Jewish Lawyers and the Long Civil Rights Movement 1933-1965: Race, Rights and Representation Linda Ann Albin Submitted for the degree of Master of Arts by Research University of East Anglia School of Art, Media and American Studies June 2018 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived therefrom must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. 1 Word Count: 36,652. (Excluding appendices) 2 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................5 ABSTRACT ..........................................................................................................................6 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................7 Jewish Lawyers and American Civil Rights History 1933-1965 ..............................................7 Jewish Lawyers and the Long Civil Rights Movement .............................................................8 CHAPTER ONE: Jewish Civil Rights Lawyers: Who They Were and Where They Came From .........................................................................................................................18 The New Dealers .........................................................................................................................23 Labor, The Unions and the Law ................................................................................................28 The Red Scare, and The Shift from Labor to Race-based Rights ..........................................31 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................35 CHAPTER TWO: Law and Social Action ......................................................................36 Alexander Pekelis and Group Action in the Post War Period ...............................................39 The Amici Curiae ........................................................................................................................44 Litigation and the Courts ...........................................................................................................47 Beyond Brown .............................................................................................................................52 CHAPTER THREE: The Age of Direct Action ..............................................................55 Agents of Change ........................................................................................................................57 Representing the Movement: The Lawyers ............................................................................59 Representing the Movement: The Organizations ....................................................................63 Turf Wars ....................................................................................................................................64 Southern Hospitality...................................................................................................................68 Civil Rights Lawyering ..............................................................................................................70 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................75 Periods of Participation: The 1930s ..........................................................................................78 The 1940s and 1950s ...................................................................................................................79 The 1960s .....................................................................................................................................80 The Unwritten Chapter ..............................................................................................................81 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..............................................................................................................83 Primary Sources .................................................................................................................83 Archival Sources .........................................................................................................................83 Legal Briefs .................................................................................................................................87 3 Newspapers and Magazine Articles ..........................................................................................87 Miscellaneous ..............................................................................................................................88 Secondary Sources .............................................................................................................88 Appendices: Interviews by the Author .............................................................................98 Appendix 1: Interview with George Cooper, Civil Rights Lawyer, Professor of Law and co-founder of the Employment Rights and Immigration Law Clinics at Columbia University, New York.........................................................................................................98 Appendix 2: Interview with Bill Goodman, Civil Rights Lawyer ..............................110 Appendix 3: Interview with Philip Hirschkop, Civil Rights Lawyer and founder of the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council (LSCRRC) ............................................122 Appendix 4: Interview with Pamela Horowitz, Lawyer formerly with the Southern Poverty Law Center .........................................................................................................135 Appendix 5: Interview with Joe Levin, Lawyer and Co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center .........................................................................................................151 Appendix 6: Interview with Michael Meltsner, Lawyer and former First Assistant Counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) .................................................170 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has been a labor of love, loathing, but above all, one of learning. It has challenged me in ways I did not expect. As a journalist, learning to write for the academy has been akin to taking a crash course in a foreign language. And I must say, had it not been for the support and encouragement of my supervisor, Dr. Malcolm Mclaughlin, I might have abandoned this project some time ago. His patience knows no limits. The debt owed is beyond measure. I would like to thank Emma Long and Matthew Sillence for their assistance in getting me over the final hurdle and for all of those at UEA who helped me in this endeavor. I would like to express my appreciation to the lawyers who generously gave of their time and allowed me to interview them including, George Cooper, Bill Goodman, Philip Hirschkop, Pamela Horowitz, Joe Levin, and Michael Meltsner. Their experiences, stories and thoughts have greatly enriched this project, lending it perspective, depth and authenticity. I am also indebted to Tom Hilbink for his generosity in allowing me to use the interviews he conducted for his own project, many with lawyers long since dead. Also to the many archivists who went above and beyond in searching out those documents which provided insight and the evidence to support my thesis: thank you. On a personal note, I am overwhelmed by all of the support I received from friends, both here in the UK and in the U-S, over what has been a very long haul. Thank you. You’ll never know how much it has meant to me. But most of all I want to say a huge thank you to my husband, who happens to be my best friend. He has encouraged me from the beginning, and his love and support have sustained me through the most difficult periods. It would be fair to say he probably never wants to hear another word about Jewish lawyers and civil rights. For this I can’t blame him. However, a last word on the subject of Jewish lawyers and civil rights. My fervent hope is that everyone reading this dissertation will realize how indebted we all are to these lawyers for their disproportionate, sustained, and collective contribution to the legal and social history of America. Today, with the Constitution under threat from the executive, and from all those in positions of authority who have demonstrated contempt for the law, the judiciary and most significantly, the American people, it is imperative to remember that the struggle continues and so too does the need for the civil rights lawyer. 5 ABSTRACT This dissertation demonstrates that the collective contribution of Jewish lawyers to the long civil rights movement in America was greater than the dominant narrative has suggested. It places those lawyers in three distinct periods, which correspond with three phases in the development of civil rights struggle: the New Deal era of the 1930s, when they served as labor lawyers; in the 1940s and 1950s, when they became constitutional litigators fighting institutional discrimination in the courts; and in the 1960s, when they became movement lawyers and supported civil rights activists. What the work here shows is a sustained commitment on the part of Jewish lawyers to a broad rights agenda—one