47:35,504 --> 00:47:37,071
you called the FBI right away.

786
00:47:37,202 --> 00:47:39,595
It showed how
dangerous it was.

787
00:47:40,335 --> 00:47:43,164
I drove to Neshoba County
a few times,

788
00:47:43,295 --> 00:47:46,733
and I remember knowing,
and being told

789
00:47:46,864 --> 00:47:50,737
that from the moment
I entered the county

790
00:47:50,868 --> 00:47:53,566
till the time I left, the
police and the sheriffs
also knew

791
00:47:53,696 --> 00:47:55,916
exactly where I was, who I
was, and what I was doing.

792
00:47:59,137 --> 00:48:03,793
We came to this country
after a series of escapes.

793
00:48:03,924 --> 00:48:06,666
My mother and father
escaped from Poland

794
00:48:06,796 --> 00:48:09,887
to France in the 1930s
on forged Swedish passports,

795
00:48:10,017 --> 00:48:14,804
and then we left Paris
the night that Hitler came in.

796
00:48:14,935 --> 00:48:17,111
We escaped on the last train
out of Paris.

797
00:48:17,242 --> 00:48:19,766
And I remember asking
my mother one time

798
00:48:19,897 --> 00:48:21,333
while I was in Mississippi,
to say,

799
00:48:21,463 --> 00:48:25,163
"Well, Ma, when you were
escaping across Europe,

800
00:48:25,293 --> 00:48:27,208
were you scared?"

801
00:48:27,339 --> 00:48:31,430
She said, "Scared?
Every minute of every day!

802
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:33,432
But what difference
does that make?

803
00:48:33,562 --> 00:48:35,260
You don't have a choice."

804
00:48:35,390 --> 00:48:37,392
I guess I theoretically
had a choice.

805
00:48:38,741 --> 00:48:41,657
In the most turbulent times--
not always--

806
00:48:41,788 --> 00:48:44,834
we went with a convoy
of three vehicles:

807
00:48:44,965 --> 00:48:48,403
a car in front, with guns,

808
00:48:48,534 --> 00:48:49,883
me in the middle,

809
00:48:50,014 --> 00:48:52,059
and a car behind us with guns.

810
00:48:53,931 --> 00:48:55,976
Because we knew
there was a chance

811
00:48:56,107 --> 00:49:00,807
that there'd be guns waiting
for us somewhere
along the way.

812
00:49:00,938 --> 00:49:02,374
Yeah, I think I did a
wonderful thing.

813
00:49:04,419 --> 00:49:06,073
I really-- I'm proud, and
happy, and it's a high point
of my life.

814
00:49:06,204 --> 00:49:08,510
But it's not so courageous.

815
00:49:08,641 --> 00:49:12,123
We were outsiders,
and so it was easy enough

816
00:49:12,253 --> 00:49:14,038
'cause you know, I could have
gotten on a plane any time,
and moved.

817
00:49:14,168 --> 00:49:19,521
Even if I felt shielded
from some of the risks,

818
00:49:19,652 --> 00:49:21,959
I knew that was not true
of the people...

819
00:49:23,961 --> 00:49:26,093
of the people who lived there,
especially Black,
but also white.

820
00:49:26,224 --> 00:49:29,053
The people with whom
and for whom we worked,

821
00:49:29,183 --> 00:49:30,750
they took real risks.

822
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:35,668
[jazz music playing]

823
00:49:35,798 --> 00:49:38,192
[Robert Collins] My father
used to tell a story
of the case

824
00:49:38,323 --> 00:49:41,326
that he was handling with his
law partner, Lolis Elie,

825
00:49:41,456 --> 00:49:42,153
over in rural Alabama.,

826
00:49:43,806 --> 00:49:46,113
They were driving
back to New Orleans.

827
00:49:46,244 --> 00:49:49,203
The car started to overheat
on the road.

828
00:49:49,334 --> 00:49:52,206
Dad said, "We probably should
pull over into a gas station

829
00:49:52,337 --> 00:49:53,816
and see if we can
get some help."

830
00:49:53,947 --> 00:49:56,602
Lolis said,
"Bob, after we won that case,

831
00:49:56,732 --> 00:49:58,647
the people over there
look so angry at us,

832
00:49:58,778 --> 00:50:01,041
I think it's really dangerous
to try and pull over.

833
00:50:01,172 --> 00:50:02,564
I think people are
following us.

834
00:50:02,695 --> 00:50:04,827
We're just gonna
take our chances

835
00:50:04,958 --> 00:50:07,569
and drive all the way home
to Louisiana in the
overheated car."

836
00:50:09,571 --> 00:50:10,529
[jazz music playing]

837
00:50:12,487 --> 00:50:14,707
[Collins] It was very
dangerous.
Every civil rights lawyer

838
00:50:14,837 --> 00:50:16,970
practicing in the South
during those days

839
00:50:17,101 --> 00:50:19,059
was at risk, white or Black.

840
00:50:19,190 --> 00:50:20,887
Even if you're a white lawyer,

841
00:50:21,018 --> 00:50:23,150
once you walk into a courtroom
with a Black lawyer,

842
00:50:23,281 --> 00:50:27,067
you're going to be seen as a
troublemaker just like them.

843
00:50:31,115 --> 00:50:33,117
[Lolis Eric Elie] A friend of
mine, he asked my father,

844
00:50:33,247 --> 00:50:34,727
"Well, you know,
if the police arrest you,

845
00:50:34,857 --> 00:50:37,251
what should you say,
what should you do?"

846
00:50:37,382 --> 00:50:40,602
My father said,
"You should say,
'Yes, sir, officer.'"

847
00:50:40,733 --> 00:50:43,301
They meant it as kind of a
joke, but the underlying truth
was there,

848
00:50:43,431 --> 00:50:47,653
which is that, in the context
of that interaction with a
police officer,

849
00:50:47,783 --> 00:50:49,959
you have no civil rights.

850
00:50:50,090 --> 00:50:53,398
Your best bet is to submit
in that circumstance,

851
00:50:53,528 --> 00:50:54,834
and attempt to fight it later,
where you can then
call a lawyer.

852
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:03,277
My father would often refer to
the lesson from the
Dred Scott case,

853
00:51:03,408 --> 00:51:05,410
which is, "A Black man
has no rights

854
00:51:05,540 --> 00:51:07,890
that a white man
is bound to respect."

855
00:51:08,021 --> 00:51:10,545
It does not say that
a Black man has no rights,

856
00:51:10,676 --> 00:51:14,158
it says that a Black man has
no rights that a white man is
bound to respect.

857
00:51:16,247 --> 00:51:18,858
It has now become
somewhat fashionable

858
00:51:18,988 --> 00:51:21,991
for Black men to talk about
having "The Talk"
with their sons,

859
00:51:22,122 --> 00:51:25,430
or having had The Talk
with their fathers.

860
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,476
I never remember
having "The Talk."

861
00:51:28,607 --> 00:51:31,871
We were having that
talk all the time.

862
00:51:32,001 --> 00:51:33,699
It was the atmosphere.

863
00:51:33,829 --> 00:51:35,918
How often do you talk to your
parents about humidity?

864
00:51:36,049 --> 00:51:37,746
Well, it's always there.

865
00:51:46,494 --> 00:51:49,367
[Sobol] I could tell you every
dirty little thing they did,

866
00:51:49,497 --> 00:51:54,372
but each time, it wound up
with Gary going to jail.

867
00:52:00,247 --> 00:52:01,901
[Gary] I was working offshore.

868
00:52:02,728 --> 00:52:04,686
[Randy Newman]
♪ What has happened
down here ♪

869
00:52:04,860 --> 00:52:06,601
♪ The wind has changed ♪

870
00:52:06,732 --> 00:52:09,169
[Gary] And they call our
Danny, told him to send me in.

871
00:52:09,343 --> 00:52:12,651
♪ Clouds roll in from the
North And it started to rain ♪

872
00:52:14,479 --> 00:52:16,742
[Gary]
They're, uh...

873
00:52:16,916 --> 00:52:19,005
♪ It rained real hard. It
rained for a real long time ♪

874
00:52:19,136 --> 00:52:21,790
They said, uh...

875
00:52:23,618 --> 00:52:24,880
♪ Six feet of water
in the streets of Evangeline ♪

876
00:52:28,188 --> 00:52:30,059
that they was comin'
to take me to jail.

877
00:52:30,190 --> 00:52:32,975
So... I said well,

878
00:52:34,934 --> 00:52:36,240
I'm not goin' to jail.

879
00:52:36,370 --> 00:52:38,067
I'm tired.

880
00:52:38,198 --> 00:52:39,068
So, uh...

881
00:52:40,418 --> 00:52:42,637
we're opening up the can.

882
00:52:44,117 --> 00:52:48,469
They came there 'bout an hour
later, and Calvin said,
"Well, he's inside."

883
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:50,950
They said, "Well, we come
to take him to jail."

884
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:53,866
"He say he not goin' to jail,
so y'all have to wait,

885
00:52:53,996 --> 00:52:55,302
but y'all not comin'
in my house."

886
00:52:55,433 --> 00:52:58,392
The Sheriff Department kep'
callin'.

887
00:52:58,523 --> 00:53:01,178
"Hey, where that nigger's at?
Where that nigger is at?"

888
00:53:01,308 --> 00:53:02,744
So...

889
00:53:02,918 --> 00:53:06,008
♪ They're tryin' to
wash us away ♪

890
00:53:07,575 --> 00:53:09,577
That night I... gave up.

891
00:53:09,708 --> 00:53:11,927
I said, Well, you know,
I'm not going--
I was ready to die.

892
00:53:13,799 --> 00:53:15,801
I want to say, "Well,
y'all not gon' handcuff me."

893
00:53:15,931 --> 00:53:17,194
I got in the car.

894
00:53:18,934 --> 00:53:20,153
Got out of the car, and, uh,
Wilbur and them just said...

895
00:53:21,981 --> 00:53:24,331
"Man," he say, "I don't know
what they gonna do to you."

896
00:53:24,462 --> 00:53:26,290
He said, "We never experienced
nothin' like this."

897
00:53:26,420 --> 00:53:28,074
He said, "We've took people
that have killed people,

898
00:53:28,205 --> 00:53:29,989
and they never did this."

899
00:53:32,557 --> 00:53:37,126
They was holdin' the ferry up.
It was in the
early mornin', now.

900
00:53:37,257 --> 00:53:38,476
'Bout 3:00 in the mornin'.

901
00:53:39,346 --> 00:53:41,174
And, uh,

902
00:53:41,305 --> 00:53:44,046
had the ferry runnin' just to
take me across the river.

903
00:53:44,177 --> 00:53:46,310
So when we get across the
river, the deal was,

904
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:49,400
I was gonna get out of
F.J. and Wilbur's car

905
00:53:49,530 --> 00:53:51,706
and get in with the warden.

906
00:53:51,837 --> 00:53:53,186
Wilbur say, "I don't know
what they gonna do with you,"

907
00:53:53,317 --> 00:53:55,710
he said, "but we gonna
lock you up."

908
00:53:55,841 --> 00:53:58,017
He said, "I know we gon' lock
you, but after that,
I'm not responsible."

909
00:53:59,932 --> 00:54:02,935
I really figured their
intention was onto killin' me.

910
00:54:03,065 --> 00:54:06,286
I said, well, hey, to myself,
I say if somethin'
gonna happen,

911
00:54:06,417 --> 00:54:08,810
I'm gonna die
defending myself.

912
00:54:10,899 --> 00:54:13,119
♪ Louisiana ♪

913
00:54:14,425 --> 00:54:15,817
[John F. Kennedy] Your
children can't have the chance

914
00:54:15,948 --> 00:54:18,037
to develop whatever
talents they have.

915
00:54:18,167 --> 00:54:19,517
The only way that they're
going to get their rights

916
00:54:19,647 --> 00:54:21,606
is to go in the street
and demonstrate.

917
00:54:24,957 --> 00:54:26,219
♪ Louisiana ♪

918
00:54:27,002 --> 00:54:30,876
[girl] They'll have to kill
me. I'll die for my freedom.

919
00:54:31,442 --> 00:54:34,140
♪ They're tryin' to
wash us away ♪

920
00:54:35,881 --> 00:54:37,317
♪ Louisiana ♪

921
00:54:38,318 --> 00:54:41,582
♪ Louisiana ♪

922
00:54:43,802 --> 00:54:45,804
[Lolis Eric Elie] Claude McKay
wrote: "If we must die,

923
00:54:45,934 --> 00:54:49,198
let it not be like hogs
pinned in an inglorious spot."

924
00:54:50,678 --> 00:54:52,898
In other words,
we're gonna fight like men.

925
00:54:53,942 --> 00:54:56,597
♪ They're tryin' to
wash us away ♪

926
00:55:04,170 --> 00:55:06,085
[Derfner] We all think, well,
you have a right to a
trial by jury.

927
00:55:08,348 --> 00:55:11,569
The Bill of Rights gives you
a right to a jury trial,

928
00:55:11,699 --> 00:55:13,266
but for many years,

929
00:55:13,397 --> 00:55:16,182
that only applied
to the Federal Government,

930
00:55:16,313 --> 00:55:18,532
and it didn't apply
to the States.

931
00:55:18,663 --> 00:55:21,056
I could never quite
understand, myself,

932
00:55:21,187 --> 00:55:23,494
why applying the
Bill of Rights,

933
00:55:23,624 --> 00:55:26,497
which we think is our
fundamental American liberty--

934
00:55:26,627 --> 00:55:30,109
why applying it to the States
is such a crazy idea.

935
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:32,764
I mean, it seems to me that
the opposite
is the crazy idea.

936
00:55:32,894 --> 00:55:36,420
We have 51 legal systems
in this country.

937
00:55:36,550 --> 00:55:39,640
There's one legal system
for Federal courts,

938
00:55:39,771 --> 00:55:42,164
and there's 50 separate legal
systems for the State courts.

939
00:55:42,295 --> 00:55:46,778
Only lawyers and judges could
figure out some way
to make that logical.

940
00:55:46,908 --> 00:55:48,954
You still read in Supreme
Court cases today,

941
00:55:50,608 --> 00:55:53,480
"Oh, this is trenching
on the states' prerogatives."

942
00:55:53,611 --> 00:55:55,656
You know, the states'
prerogatives, states' rights.

943
00:55:55,787 --> 00:55:58,050
We, more than, I think, any
other country in the world,

944
00:55:59,704 --> 00:56:02,271
have decided that
that the states

945
00:56:02,402 --> 00:56:06,667
retain some great autonomy
or power--

946
00:56:06,798 --> 00:56:08,452
"States' rights," you know?

947
00:56:08,582 --> 00:56:10,671
States' rights has usually
been, in our history,

948
00:56:10,802 --> 00:56:13,935
a cover for states
doing bad things.

949
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:16,764
Taking the right to
jury trial,

950
00:56:16,895 --> 00:56:21,160
until the Gary Duncan case
came along,

951
00:56:21,290 --> 00:56:25,599
the rule was, if you're
charged in a federal court,

952
00:56:25,730 --> 00:56:27,819
you have a right to
a jury trial,

953
00:56:27,949 --> 00:56:29,560
and if you're charged in a
state court, you do
or you don't

954
00:56:29,690 --> 00:56:31,344
depending on whatever the
state wants to do,

955
00:56:31,475 --> 00:56:34,695
all because of
the idiot notion we have

956
00:56:34,826 --> 00:56:36,567
that the states are one world

957
00:56:36,697 --> 00:56:39,221
and the federal government
is some different planet.

958
00:56:40,571 --> 00:56:42,399
[Sobol] And then it went to
Supreme Court.

959
00:56:42,529 --> 00:56:44,836
They're very strict about it.

960
00:56:44,966 --> 00:56:46,315
The don't want to be just a
regular appellate court.

961
00:56:46,446 --> 00:56:48,492
They're the final court.

962
00:56:50,407 --> 00:56:54,149
And so, I was expecting it
would take a long time,
actually.

963
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:57,849
But to my surprise,
they granted it quickly.

964
00:56:57,979 --> 00:56:59,807
I went to the Supreme Court
Library in New Orleans,

965
00:56:59,938 --> 00:57:03,463
which was a place I liked to
go a lot because it was quiet,

966
00:57:03,594 --> 00:57:06,335
and I worked on that
almost constantly.

967
00:57:06,466 --> 00:57:10,165
[Dixieland jazz music playing]

968
00:57:16,650 --> 00:57:19,697
[Sobol] I wrote my head off,
and so did others,

969
00:57:19,827 --> 00:57:21,133
mostly Nils Douglas.

970
00:57:21,263 --> 00:57:23,222
We would talk late
into the night

971
00:57:23,352 --> 00:57:26,573
in the bar of a Black
hotel nearby.

972
00:57:26,704 --> 00:57:31,491
We were, like in the trenches,
is how we felt.

973
00:57:31,622 --> 00:57:33,493
I used to run with Nils. We
were both runners
at the time,

974
00:57:33,624 --> 00:57:38,106
and we'd run together
to his house.

975
00:57:38,237 --> 00:57:39,543
We'd run next to each other.

976
00:57:39,673 --> 00:57:41,719
And we'd talk, going out.

977
00:57:41,849 --> 00:57:43,547
And we got to his house,
he'd say, "Come on.

978
00:57:43,677 --> 00:57:47,420
Come on in, Bessie's going
to want to feed you."

979
00:57:47,551 --> 00:57:51,424
First time I ever flew in
a plane, a jet!

980
00:57:51,555 --> 00:57:54,862
First time I ever left out
of the State of Louisiana.

981
00:57:54,993 --> 00:57:56,516
So...

982
00:57:56,647 --> 00:57:59,127
Me and my wife--
I felt pretty good, you know?

983
00:57:59,258 --> 00:58:02,000
And I met Mr. Sobol and his
wife, and his two kids,

984
00:58:02,130 --> 00:58:03,784
and we went to the
Supreme Court,

985
00:58:03,915 --> 00:58:05,699
and that was very interesting,

986
00:58:05,830 --> 00:58:10,269
seein' the nine justices,
you know?

987
00:58:10,399 --> 00:58:14,012
[Derfner] In the Gary Duncan
case, Sobol was arguing

988
00:58:14,142 --> 00:58:18,712
that the right to a jury trial
applies to cases
in state court

989
00:58:18,843 --> 00:58:20,758
just as much as it does
in federal court.

990
00:58:20,888 --> 00:58:23,064
And that was revolutionary,
believe it or not.

991
00:58:23,804 --> 00:58:26,894
[Chief Justice Earl Warren]
Number 410.

992
00:58:27,025 --> 00:58:30,376
Gary Duncan, appellant,
versus Louisiana.

993
00:58:32,944 --> 00:58:34,728
Mr. Sobol?

994
00:58:34,859 --> 00:58:37,426
I was, uh, 29.

995
00:58:40,952 --> 00:58:44,085
[Sobol] Mr. Chief Justice,
and may it please the court,

996
00:58:44,216 --> 00:58:47,001
this case is here on appeal
from the Supreme Court of
Louisiana,

997
00:58:48,786 --> 00:58:50,439
and it raises the issue that
was to a large extent assumed

998
00:58:50,570 --> 00:58:54,400
in the case
immediately preceding--

999
00:58:54,531 --> 00:58:58,317
namely, whether the Due
Process Clause
of the 14th Amendment

1000
00:58:58,447 --> 00:59:01,625
secures the right to trial by
jury in state criminal
proceedings.

1001
00:59:01,755 --> 00:59:05,106
That category includes
such serious crimes

1002
00:59:05,237 --> 00:59:07,892
as aggravated battery
resulting from a breach
of the peace,

1003
00:59:08,022 --> 00:59:10,285
which is punishable
by 10 years,

1004
00:59:10,416 --> 00:59:12,636
simple battery, the crime in
this case, punishable
by two years,

1005
00:59:12,766 --> 00:59:16,161
and aggravated assault,
punishable by two years.

1006
00:59:16,291 --> 00:59:18,903
[Earl Warren] What did you say
about ten years?

1007
00:59:19,033 --> 00:59:20,905
Is it possible it
would be possible

1008
00:59:21,035 --> 00:59:26,780
to send a man to jail for ten
years without a jury trial?

1009
00:59:26,911 --> 00:59:30,175
Yes, sir. There was no right
to trial by jury under
Louisiana law

1010
00:59:30,305 --> 00:59:31,132
on the charge against
the appellant.

1011
00:59:31,263 --> 00:59:32,569
But notwithstanding...

1012
00:59:32,699 --> 00:59:34,092
It was a friendly
Supreme Court.

1013
00:59:35,223 --> 00:59:36,921
And, uh...

1014
00:59:37,051 --> 00:59:40,359
not that I think Fortas would
give us any break,

1015
00:59:40,489 --> 00:59:44,145
but the Supreme Court
had been recognizing

1016
00:59:44,276 --> 00:59:47,018
one of these rights
after another.

1017
00:59:47,148 --> 00:59:50,804
There was a period there that
we didn't, uh--

1018
00:59:50,935 --> 00:59:53,677
"we," I mean the civil
rights advocates,

1019
00:59:53,807 --> 00:59:55,766
didn't lose a single case.

1020
00:59:58,246 --> 01:00:01,467
[Dorothy Wolbrette] The test
under due process is
whether a jury

1021
01:00:01,598 --> 01:00:05,123
is essential to a fair trial.

1022
01:00:05,253 --> 01:00:08,822
Contrary to appellants'
arguments, recent decisions
of this court--

1023
01:00:08,953 --> 01:00:11,956
[Warren] What kind
of trials would that be,
Miss Wolbrette?

1024
01:00:14,088 --> 01:00:17,222
For a jury trial
that's essential to a fair
trial?

1025
01:00:19,093 --> 01:00:20,834
[Dorothy Wolbrette] What kind
of trial would it be?
Oh, it's--

1026
01:00:20,965 --> 01:00:23,663
[Warren] You say it's only--
it's only applicable to...

1027
01:00:23,794 --> 01:00:28,276
to, uh... to cases where a
fair trial would be...
would, uh...

1028
01:00:28,407 --> 01:00:30,278
-[Wolbrette] No, no, no, I'm
saying--
-...require a jury.

1029
01:00:30,409 --> 01:00:32,933
No, sir, I'm saying that the
only test under due process

1030
01:00:33,064 --> 01:00:37,982
is whether, uh, a jury trial
is essential to a fair trial.

1031
01:00:38,112 --> 01:00:38,896
[Warren] When would that be?

1032
01:00:41,420 --> 01:00:43,335
[Wolbrette] Oh, it-- you mean
in-- in any--

1033
01:00:43,465 --> 01:00:45,859
I-I don't think it would be
necessary in any case,

1034
01:00:45,990 --> 01:00:48,166
as far as a fair trial
is concerned.

1035
01:00:48,296 --> 01:00:52,257
I believe that a judge
certainly can try any
defendant fairly.

1036
01:00:52,387 --> 01:00:56,783
There is no rational basis for
declaring that a judge cannot
dispense justice

1037
01:00:56,914 --> 01:01:01,048
with the same fairness
and impartiality

1038
01:01:01,179 --> 01:01:05,531
which could be expected of a
jury acting under a judge's
instructions,

1039
01:01:05,662 --> 01:01:07,751
both as to the law
and the facts...

1040
01:01:07,881 --> 01:01:10,144
-Certainly it cannot be--
-[Stewart] We're not talking
about...

1041
01:01:10,275 --> 01:01:15,454
dispensing justice as a
generality, we're talking
about the particular

1042
01:01:15,584 --> 01:01:18,544
function that a jury has in
finding the facts

1043
01:01:18,675 --> 01:01:22,940
that 12 of a defendant's peers

1044
01:01:23,070 --> 01:01:27,553
are perhaps better equipped
as fact finders than a
single judge.

1045
01:01:27,684 --> 01:01:29,686
[Fortas] Isn't there something
in the Magna Carta
about juries?

1046
01:01:29,816 --> 01:01:32,471
[Wolbrette laughs]
Your Honor,

1047
01:01:32,601 --> 01:01:37,215
Magna Carta did not guarantee
jury trial to anybody.

1048
01:01:37,345 --> 01:01:38,956
-[Fortas] I think I
have a very--

1049
01:01:39,086 --> 01:01:41,262
pretty-pretty good idea
what the Magna Carta says.

1050
01:01:41,393 --> 01:01:43,961
-[Wolbrette] The English
tradition of the general right
of jury trial...

1051
01:01:44,091 --> 01:01:47,442
[Fortas] Yes, ma'am, that does
indicate that at least there
were some old fellas,

1052
01:01:47,573 --> 01:01:50,794
uh, in the 13th century
who thought that the jury

1053
01:01:50,924 --> 01:01:52,317
was an important institution
in a man's search for freedom
and fairness--

1054
01:01:52,447 --> 01:01:54,798
[Wolbrette] It's valuable!
We don't deny!

1055
01:01:54,928 --> 01:01:56,974
They just laughed.

1056
01:01:57,104 --> 01:01:59,977
Laughed them and Perez
right on out of there,
you know?

1057
01:02:00,107 --> 01:02:03,110
It was just the most
remarkable thing, and
people were looking around,

1058
01:02:03,241 --> 01:02:05,156
and I'm looking back at Mike.

1059
01:02:05,286 --> 01:02:09,508
It was a comical moment,
for me certainly,

1060
01:02:09,638 --> 01:02:11,423
and for I think everybody.

1061
01:02:12,250 --> 01:02:13,686
It was kind of tittering.

1062
01:02:16,210 --> 01:02:17,821
[Sobol] We won in the
Supreme Court.

1063
01:02:19,779 --> 01:02:21,868
What's now a very famous
decision called Duncan
against Louisiana

1064
01:02:21,999 --> 01:02:24,697
ruled that the right to trial
by jury does apply
in state courts.

1065
01:02:24,828 --> 01:02:27,526
[Gary] Mr. Sobol
called me on the phone

1066
01:02:27,656 --> 01:02:30,659
and told me about the case,
and that we won the case.

1067
01:02:30,790 --> 01:02:32,966
We had the right for
the six-man jury.

1068
01:02:33,097 --> 01:02:35,752
I feel good about it.
You know?

1069
01:02:35,882 --> 01:02:39,581
I can hold my head up,
stick my chest out. You know?

1070
01:03:17,968 --> 01:03:22,407
Duncan vs.
Louisiana was a case

1071
01:03:22,537 --> 01:03:24,888
that could have come along
anywhere, in any state.

1072
01:03:27,455 --> 01:03:30,458
It was part of a process that
was going on
throughout the country.

1073
01:03:30,589 --> 01:03:33,374
Sobol vs. Perez was...

1074
01:03:35,072 --> 01:03:39,728
a case about bringing the
Constitution to play

1075
01:03:39,859 --> 01:03:42,557
in the Deep South states,

1076
01:03:42,688 --> 01:03:46,431
and in overthrowing complete
white supremacy,

1077
01:03:46,561 --> 01:03:47,911
that sort of thing.

1078
01:03:48,041 --> 01:03:50,000
[Sobol] I filed suit
against Perez

1079
01:03:50,130 --> 01:03:52,306
right after I was arrested
in the first place.

1080
01:03:54,308 --> 01:03:55,875
Even by Leander
Perez's standards,

1081
01:03:56,006 --> 01:03:58,922
that was a pretty
outrageous act.

1082
01:04:00,445 --> 01:04:02,403
[Collins] If he went
and arrested him himself,

1083
01:04:02,534 --> 01:04:04,710
he wanted the symbolism
and the press to cover it.

1084
01:04:05,972 --> 01:04:07,887
That was just the ultimate
personification

1085
01:04:08,018 --> 01:04:12,457
of his white supremacy,
his anti-Semitism,

1086
01:04:12,587 --> 01:04:16,548
his hatred of Jews,
hatred of Blacks.

1087
01:04:16,678 --> 01:04:19,116
That was as much trying to
neutralize Richard Sobol
as a warning

1088
01:04:19,246 --> 01:04:22,989
to other lawyers to
"stay out of my parish

1089
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:26,079
if you're going to challenge
the natural order of things,

1090
01:04:26,210 --> 01:04:28,125
and the natural order of
things is whatever
I say it is."

1091
01:04:30,954 --> 01:04:32,390
[vocalist]
♪ Fear no danger!
Shun no labor! ♪

1092
01:04:32,564 --> 01:04:34,000
♪ Lift up rifle, pike,
and saber! ♪

1093
01:04:34,174 --> 01:04:36,046
-♪ To arms! ♪
-♪ To arms! ♪

1094
01:04:36,220 --> 01:04:37,177
-♪ To arms! ♪
-♪ To arms! ♪

1095
01:04:37,351 --> 01:04:39,745
♪ To arms in Dixie! ♪

1096
01:04:39,919 --> 01:04:41,747
♪ Shoulder pressing
Close to shoulder... ♪

1097
01:04:41,878 --> 01:04:44,097
Perez was enough Klan himself.

1098
01:04:44,228 --> 01:04:47,535
You know, he didn't have to
put no sheet on, he--

1099
01:04:47,666 --> 01:04:49,494
he got on national
television and said,

1100
01:04:49,624 --> 01:04:51,452
you know,
if the Federal Government

1101
01:04:51,583 --> 01:04:53,585
would, uh, send
people down here,

1102
01:04:53,715 --> 01:04:55,935
or Martin Luther King
would come down,
what he would do,

1103
01:04:56,066 --> 01:04:59,852
or the NAACP,
what he was going to do.

1104
01:04:59,983 --> 01:05:05,075
He had put fences around Fort
St. Philip on the east bank
of the river.

1105
01:05:05,205 --> 01:05:08,165
He thought, "Hey, those
niggers come down
here, we gonna take 'em,

1106
01:05:08,295 --> 01:05:11,255
put 'em over there, let the
snakes and the mosquitoes
eat 'em up."

1107
01:05:11,429 --> 01:05:12,909
-♪ To arms! ♪
-♪ To arms! ♪

1108
01:05:13,083 --> 01:05:16,347
♪ And conquer peace
For Dixie! ♪

1109
01:05:18,131 --> 01:05:20,612
[newsman] The only way to
reach Fort St. Philip
is by boat, helicopter,

1110
01:05:20,742 --> 01:05:23,049
or on foot through the swamps,
if you don't mind the snakes.

1111
01:05:23,180 --> 01:05:26,835
[man] Perez built a jail
on an alligator-infested
island

1112
01:05:26,966 --> 01:05:29,534
in the middle of the
Mississippi River, where he
was going to put anybody

1113
01:05:29,664 --> 01:05:31,884
involved with civil rights
activities. [chuckles]

1114
01:05:32,015 --> 01:05:35,105
[Perez] We are building strong
fences around it, which--

1115
01:05:35,235 --> 01:05:39,152
the top of which will be
electrified, so as to prevent
any attempt at escapes.

1116
01:05:39,283 --> 01:05:41,938
[Sobol] Being arrested
was one thing,

1117
01:05:42,068 --> 01:05:45,158
but I didn't want to spend
the night on that island.

1118
01:05:45,289 --> 01:05:47,552
[newsman] Plans call
for putting the demonstrators

1119
01:05:47,682 --> 01:05:50,250
in the old powder magazines
beneath the concrete
gun emplacements.

1120
01:05:50,381 --> 01:05:53,950
No snakes were in evidence,
but Perez says they're there,

1121
01:05:54,080 --> 01:05:56,474
and the the mosquitoes
are almost a
year-round problem.

1122
01:05:56,604 --> 01:06:00,434
How many people do you think
you could accommodate in here?

1123
01:06:00,565 --> 01:06:02,959
How many could you
incarcerate?

1124
01:06:03,089 --> 01:06:05,091
Well, now, that depends on how
many people come into
Plaquemines Parish

1125
01:06:05,222 --> 01:06:08,486
to try and break down our
local government
and cause trouble.

1126
01:06:09,052 --> 01:06:11,054
There's no limit in number.

1127
01:06:13,143 --> 01:06:17,103
If they choose to come in
tens and twenties,
we'll take care of them.

1128
01:06:17,234 --> 01:06:20,889
-What about--?
-If they choose to come
in hundreds...

1129
01:06:21,020 --> 01:06:23,109
we'll pack 'em in here
just the same.

1130
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:26,373
[newsman] There's never been
a racial demonstration

1131
01:06:26,504 --> 01:06:30,073
in Perez's Plaquemines Parish,
but if they come,
officials are ready.

1132
01:06:30,203 --> 01:06:34,338
Two cattle boats are even now
standing by at Fort Jackson
across the river

1133
01:06:34,468 --> 01:06:37,689
ready to haul the
demonstrators to the
Fort St. Philip stockade.

1134
01:06:37,819 --> 01:06:40,518
It was a very
persuasive thing,

1135
01:06:40,648 --> 01:06:42,911
but not-- not so
persuasive that...

1136
01:06:45,740 --> 01:06:47,525
I didn't come.

1137
01:06:47,655 --> 01:06:51,659
[Derfner] When I was growing
up, everybody that I knew

1138
01:06:51,790 --> 01:06:55,011
was in favor of civil rights.

1139
01:06:55,141 --> 01:07:01,669
When I was a kid, I knew that

1140
01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:06,152
Jackie Robinson was good,
and the South was bad,

1141
01:07:06,283 --> 01:07:08,546
except Alabama,
which was worse.

1142
01:07:08,676 --> 01:07:13,768
[Rabbi Prinz] I was the rabbi
of the Jewish community
in Berlin

1143
01:07:13,899 --> 01:07:15,292
under the Hitler regime.

1144
01:07:16,945 --> 01:07:18,904
I learned many things.

1145
01:07:20,732 --> 01:07:24,344
The most important thing
that I learned in my life

1146
01:07:24,475 --> 01:07:30,133
is that bigotry and hatred

1147
01:07:30,263 --> 01:07:33,832
are not the most
urgent problems.

1148
01:07:33,962 --> 01:07:37,357
The most shameful and
the most tragic problem

1149
01:07:37,488 --> 01:07:39,751
is silence.

1150
01:07:39,881 --> 01:07:42,580
Jews who survived
the Holocaust,

1151
01:07:42,710 --> 01:07:44,930
and close descendants of them

1152
01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:49,369
I think there's a
feeling about

1153
01:07:52,111 --> 01:07:55,941
helping Black people who

1154
01:07:58,683 --> 01:08:01,294
kinda have a bad
situation going.

1155
01:08:03,253 --> 01:08:04,993
[Elie] Most of the lawyers
that have been
willing to help us

1156
01:08:05,124 --> 01:08:06,517
have been Jewish lawyers.

1157
01:08:07,822 --> 01:08:10,477
And we feel very close to
Jews. Certainly I do.

1158
01:08:10,608 --> 01:08:13,350
And the reason is because
these people see

1159
01:08:13,480 --> 01:08:16,657
that the Negro is nothing more
than a buffer
for Jewish people.

1160
01:08:16,788 --> 01:08:21,271
[Elie] The mere fact that
there were so many
Jewish lawyers

1161
01:08:21,401 --> 01:08:23,708
who are able to come down
and be a part of this,

1162
01:08:23,838 --> 01:08:26,232
and there were so few
Black lawyers

1163
01:08:26,363 --> 01:08:29,409
makes clear the differences in
how Jews were treated
by white gentiles,

1164
01:08:29,540 --> 01:08:32,020
and how Blacks were treated
by white gentiles.

1165
01:08:33,848 --> 01:08:37,113
So while there may be some
connections, and indeed there
have been Jews

1166
01:08:37,243 --> 01:08:40,464
lynched in this country
for being Jewish,

1167
01:08:42,466 --> 01:08:45,730
the truth is that our
struggles have been
very, very different.

1168
01:08:47,253 --> 01:08:50,038
Jews were allowed to do things
that Black people couldn't
even think about doing.

1169
01:08:50,169 --> 01:08:53,041
We're talking about in the
'60s here, so when we say
the Holocaust,

1170
01:08:53,172 --> 01:08:56,610
we may be talking about
maybe 20 years earlier,

1171
01:08:56,741 --> 01:08:59,613
so the memory of the Holocaust
was still fresh.

1172
01:08:59,744 --> 01:09:02,660
You get into a dangerous area
when you start saying,

1173
01:09:02,790 --> 01:09:03,704
" OK, well my pain's worse

1174
01:09:03,835 --> 01:09:05,837
than your pain, you know.

1175
01:09:05,967 --> 01:09:08,883
Let's compare pain and let's
see whose pain is worse."

1176
01:09:09,014 --> 01:09:11,234
It's-- it's different.
It's-- it's different.

1177
01:09:13,149 --> 01:09:16,413
We were there
helping tear down

1178
01:09:17,979 --> 01:09:20,286
their system of
government and society.

1179
01:09:20,417 --> 01:09:23,768
So, the civil rights workers
were doing it,

1180
01:09:24,986 --> 01:09:28,947
but we were helping them make
the destruction work,
that we--

1181
01:09:29,077 --> 01:09:31,602
we were the ones going to the
courts and getting
the court orders,

1182
01:09:31,732 --> 01:09:33,995
and the court orders were
telling the--
the segregationists

1183
01:09:34,126 --> 01:09:36,563
or the government what they
had to do and couldn't do,

1184
01:09:36,694 --> 01:09:38,478
so of course they wanted
to get rid of us.

1185
01:09:40,480 --> 01:09:43,440
And that's why
the Shakespeare quote,
let's kill all the lawyers.

1186
01:09:43,570 --> 01:09:47,052
The first thing we do let's
kill all the lawyers... yeah.

1187
01:09:49,968 --> 01:09:53,711
Any system knows
that the lawyers

1188
01:09:53,841 --> 01:09:59,151
are integral with making the
system work or not work.

1189
01:09:59,282 --> 01:10:01,936
So if you control the system,
you want to make sure you
control the legal system.

1190
01:10:05,375 --> 01:10:10,945
It was a system of-- of
pretend law
in Louisiana, Mississippi,

1191
01:10:11,076 --> 01:10:14,471
Alabama, Georgia, Virginia,
other states,

1192
01:10:14,601 --> 01:10:19,127
and that system of pretend
law, which they could keep up
as long as

1193
01:10:19,258 --> 01:10:23,523
they weren't scrutinized by
the outside world and the
Federal courts,

1194
01:10:23,654 --> 01:10:28,180
we were bringing an outside
source of greater authority

1195
01:10:28,311 --> 01:10:31,227
called the U.S. Supreme Court
and the Federal courts

1196
01:10:31,357 --> 01:10:34,926
and the U.S. Constitution,
bringing that to bear

1197
01:10:35,056 --> 01:10:37,320
on the systems of pretend law

1198
01:10:37,450 --> 01:10:40,236
that were prevailing
in the Southern states.

1199
01:10:40,366 --> 01:10:44,152
And that's what Sobol vs.
Perez, that case, was about.

1200
01:10:44,283 --> 01:10:47,243
[Sobol] We filed a case
in Federal court New Orleans

1201
01:10:47,373 --> 01:10:50,985
to enjoin my prosecution
and to declare any prohibition

1202
01:10:51,116 --> 01:10:53,945
on the activities of outside
civil rights lawyers

1203
01:10:54,075 --> 01:10:55,512
unconstitutional as violating
not only
the lawyers' rights...

1204
01:10:55,642 --> 01:10:59,733
If we lost, I'd be in
jail the next day.

1205
01:11:01,692 --> 01:11:06,740
Me and Duncan were the
plaintiffs, and this defendant
was Perez.

1206
01:11:06,871 --> 01:11:08,612
There was a trial, and the
trial lasted for three weeks.

1207
01:11:08,742 --> 01:11:11,789
And every day, there was a
story in the Times-Picayune

1208
01:11:11,919 --> 01:11:14,095
about what was going on
in the courtroom.

1209
01:11:14,226 --> 01:11:16,489
We were all jealous of Sobol
'cause he got
all the headlines,

1210
01:11:16,620 --> 01:11:19,753
and all he had to do was spend
a couple of hours in jail.
[chuckles]

1211
01:11:19,884 --> 01:11:25,759
-[courtroom chatter,
footsteps]
-[bailiff] All rise.

1212
01:11:25,890 --> 01:11:28,414
-[courtroom chatter continues]
-[gavel bangs]

1213
01:11:28,545 --> 01:11:31,591
[Bronstein] I would now like
to call Mr. Sobol
to the stand.

1214
01:11:31,722 --> 01:11:34,028
State your name
and address for the record.

1215
01:11:34,159 --> 01:11:36,640
[Sobol] Richard B. Sobol.
Six-oh-five
Common Street, New Orleans.

1216
01:11:36,770 --> 01:11:38,381
[Bronstein] Where did you
serve as a volunteer,

1217
01:11:38,511 --> 01:11:40,731
and with whom were
you associated?

1218
01:11:40,861 --> 01:11:43,211
[Sobol] I was working with the
law firm of Collins, Douglas,
and Eli.

1219
01:11:43,342 --> 01:11:46,606
[Dowling] There is no doubt
about it in your mind
that you informed

1220
01:11:46,737 --> 01:11:51,176
Judge Leon very early in the
proceedings that you were an
out-of-state attorney?

1221
01:11:51,307 --> 01:11:53,352
[Sobol] At the very first
minute when we sat down
at the table,

1222
01:11:53,483 --> 01:11:55,789
that was the first thing
Mr. Collins said.

1223
01:11:55,920 --> 01:12:00,054
A small part of the testimony
had to do with me and Duncan

1224
01:12:00,185 --> 01:12:01,578
and what happened, yeah.

1225
01:12:03,623 --> 01:12:07,061
Ninety percent had to do with,
how does a Black person
get a lawyer

1226
01:12:07,192 --> 01:12:09,803
in this state if he wants to
assert rights
under Federal law?

1227
01:12:09,934 --> 01:12:12,415
And it was very interesting.

1228
01:12:12,545 --> 01:12:15,113
[Bronstein] Would you briefly
describe the duties of the
volunteer lawyers?

1229
01:12:15,243 --> 01:12:17,463
[Sobol] The volunteer lawyers
would come down for a
three-week period only,

1230
01:12:17,594 --> 01:12:19,247
usually on their vacations,

1231
01:12:19,378 --> 01:12:21,424
and do whatever it was
that Mr. Douglas and...

1232
01:12:21,554 --> 01:12:23,687
[Sobol] The one thing
that Negro leadership
in the South

1233
01:12:23,817 --> 01:12:26,603
is rightly disinclined to
accept is white people
telling them

1234
01:12:26,733 --> 01:12:28,866
any further what to do
and what not to do,

1235
01:12:28,996 --> 01:12:32,217
even well-meaning and
committed white liberal
Northerners.

1236
01:12:32,348 --> 01:12:34,872
[Sobol] The leadership is
theirs, and so are
the choices,

1237
01:12:35,002 --> 01:12:36,787
including the option not to
work with any white lawyers
at all.

1238
01:12:36,917 --> 01:12:39,920
[Provensal] How is the Duncan
case a civil rights case?

1239
01:12:40,051 --> 01:12:41,966
[Sobol] The Duncan case is
a civil rights case because
this court ordered

1240
01:12:42,096 --> 01:12:44,882
the desegregation of the
Plaquemines Parish schools,

1241
01:12:45,012 --> 01:12:47,363
and the officials of the
parish were contemptuous
of that court order

1242
01:12:47,493 --> 01:12:50,757
and encouraged violations
of that court order.

1243
01:12:50,888 --> 01:12:53,630
[woman] When I answered the
phone, it was a woman's voice.

1244
01:12:53,760 --> 01:12:57,938
She said, "If you take those
Negroes into our
new white school,

1245
01:12:58,069 --> 01:13:00,680
it will be blown to pieces,
with you in it."

1246
01:13:00,811 --> 01:13:02,465
[Sobol] ...lawlessness
in Plaquemines Parish

1247
01:13:02,595 --> 01:13:05,250
by encouraging students
not to go to school.

1248
01:13:05,381 --> 01:13:07,774
But then,
the first criminal prosecution

1249
01:13:07,905 --> 01:13:10,560
arising out of all this was
not Mr. Perez,
nor the parents,

1250
01:13:10,690 --> 01:13:13,693
who were encouraging their
boys to stay out of school,

1251
01:13:13,824 --> 01:13:16,914
but Gary Duncan, who had
stopped by
the side of the road

1252
01:13:17,044 --> 01:13:19,177
where his cousin and nephew
were about to be attacked

1253
01:13:19,307 --> 01:13:21,353
for attending the
desegregated school.

1254
01:13:21,484 --> 01:13:23,834
And the forces of law and
order were brought to bear

1255
01:13:23,964 --> 01:13:26,010
not on those
who are trying to prevent...

1256
01:13:26,140 --> 01:13:28,447
[Sobol] Solely by virtue
of being Negro children

1257
01:13:28,578 --> 01:13:31,232
who had transferred to a white
school under the court order.

1258
01:13:31,363 --> 01:13:33,409
[Provensal] The integration of
the schools was carried out
very peacefully.

1259
01:13:33,539 --> 01:13:35,672
-Isn't that true?
-[Sobol] I don't think that

1260
01:13:35,802 --> 01:13:37,500
the district attorney saying
that these orders
of this court

1261
01:13:37,630 --> 01:13:39,589
was a disaster like
Hurricane Betsy

1262
01:13:39,719 --> 01:13:43,288
is a peaceful carrying-out
of the orders of this court.

1263
01:13:45,682 --> 01:13:48,206
[Bronstein] Would you speak
into the microphone so that
everyone can hear you?

1264
01:13:48,336 --> 01:13:53,080
[Gary] Gary Duncan. I live at
Boothville, Louisiana.

1265
01:13:53,211 --> 01:13:55,648
-[Bronstein] How old are you,
Mr. Duncan?
-[Gary] 20.

1266
01:13:55,779 --> 01:13:58,346
[Bronstein] Why did you go
to New Orleans
to get a lawyer?

1267
01:13:58,477 --> 01:14:01,698
[Gary] Well, I never had any
intention of getting a lawyer
in Plaquemines Parish

1268
01:14:01,828 --> 01:14:05,615
because I figured all they
were going to do for me was to
plead guilty.

1269
01:14:05,745 --> 01:14:08,008
[Bronstein] Would you have
trusted any lawyer

1270
01:14:08,139 --> 01:14:09,923
in Plaquemines Parish to
take your case?

1271
01:14:10,054 --> 01:14:11,272
No,

1272
01:14:12,839 --> 01:14:15,320
because the majority of the
lawyers are in politics.

1273
01:14:15,451 --> 01:14:18,279
[Bronstein] Before the battery
case went to trial,
did Mr. Sobol talk to you

1274
01:14:18,410 --> 01:14:20,804
-about requesting a jury
trial?
-[Gary] Yes.

1275
01:14:20,934 --> 01:14:24,764
I told him I believe I would
stand a better chance
at winning the case,

1276
01:14:24,895 --> 01:14:27,724
you know, with a jury trial.

1277
01:14:27,854 --> 01:14:29,943
[Bronstein] We would like to
call Mr. Lolis Elie.

1278
01:14:30,074 --> 01:14:32,511
State your full name and
address for the record,
please.

1279
01:14:32,642 --> 01:14:35,079
[Elie] My name is
Lolis Edward Elie.

1280
01:14:35,209 --> 01:14:38,952
I live at 1035 Short Street,
New Orleans, Louisiana.

1281
01:14:39,083 --> 01:14:41,041
[Bronstein] What kind of work
do you do, Mr. Elie?

1282
01:14:41,172 --> 01:14:43,696
[Elie] I am an
attorney-at-law.

1283
01:14:43,827 --> 01:14:47,831
[Bronstein] Mr. Elie, have you
any experience in handling
civil rights cases?

1284
01:14:47,961 --> 01:14:51,965
[Elie] Yes, I've handled
civil rights cases since
the year 1960.

1285
01:14:52,096 --> 01:14:56,927
My best estimate is that we
have handled between
500 and 600 civil rights...

1286
01:14:57,057 --> 01:14:59,320
[Elie] My office was involved
in the Duncan case

1287
01:14:59,451 --> 01:15:03,411
that was in the United States
Supreme Court and
argued last week.

1288
01:15:03,542 --> 01:15:07,285
[Bronstein] Mr. Elie, do you
have an opinion as to whether
local Negroes

1289
01:15:07,415 --> 01:15:11,158
active in civil rights have
trust or confidence in local
lawyers?

1290
01:15:11,289 --> 01:15:13,596
[Elie] Civil rights workers
and other people involved

1291
01:15:13,726 --> 01:15:16,381
have no confidence whatsoever
in white attorneys

1292
01:15:16,512 --> 01:15:17,469
in the state of Louisiana.

1293
01:15:19,776 --> 01:15:21,734
[Bronstein] Have you ever
attempted to enlist the
assistance of local counsel?

1294
01:15:21,865 --> 01:15:24,781
[Elie] No, I have not
because I talked
to local counsel,

1295
01:15:24,911 --> 01:15:27,784
and their attitude
was clearly antagonistic.

1296
01:15:27,914 --> 01:15:31,831
They talked about what would
happen to them if they
attempted to help us.

1297
01:15:31,962 --> 01:15:35,835
The lawyers for Perez keep
talking about all these white
lawyers of good will

1298
01:15:35,966 --> 01:15:38,708
who, if they had only been
asked, would have been glad to
come forward.

1299
01:15:38,838 --> 01:15:43,451
"And, Mr. Eli, did you not
even bother to ask these
lawyers?"

1300
01:15:43,582 --> 01:15:45,671
But of course, the whole time
they're asking this,

1301
01:15:45,802 --> 01:15:48,108
they got to know
they're lying.

1302
01:15:48,239 --> 01:15:51,024
[Elie] The white attorneys
realized that we were
not making money.

1303
01:15:51,155 --> 01:15:52,591
You would talk to people
about taking these cases,

1304
01:15:52,722 --> 01:15:55,028
and they would think
you were crazy.

1305
01:15:55,159 --> 01:15:56,987
[Bronstein]
Realizing this increased need,

1306
01:15:57,117 --> 01:15:59,685
did you or the members of your
firm do anything?

1307
01:15:59,816 --> 01:16:00,991
[Elie] Yes, we did.

1308
01:16:02,558 --> 01:16:04,211
Since the beginning of 1960,
we have been in contact

1309
01:16:04,342 --> 01:16:06,736
with C.O.R.E. and the NAACP.

1310
01:16:06,866 --> 01:16:08,564
It was within a month that the
Lawyers Constitutional Defense
Committee,

1311
01:16:08,694 --> 01:16:12,393
LCDC, came into existence.

1312
01:16:12,524 --> 01:16:15,962
[Bronstein] Would it have been
possible for you to have
handled these cases

1313
01:16:16,093 --> 01:16:17,398
without the
out-of-state counsel?

1314
01:16:17,529 --> 01:16:19,313
[Elie] Absolutely not.

1315
01:16:19,444 --> 01:16:21,707
[Bronstein] Mr. Eli, had you
or any member of your firm

1316
01:16:21,838 --> 01:16:23,970
been subjected to hostility?

1317
01:16:25,015 --> 01:16:29,889
[vocalist] ♪ Yes, we'll rally
round the flag ♪

1318
01:16:30,020 --> 01:16:32,065
[Elie] Our office was bombed.

1319
01:16:32,239 --> 01:16:34,807
[vocalist]
♪ Rally once again ♪

1320
01:16:36,026 --> 01:16:42,293
♪ Shouting the battle
cry of freedom ♪

1321
01:16:44,469 --> 01:16:46,645
He talked to the point about
the segregated bathrooms

1322
01:16:46,776 --> 01:16:50,518
in criminal district court
in New Orleans.

1323
01:16:50,649 --> 01:16:54,653
He talked about being given a
court date that was
on a holiday,

1324
01:16:54,784 --> 01:16:59,484
but, of course, as a lawyer,
you can't defy the court date,

1325
01:16:59,615 --> 01:17:01,399
but you show up and
nobody's there.

1326
01:17:01,529 --> 01:17:03,662
[Elie] Cases would be
fixed on holidays.

1327
01:17:03,793 --> 01:17:06,665
We would drive up there,
and no one would be
in the courtroom.

1328
01:17:06,796 --> 01:17:08,624
They would also segregate
our clients in the courtroom.

1329
01:17:08,754 --> 01:17:11,583
Who else would you do that to

1330
01:17:11,714 --> 01:17:14,499
but a lawyer for whom
you had contempt

1331
01:17:14,630 --> 01:17:17,067
and who you thought
was beneath you?

1332
01:17:17,197 --> 01:17:19,591
But mind you, as an
officer of the court,

1333
01:17:19,722 --> 01:17:21,593
you also have to embody
a respect for the institution

1334
01:17:21,724 --> 01:17:24,901
because if you go there
and tell the judge

1335
01:17:25,031 --> 01:17:27,730
or tell the district attorney,
you know, "Fuck you.

1336
01:17:27,860 --> 01:17:30,558
You gave me this bullshit-ass
date. You knew you
was doing this."

1337
01:17:30,689 --> 01:17:31,995
You can't do that.

1338
01:17:32,125 --> 01:17:33,692
[Elie] Judge Rarick
said to me,

1339
01:17:33,823 --> 01:17:36,695
"I didn't know
they let coons practice law."

1340
01:17:36,826 --> 01:17:40,917
He pointed to a tree
outside and said,

1341
01:17:41,047 --> 01:17:44,790
"Once there was a Negro
sheriff in Clinton,

1342
01:17:44,921 --> 01:17:49,621
and he had been removed and
hanged on the tree
outside this window."

1343
01:17:49,752 --> 01:17:54,757
Another time I went up to a
place called Arcadia with two
LCDC lawyers.

1344
01:17:54,887 --> 01:17:57,629
We were intercepted
by some police.

1345
01:17:57,760 --> 01:17:59,805
They brought out cattle prods.

1346
01:17:59,936 --> 01:18:03,026
They put them where we
could see them.

1347
01:18:03,156 --> 01:18:05,681
We decided that since I was
the only Louisiana lawyer
present,

1348
01:18:05,811 --> 01:18:08,814
I should do the talking.

1349
01:18:08,945 --> 01:18:12,992
We went in and the sheriff,
he said,
"Nigger, shut up your mouth."

1350
01:18:13,123 --> 01:18:17,040
And I was not permitted
to open my mouth in that room.

1351
01:18:17,170 --> 01:18:21,479
It was said to me, "Nigger,
don't you come back here
again.

1352
01:18:21,609 --> 01:18:23,655
Let these white people
take care of this."

1353
01:18:26,702 --> 01:18:29,269
How do you talk about the tone
of the clerk of court

1354
01:18:29,400 --> 01:18:32,838
or someone like that when
that's not something that
you can prove,

1355
01:18:32,969 --> 01:18:34,622
but it's something you know?

1356
01:18:34,753 --> 01:18:36,973
Something you know not only
because of that moment,

1357
01:18:37,103 --> 01:18:39,627
but because of the years

1358
01:18:39,758 --> 01:18:41,804
and decades
you have spent in this life,

1359
01:18:41,934 --> 01:18:45,024
and because of the lessons
that your parents
have taught you

1360
01:18:45,155 --> 01:18:48,071
about the kind of deference
you must show to white people

1361
01:18:48,201 --> 01:18:50,377
if you want to live
into adulthood.

1362
01:18:50,508 --> 01:18:55,078
How do you prove that this
system is racist at
its very core?

1363
01:18:57,907 --> 01:19:01,519
[Derfner]
Sobol v. Perez was about

1364
01:19:01,649 --> 01:19:04,870
the transformation of the
South into part of America.

1365
01:19:05,001 --> 01:19:07,394
It was a huge global issue.

1366
01:19:11,007 --> 01:19:16,926
What we dreamed of then,
we have not come close to.

1367
01:19:17,056 --> 01:19:22,235
I remember when Barack Obama
was elected president.

1368
01:19:22,366 --> 01:19:25,282
People kept saying, "I never
dreamed this would happen."

1369
01:19:25,412 --> 01:19:27,240
We dreamed it would happen.

1370
01:19:31,636 --> 01:19:32,680
[Derfner] The outside world
started really paying
attention

1371
01:19:32,811 --> 01:19:37,120
in 1964 and 1965.

1372
01:19:37,250 --> 01:19:41,341
In 1964, the three civil
rights workers

1373
01:19:41,472 --> 01:19:42,865
were murdered in
Neshoba County.

1374
01:19:42,995 --> 01:19:46,782
It really shook a
lot of people

1375
01:19:46,912 --> 01:19:51,308
because one of the ways that
segregation and
white supremacy worked

1376
01:19:51,438 --> 01:19:55,834
is that there was a sympathy
for it in the rest
of the country.

1377
01:20:05,061 --> 01:20:09,500
So in '64 and '65,
you had major events,

1378
01:20:09,630 --> 01:20:14,418
the murder of the civil rights
workers and the Selma march,

1379
01:20:14,548 --> 01:20:18,074
and you had major laws, Civil
Rights Act and
the Voting Rights Act.

1380
01:20:18,204 --> 01:20:22,382
And those two things
changed things irrevocably.

1381
01:20:22,513 --> 01:20:26,343
...as a registered voter can
we in any way start on the
road to freedom.

1382
01:20:26,473 --> 01:20:28,301
And I hope you'll all help us.

1383
01:20:28,432 --> 01:20:33,089
[Derfner] In '62 and '63,
it really was enemy territory.

1384
01:20:33,219 --> 01:20:34,786
It was a foreign country.

1385
01:20:34,917 --> 01:20:39,399
By '67 and '68,
we were in enemy territory,

1386
01:20:39,530 --> 01:20:42,750
but it was enemy territory
that was being occupied

1387
01:20:42,881 --> 01:20:45,014
by the United States of
America, slowly but surely.

1388
01:21:02,466 --> 01:21:05,991
[Lolis Eric Elie] There's been
an awakening among Americans

1389
01:21:06,122 --> 01:21:11,301
about how very precarious
our rights are.

1390
01:21:11,431 --> 01:21:15,131
We find folks rallying
to defend those things

1391
01:21:15,261 --> 01:21:18,917
which we thought were
emblazoned not only
in our Constitution,

1392
01:21:19,048 --> 01:21:22,007
our great documents, but also
in the hearts of Americans.

1393
01:21:22,138 --> 01:21:26,359
Police used to shoot Black
kids all the time.

1394
01:21:26,490 --> 01:21:27,795
All the time.

1395
01:21:27,926 --> 01:21:31,538
What's different is now,

1396
01:21:31,669 --> 01:21:34,019
when it happens,
it's a big deal.

1397
01:21:35,412 --> 01:21:36,892
Before, it used to happen,
and nobody cared.

1398
01:21:37,022 --> 01:21:39,329
And it happened much more.

1399
01:22:20,936 --> 01:22:23,286
[Lolis Eric Elie] Frederick
Douglass used to talk
about the abolitionists

1400
01:22:23,416 --> 01:22:27,072
caring a great deal about
slavery but not so much
about the slave.

1401
01:22:30,162 --> 01:22:34,906
For Richard Sobol to
effectively argue
in Gary Duncan's case,

1402
01:22:35,037 --> 01:22:38,040
he had to see it as a case
about a human being

1403
01:22:38,170 --> 01:22:38,866
and not a case about
a civil right.

1404
01:23:01,280 --> 01:23:05,415
[Sobol] So then they wanted
to give Duncan a jury trial,

1405
01:23:05,545 --> 01:23:09,201
and we brought a case,
saying the only reason

1406
01:23:09,332 --> 01:23:11,725
they could possibly try the
man at this point after all
this

1407
01:23:11,856 --> 01:23:16,165
was just intimidation
and vengeance.

1408
01:23:16,295 --> 01:23:18,602
And we filed a case
called Duncan v. Perez.

1409
01:23:18,732 --> 01:23:21,213
Your boys done that to me.
I learned my lesson.

1410
01:23:21,344 --> 01:23:22,954
[Sobol] That went to trial,
where the judge ruled
in our favor,

1411
01:23:23,085 --> 01:23:25,087
and he issued a nice opinion,

1412
01:23:25,217 --> 01:23:27,741
saying that there was
malicious prosecution,

1413
01:23:27,872 --> 01:23:29,743
and they enjoined them
from trying Duncan.

1414
01:23:29,874 --> 01:23:32,311
And so it was kind of a
trifecta, I guess.

1415
01:23:33,791 --> 01:23:34,879
[Gary] You're a changed man,
huh?

1416
01:23:41,233 --> 01:23:43,975
[Sobol] He grew and turned out
to be an important leader
in the parish.

1417
01:23:46,282 --> 01:23:47,979
He was the head
of the shrimpers' association

1418
01:23:48,110 --> 01:23:50,677
and became an important figure
after that.

1419
01:23:55,943 --> 01:23:57,032
And he's still my friend.

1420
01:24:11,350 --> 01:24:14,788
[man] I never came to
Louisiana again
without seeing Gary.

1421
01:24:24,450 --> 01:24:27,105
I was feeling very sick

1422
01:24:27,236 --> 01:24:31,675
and reluctantly decided that
we had to put off meeting
with Gary.

1423
01:24:31,805 --> 01:24:36,375
We wrote to him and said,
"Don't come this week.

1424
01:24:36,506 --> 01:24:37,985
Richard's not feeling well,

1425
01:24:38,116 --> 01:24:41,293
and we'll
reschedule it later."

1426
01:24:41,424 --> 01:24:46,646
He wrote back and said,
"I don't care what his
condition is.

1427
01:24:46,777 --> 01:24:49,127
I wanna see him.
I wanna be there."

1428
01:24:49,258 --> 01:24:53,610
So, uh, he came.

1429
01:25:04,925 --> 01:25:06,188
Mr. Sobol became part
of my family.

1430
01:25:06,318 --> 01:25:08,581
I'm part of his family.

1431
01:26:06,726 --> 01:26:08,815
[vocalist]
♪ I just wanna talk about it ♪

1432
01:26:08,989 --> 01:26:11,644
♪ Just a little bit ♪

1433
01:26:11,818 --> 01:26:13,298
♪ Just for a while ♪

1434
01:26:15,126 --> 01:26:18,608
♪ We will win this race ♪

1435
01:26:18,782 --> 01:26:21,393
♪ I still believe we can ♪

1436
01:26:21,567 --> 01:26:24,788
♪ Oh, don't be misled ♪

1437
01:26:24,962 --> 01:26:27,225
♪ I won't let no one ♪

1438
01:26:27,399 --> 01:26:30,620
♪ Destroy my path ♪

1439
01:26:35,451 --> 01:26:40,499
♪ I stood around in
ice-cold blood ♪

1440
01:26:41,892 --> 01:26:45,983
♪ Livin' in fear for
everyone I love ♪

1441
01:26:47,941 --> 01:26:53,208
♪ Segregation is
all I can see ♪

1442
01:26:54,644 --> 01:26:56,820
♪ There's no fine line ♪

1443
01:26:56,994 --> 01:27:00,563
♪ They're starin' off of me ♪

1444
01:27:00,737 --> 01:27:04,088
♪ Yes, I'll embrace
these strangers ♪

1445
01:27:04,262 --> 01:27:05,263
♪ Face to face ♪

1446
01:27:05,437 --> 01:27:09,615
♪ North and South ♪

1447
01:27:09,789 --> 01:27:14,054
♪ I won't let no one
destroy my house ♪

1448
01:27:14,229 --> 01:27:16,927
♪ Take this road by myself ♪

1449
01:27:17,101 --> 01:27:18,102
♪ If I have to ♪

1450
01:27:18,276 --> 01:27:22,498
♪ No, I have friends ♪

1451
01:27:22,672 --> 01:27:27,677
♪ I won't let no one
destroy my path ♪

1452
01:27:32,769 --> 01:27:34,423
♪ The heroes I've read about ♪

1453
01:27:34,597 --> 01:27:38,296
♪ Wouldn't take a life
like a thug ♪

1454
01:27:38,470 --> 01:27:41,430
♪ Look in my eyes ♪

1455
01:27:41,604 --> 01:27:45,303
♪ You'll see the
flow of love ♪

1456
01:27:45,477 --> 01:27:47,131
♪ What do y'all hear? ♪

1457
01:27:47,305 --> 01:27:51,266
♪ Does anyone hear me? ♪

1458
01:27:51,440 --> 01:27:53,093
♪ Should I write a letter? ♪

1459
01:27:53,268 --> 01:27:54,791
♪ Talk to a mayor? ♪

1460
01:27:54,965 --> 01:27:56,314
♪ Become a politician? ♪

1461
01:27:56,488 --> 01:27:57,315
♪ Provide a speech? ♪

1462
01:27:57,489 --> 01:28:00,275
♪ Choices I make ♪

1463
01:28:00,449 --> 01:28:03,278
♪ I like them to be my own ♪

1464
01:28:03,452 --> 01:28:07,107
♪ Oh, this feels so wrong ♪

1465
01:28:07,282 --> 01:28:10,372
♪ But I won't let no
one destroy my ♪

1466
01:28:10,546 --> 01:28:16,769
♪ I've been down
some weird streets sometimes ♪

1467
01:28:16,943 --> 01:28:20,033
♪ But I know that ♪

1468
01:28:20,207 --> 01:28:23,733
♪ I won't let no one
destroy my ♪

1469
01:28:23,907 --> 01:28:25,561
♪ I won't let no one ♪

1470
01:28:25,735 --> 01:28:29,304
♪ We're gonna get better ♪

1471
01:28:29,478 --> 01:28:32,437
♪ We need a change
of weather ♪

1472
01:28:32,611 --> 01:28:34,483
♪ The world needs a change ♪

1473
01:28:34,657 --> 01:28:38,356
♪ We can't stay this
way forever ♪

1474
01:28:38,530 --> 01:28:42,142
♪ We gotta get better ♪

1475
01:28:42,317 --> 01:28:44,144
♪ We need a change
of weather ♪

1476
01:28:44,319 --> 01:28:46,364
♪ The world needs a change ♪

1477
01:28:46,538 --> 01:28:50,281
♪ We can't stay this
way forever ♪

1478
01:28:50,455 --> 01:28:54,590
♪ We've gotta get clever ♪

1479
01:28:54,764 --> 01:28:57,593
♪ More clever than ever ♪

1480
01:28:57,767 --> 01:29:00,030
♪ The world needs a change ♪

1481
01:29:00,204 --> 01:29:03,294
♪ We can't stay this
way forever ♪

1482
01:29:17,395 --> 01:29:20,050
[vocalizing]