Arl,Bob and Me

• • arl,Bob and Me Ellis E. Reid the School of the Circuit spent a year at Preparatory I am now a Judge of New Orleans University. One of his Court of Cook County, Illinois. As I teachers there, Anna Parker, recog reflect on events of the past, I recog nized his potential. She offered to pay that career has been nize my legal Chi his tuition at the University of shaped by history. Two men, Earl Laboratory Schools for the sum Burrus Dickerson '20 and William cago a to mer. Earl's mother bribed porter Robert have had a lasting Ming Jr. '33, Illinois the boy on board an influence on my life. Both were gradu smuggle arrived in Chi Law Central train and Earl ates of the University of Chicago a few members cago on June 15, 1907, days School; both were, like me, before his sixteenth birthday. After of Psi fraternity. Both Kappa Alpha School he decided educa the summer at Lab Earl �nd Bob received classical He minds to remain in Chicago. completed tions. Both possessed logical his education in 1909 at Ellis E. Reid'59 is Presiding with photographic memories. preparatory nearly where he received Atrican-Ametican to Evanston Academy, Earl was the first the First Municipal He his Judge of the Univer a scholarship. supplemented receive a ].D. degree from newspapers and Cook School. Bob was income by selling District of County sity of Chicago Law continued to himself through African-American to join its support Court. the first Circuit rest of his education. their achievements out the faculty. Although Northwestern Urn soci Earl enrolled at brought about lasting changes in which he left after only one today are aware versity, ety, few young people of to transfer to the University their contributions. I have therefore year of difficult Illinois at Champaign. It was undertaken to write the story of these to alien surroundings as one am I owe to to adjust two men. Much of who I we the of a small group of Negroes (as them. This article is a biography of enrolled in a and and is were then called) large three of us, Earl, Bob, me, The lived off work I am state university. group an overview of a broader a house and fre a campus in private now preparing. The story spans moral to each 1991. quently gave support century, from 1891 to other over a game of cards. In 1912, Univer Earl Elder Watson Diggs from the the sity of Indiana came to University of Illinois to add the group to his Earl Dickerson was born on June 22, Greek letter organization, in Canton, Mississippi. His fledgling 1891, formed in 1911. The an Kappa Alpha Nu, father, Edward, was upholsterer later transformed into the Beta from Massachusetts, who died when group Nu his of Kappa Alpha fraternity was four. Earl was raised by Chapter Earl Pole and Earl was elected its first mother, who took in washing to sur march. Alpha Nu later became and his maternal grandmother. Kappa vive, because the education Kappa Alpha Psi bigots Though having had little him on campus called it "Kappa Alpha herself, Earl's mother instilled in Earl from the Uni a Nigger." graduated sense of the of good a importance while his of Illinois in June, 1914, education. He was valedictorian of versity his mother looked on. school class at Canton Pub proud grammar for a then After graduation, Earl taught lic School in 1906. His mother Institute in Ala- where he while at Tuskegee sent him to New Orleans 4 THE LAW SCHOOL RECORD • • ran for He was defeated when he reelection in 1943. His final remarks to the City Council, delivered in April, 1943, still have a cogency today. will see the wisdom . I hope you forward in supporting and carrying which some of the things for striven this I ... have during past come from dif term. Though you ferent sections of the city and are elected by people from various must not wards, your responsibility alone be to your ward constituency -it must be to all of the people. When people of my community are refused equal job opportunities, when they are hemmed into gher covenants tos by racially restrictive and left to die in disproportionate numbers because of inadequate health and medical facilities, an improvement in their welfare should be the concern not just of of their own representatives, but elected every member of the body of the City.... Our concern for the underprivi Earl Dickerson leged people should not end with the of If we can find the firm after graduation as City Chicago. where he was a of joined barna, colleague in our hearts for the and coun sympathy DuBois. He returned to cu practicing attorney general W.E.B. in far off countries ... over to the people studies at the Uni sel. He rose President, changed to his dictators-and I believe we cago begin Life run by Law School in the company's name to Supreme versity of Chicago we should and retired in should-then certainly his stu Insurance Company fall of 1915. After two years, the citizens offices in the have feelings for to 1971. Earl also opened were the call dies interrupted by own who are and it in ... our country answered as a private practitioner arms. Like others, he Loop many ... and denied the later being lynched of was here that Bob Ming joined that call. As a 2d Lieutenant (one right to vote. African-Americans to serve as him. the first When I view the paradox of our the Earl took time for a in the 365th Infantry Along way, a lieutenant) and the gross injustice encounters with politics: democracy of the 92d Division of the few brief Regiment on some of its citizens, I to the perpetrated as an alternate delegate US. Expeditionary Force in France, he serving National Conven find myself in complete agreement for his regiment. 1932 Democratic served as interpreter with Thomas Jefferson, the author as an Assistant Corporation while still in he tion, In 1919, France, of the Declaration of Independence, Counsel for the of Chicago, and found the American Legion. City helped General for who said: "I tremble for my country establish the as an Assistant Attorney Later, he helped George when I reflect that God is just and State of Illinois. Giles Post No. the first Arneri the L. 87, that his justice cannot sleep for Earl was elected to the of black veterans in In 1939, can Legion post ever!" City Council as the indepen Chicago. Chicago the Second to the dent Alderman from After the war, Earl returned Roosevelt from William In 1941, President of Law School Ward, over opposition University Chicago a member of the Presi Democratic appointed Earl his studies. In 1920, Dawson, the powerful and completed dent's Commission on Fair Ernploy ward boss. Like other independents, armed with his J.D. degree, he began from ment Practices. Despite pressure was often on the short end of the He was turned Earl to interview for jobs. members on the Corn were the other five vote in the Council, but there down for what was then called a forum mission, he used this national some For example, "white man's when he was inter breakthroughs. in job" to denounce racism. and to engage Earl sneaked through an anti-discrim viewed a law firm that at first by public debate with its more timid white because he ination clause in a $102,million public assumed he was members. Earl is credited with bring the Law School. transportation appropriation-opening was a graduate of African-Americans into the indus African-Americans in ing had the way for As a student in 1919, Earl He also to trial war effort as equals. the articles of incorpo public employment. helped helped draw up when Earl was African-Americans to the In 1980, eighty-eight, Life Insurance appoint ration of the Liberty interviewed The Law School Board of Education and to he was by the first black-owned corn Chicago Company, Commission. Record: in the North. He the Chicago Planning pany of any size VOLUME 37/SPRING 1991 5 • • Bob of the University of Chicago Law Not only has he known such great School. His colleagues included as Franklin Roosevelt, public figures Blum was born on Edward H. Levi '35, Walter J. Martin Luther King, and Paul William Robert Ming Jr. in 1911 and '41, Harry Kalven Jr. '38, Wilber Katz, Robeson, but he fondly remembers the south side of Chicago education in and Bernard D. Meltzer '37. Bob left former Law School professors Ernst received his preparatory was a the in 1954 to enter private Bigelow, Ernst Put Chicago public schools. Bob faculty Freund, Harry Moore and father's at practice with Loring B. tkammer, James Parker Hall, and classmate of my Englewood School when there were fewer George N. Leighton. Together they Floyd Russell Mechem. High in formed the law firm of Moore, Ming the than a half dozen minority students ... He chose to fight through the entire student Bob once told & Leighton. courts and through organizations body. The law firm that Bob formed was me that when he was a freshman, my such as the National Lawyers firm to be often served as his the first Loop law integrated Guild, the NAACp, and the Dem father, a senior, on basis of race and I on the home from the gender. ocratic party in Chicago politics. bodyguard way one the finest law school.

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