My Reflection: A Conclusion to my Discoveries

 Hello! 

I hope this last post finds you well. As we close out this semester and this depth activity, I would like to make this post a reflection on my discoveries. 

I always knew Alabama had a dark history of racism. I knew going into this project that things were not going to be pretty and that I needed to get comfortable with the idea that I was going to uncover some pretty dark events that history textbooks didn't talk about. I was well aware of the peaceful protests but also the violence that broke out in places I drove by every day when I lived in Birmingham.

I just don't think I can fully comprehend my mood when I was reading about some of the court cases I looked at. I also don't understand what could possibly make people think that way. The big question in my head was "why?", which is a question that races through most of my family and friend's minds. 

I remember a field trip I took to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. An extremely fascinating exhibit that showcases the struggles that minorities (of ALL races) have faced in Alabama. The very first things you see are two water fountains, one labeled "colored" and the other labeled "whites". When I was reading up on our state and what we have done in the courts during this era, I couldn't help but think about my visit to the institute. Where were these cases?  Why are we not being told about Powell vs. Alabama? We can't grow if we can't learn! 

To conclude a shorter post today, I would just like to extend a thanks for reading through my posts. I hope that you found them extremely interesting! I'll end on our one time a post "Alabama is a great place to be from", and I hope my perspective help you interpret that meaning.

"

Powell vs. Alabama: A Live Reaction Part 2!

 Hello!

This week, yet again, I am going to do a live reaction to a court case that I have not studied beforehand. This time, however, due to feedback from my last live reaction, I am going to make this one more thorough. 

A Preface...

Much like last post, I want to touch on something before we get into the reaction again. While I am prideful of where I come from I want to yet again acknowledge that Alabama has a dark history when it comes to dealing with minorities in the state. As a white person, I do not feel qualified to give the insight into how racism affects minorities. It is not my place to speak on this issue at all. I want to bring light to the issue in the best way I can, but I understand that I can only do so much. 

Before Reading...

This time around, I'm going to take brief look at the background of the case on Oyez. Afterwards, I found an article that breaks down the case and the decision in the JMU library database. If needed, I will look for another article that answers any questions I have left over. So let's break down this case!

During Reading...

Something already looks really fishy based on the very first paragraph I read on Oyez... I see that 9 black youth sexually assaulted 2 white women on a train car? And the court cases only took a day? I already don't like this... and I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the red flags. 

Again, Oyez says that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment is being questioned in this case... I'm still very confused as to what is going on here. I'm going to take a look at this archive (I will link this below at the end of the article). 

I already like this source better, as it quotes exactly what is being questioned here. The article discusses the defendants' right to council, which supposedly was very restricted as the council provided to the supposed assailants did very little preparation for them, resulting in an unfair trial. Since their council was not well prepared for trial, they (no surprise here) lost. The question being answered in the courts was whether or not this lack of preparation violated the Due Process Clause. This makes a lot of sense to me and I feel that it would violate this clause. Their liberties were 100% deprived! They barely at all met with council before their trial and this infuriates me. 

The article then continues to go into more detail about how the conviction happen, and here I continue to get more enraged. This statement in particular from the article strikes me: 

"There is a further recital to the effect that, upon the arraignment, they were represented by counsel. But no counsel had been employed, and aside from a statement made by the trial judge several days later during a colloquy immediately preceding the trial, the record does not disclose when, or under what circumstances, an appointment of counsel was made, or who was appointed."

This is disgusting. I don't mean to make this about my political opinions at all, but this makes me feel sick. History books in high school really like to leave stuff like this out. It's unsettling to know that I wasn't taught this about my home state in schools. Withholding information like this in my opinion is belittling the severity of the treatment of minorities in Alabama. I still want to be proud of where I have come from, and I understand that we as a state have grown from this, but how much have we grown if we can barely acknowledge this happened? This is something I don't feel I can properly answer at the moment. With time and maturity I will begin to be able answer that. 

The article then goes on to point out that in the state of Alabama, the constitution requires council be appointed to anyone accused of a crime. The article states beforehand that this was already a gray area and this was brought up in the original trial, but if I'm honest I'm still a little confused in how that played out, but it's important that this was disputed in the original court. After this, the article cites MANY cases in which question the bounds of the 14th Amendment and play scenarios for how this case should be decided. In my personal opinion, the court should rule in favor of the plaintiff and declare the case a mistrial on the grounds of the Due Process Clause. The new trial should take place with new council, a new jury, and a new judge. A fair trial was not given to the defendants. 

In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled in favor of the defendants. What I like the most about this decision is that the majority opinion outlines exactly where the original court was out of line: 

"In this court, the judgments are assailed upon the grounds that the defendants, and each of them, were denied due process of law and the equal protection of the laws in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment, specifically as follows: (1) they were not given a fair, impartial and deliberate trial; (2) they were denied the right of counsel, with the accustomed incidents of consultation and opportunity of preparation for trial, and (3) they were tried before juries from which qualified members of their own race were systematically excluded. These questions were properly raised and saved in the courts below."

I want to touch a little bit more on that last reason that the majority opinion felt that the Due Process Clause was violated. I cannot even begin to comprehend how it would feel to be one of the defendants in that courthouse during the trial. A minority in the Jim Crow south being tried by a jury of their white "peers" sounds horrifying. The jury for these people were all white. In what world is that fair? This wouldn't be fair even in this day and age! I am absolutely blown away that this was even allowed to happen. That is a BLATANT violation of the 14th Amendment! This is the furthest thing from "Due Process". 

After Reading...

I'm super angry that I was never taught about this in depth in high school. I vaguely remember something about this case, but I was never told a name or exactly what happened. Not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but was this intentional? I guarantee you if you walked down the streets of Birmingham, the most populous city in the state, not one person would be able to tell you anything in depth about this case. That's upsetting. I feel that if we as a state have truly grown from our racist past, we would acknowledge our wrongdoings when being taught about our history, not sweep it under the rug. Personally, now I understand even more the all so famous phrase on here "Alabama is a great place to be from". I feel that now that I'm done with my time there I only continue to learn more and open my mind more about the world around me and the dark history of my home state. I want to learn more about it, and uncover more secrets that might have been hidden from me. 

That's all from me today, folks!

Signing out. See you next week and stay curious!

Links to sources:

Oyez: Powell v. Alabama

Legal Collection Database: Powell v. Alabama

NAACP vs. Alabama: A Live Reaction!

 Hello! 

I know I intended to get this post out before Thanksgiving break was over... but Holiday travel had other plans in mind for me, so we're doing this now. The next post will still be out for sure by Wednesday though so stay tuned!

A Preface...

Last post, I talked about Justice Hugo Black and I brought up my aunt's saying of "Alabama is a great place to be from" and why I liked the saying at times. But this isn't always the case. 

This week, I did a quick Google search of "Supreme Court cases to come from Alabama" (because I had never heard anything) and found the case NAACP vs Alabama. This post will be a raw reaction of the case and I will give my two cents on it being from the state. 

Before I get into the reaction, I want to say that as much as I am prideful of my home state, I am well aware of its dark history when it comes to minorities. I can't ignore it, but I also do not feel as though I am the best voice to speak on it because I am white. My aforementioned "two cents" cannot speak to the struggles minorities had to deal with in Alabama. Because of this, I only intend to speak on how this case impacted the movement as a whole. 

Before reading up on the case...

My initial thoughts are that this case is going to focus on some aspect of the first amendment, most likely freedom of the press or the freedom of assembly. Alabama was notorious for censorship of issues of minorities and putting down protests in a very violent way, so my guess is that the NAACP is suing the state in some way for it's policy on handling such protests since they did so in a very unethical and racist way. The case is from 1958, and if I had to guess, the NAACP won.

I am going to be reading the Oyez profile of the case now (The site will be linked at the bottom of this post). This will not make me an expert on the case by any means but it will provoke a reaction out of me and give me the quick details.

After Reading up on the case...

The very first paragraph describing the details of the case already alarms me. Alabama tried to rid the NAACP from doing any business in the state? Where was this in History class? I knew that what the state did was bad, but I had no idea the state would go to these lengths. I don't fully understand how this ended up in the courts though. It mentions something about a subpoena, but I still don't understand what provoked the original case. 

Oyez then mentions that the question at hand was whether or not Alabama was violating the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, which I had to read up on to help me understand the verdict.

I love that the court ruled unanimously in favor of the NAACP. Not just because it allows the organization to do work in Alabama, but also because it provides legal justification to join and work with ANY organization. They ruled in favor of the NAACP because the justices felt that the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment was violated in some capacity. More specifically, they felt that depriving a person from working with the NAACP was depriving someone of liberty, which is stated in the clause, which I would agree with. 

The reason I like this decision so much is that it goes further than just dealing with civil rights. This case argues about basic American values that we have wanted since the revolution. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is one of the most famous quotes from the Declaration of Independence and even though this was questioned for minorities in Alabama, it applies to everyone. This decision states that everyone has the right to do business and support whatever organization they want (with a few exceptions of course) and it furthermore implies that people are not truly free if they aren't able to. Though this blog focuses on the advancement of civil rights and this case does just that, the case also applies outside of that to everyone.

Alabama was on the wrong side of history here, provoking a huge question to be asked in the courts. This case contributed to the courts answering a very important question in the courts. The state led by bad example here, and I am ashamed that my state did this to people. But without the opposition to this, who knows what might have happened? This is why things need to go to the courts sometimes, because beforehand there was no loophole, but now it has been closed.

Here's the link to the Oyez cite if you'd like to read it:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1957/91

Justice Hugo Black: Alabama's Influence on the Supreme Court During the Jim Crow Era

 Hello and welcome back!

My apologies for not getting a post out last week. Stressing over travel home for Thanksgiving... but this week I will be posting twice and (hopefully) getting back onto the regular schedule until the end of the semester with posts every Wednesday afterwards. 

This post will be all about Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, a very well known justice from Alabama. Black is the perfect example of a small town boy who worked very hard to be successful. Extremely driven from a very young age, he was the youngest in his class to graduate law school and would go on to Birmingham (my hometown) and make his name in the field before becoming a Supreme Court Justice under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As I mentioned in my last blog post (and probably will in all of my posts), a quote my aunt told me when I first visited her in DC is that "Alabama is a great place to be from". Hugo Black is a perfect example of what this quote means, especially during the Civil Rights era when he sat on the Supreme Court. I could only imagine how it would feel to be from a state the whole country is looking at when it comes to these issues. The whole world was watching Birmingham at one point in time during the movement and it is absolutely fascinating to me that someone that not only knew the area but worked there for years played a major role in evaluating many civil rights decisions.

So, looking back on history now... let's evaluate his rulings on a couple notable cases, shall we?

Brown vs Board of Education (1954)

An extremely famous Supreme Court case that everyone is taught from elementary school, Black ruled in favor of Brown and the integration of schools. Given that this one was a unanimous decision to overturn the separate but equal clause, no justice was on the wrong side of history in this case. I also find it interesting that Oyez labels Black as the most liberal justice. A read through his profile on the website labels him as a liberal justice but honestly I'm shocked to see that he's labeled as the MOST liberal of them all. His decision not only is in line with the other justices, but it also is in line with his reputation as a lawyer before getting the nod to be a justice himself. He would represent anyone in the courtroom, regardless of skin color.

Heart of Atlanta Motel vs United States (1964)

This is a very interesting case that resulted in another unanimous decision in favor of the US. A motel in Atlanta refused to serve guests of color, but the defense argued that they could not do that since it violated the commerce clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Basically, since the motel was positioned by two major interstates in the city, much of the business it received came from citizens of other states, meaning the Civil Rights Act was violated since the motel profited on interstate commerce. Black yet again ruled with every other justice, this time highlighting his by-the-book interpretations of the law. 

Loving vs Virginia (1967)

You know... It's weird to even think that at one point in time in the US, people weren't allowed to marry others who didn't have the same skin color as them. It's also weird that I can't seem to find any landmark civil rights cases where the decision wasn't unanimous. In this case, an interracial couple from Virginia married in DC and upon their return were arrested and convicted for violating a statute which banned interracial marriages. They were told this ruling would be suspended if they left Virginia and didn't come back for 25 years... yikes. The reason this case found its way to the Supreme Court was to determine if it violated the equal protection clause, and clearly by the unanimous decision it seems the court thought that it did. Black here again finds himself in the same line of thinking as the other justices, and I think at this point I'm starting to notice something. Regardless of the backgrounds of the justices, it's clear they all see that under the law, there were very clear issues with the treatment of people of color and the way that they were treated, including the whites in the south who were privileged he most from the during the Jim Crow era.

Final Takeaways...

I had always known about Hugo Black being from Alabama and that he was a Supreme Court Justice, but I had never really looked into his track record as a justice. I know that this blog post only focuses on his rulings in civil rights cases and that doesn't show much since all the cases I selected were unanimous decisions, it goes to disprove the misconception that people have that all southern whites in the Jim Crow era were racists. I mean, Black grew up white in a sundown town (which if you don't know what that is that's a whole other conversation but basically lots of racists) and worked in a city where people of color were hosed on national television. 

Furthermore, I want y'all to see that there were Alabamians out there that actively did something to help guarantee people of ALL races civil rights. We as a state get a bad rep for famously being on the wrong side of history when it comes to guaranteeing all people civil rights, but I don't think that's totally fair and a great example is Justice Hugo Black.

Works Consulted in this Blog Post:

https://www.oyez.org/justices/hugo_l_black

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1964/515

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1966/395

Hello and Welcome!

 Hello! 

My name is David Albright and I am a freshman at James Madison University. I'm a double major in Political Science and International Affairs from Birmingham, Alabama. For my Political Science class this semester, I was assigned a depth activity to further my knowledge on any American political topic. I'm choosing to look into supreme court cases that take place in Alabama or deal with Alabama citizens. Recently, my aunt told me that "Alabama is a great place to be from", so I want my project to reflect the pride I have to be from Alabama!

In this project, I want to write several posts that all help me answer a single question: "What have Alabamians done in the courts to help shape our country's civil rights?'. Each week, I will examine a different topic that will help me answer this question. The topic could be a famous case, a lesser known one, or even a justice who influenced many decisions! Follow along with me live as I share the new things I have learned and my opinions on them. I plan to publish a new post every Wednesday from here on out until December 8th, the last Wednesday before finals. 

See you next week!

David Albright