UNC civil rights law luminary Ted Shaw on the legacy of Thurgood Marshall. Plus, new documentary 'Becoming Thurgood.'

This is due south on WUNC. I'm Leonita Inge. Today we remember Mr. Civil Rights, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. His legacy lives on with celebrated attorneys like Ted Shaw, the longtime director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights. I knew of Thurgood Marshall, and I wanted to be what he was, not that I thought I could be as great as he was, but... I wanted to do that work as he did. The documentary, Becoming Thurgood, America's Social Architect, premieres on PBS tonight. We speak with director Alexis Agri about Marshall's legacy. He wasn't really thinking about it in an accumulative way in the way that we think about it and analyze it today. He just wanted to make people's lives better one case at a time. Becoming Thurgood on Due South. The news is next. American Tobacco Historic District in downtown Durham, this is due south on WUNC. I'm Leonita Inge. Today, a legend in civil rights law, living right here in North Carolina, and his connection to the man many consider the most famous civil rights lawyer in American history. He's the only Supreme Court Justice who was more famous for what he did before rising to justice. The work and life of Thurgood Marshall literally changed this country in ways that were incredibly positive and that still resonate today. Later in the show, my conversation with the director and executive producer of the new PBS documentary, becoming Thurgood, about the life and immense impact of the civil rights attorney, who was our nation's first black Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall. First, it is my honor to speak with an icon in civil rights litigation. Theodore Ted Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights at the UNC School of Law. And Professor Shaw is a recipient of the Third Good Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he served as Director Counsel, following in the footsteps of Third Good Marshall who founded. the Legal Defense Fund. You know, Professor Shaw, welcome to do South. Well, thank you, and it's good to be with you again. Oh, yes. And just to hear about your impact, and when they say following in the footsteps, I'm like, that's what you did. You actually probably followed in the footsteps of not only a great leader, but a mentor. Well, I would say that I... I eventually held the position he held. No one followed in Thurgood Marshall's footsteps. He is a big guy, right? Yes. In many ways, literally and figuratively. Your life has followed Thurgood Marshalls in so many ways.

You were even born in 1954, right, the year of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. That's the landmark civil rights school desegregation case argued by Thurgood Marshall and his team of lawyers. So tell me when and how your paths ever crossed. You know, when did you first meet Thurgood Marshall? Well, I'm not sure I can remember when I first met him. My first memory of being in the same space with him. was when I was a law student, and it was after my second year of law school. I was a rising third year student. And I had been on the National Board of the Black American Law Students Association. And we were very much consumed with a case that was in the Supreme Court that term. that was a hugely important case and also a case that had meant or turned out to mean a great deal in my life. And that was Board of Regents of the University of California versus Bakke, Alan Bakke. And it was the first time the court decided a higher education slash affirmative action case. And I don't remember how, but I ended up actually getting a seat in the Supreme Court on the day that the court announced Bakke. And, of course, Justice Marshall was on the bench. He had long been my hero. But I remember that day, I remember that opinion as it was read. And I remember Thurgood Marshall's. passionate dissent that he read from the bench. That was the first time I remember seeing him. I can't remember if I ever saw him before that as a law student, but that's when I remember seeing him the first time. When I think of the Bakke decision, I used to hear so much about it, I guess in the 1990s, because there were so many attacks. You know, I remember the affirmative action fights that came out of California, and now they were moving it to a University of Michigan and then and on and on throughout the country. So that was a very, very important time. You needed a Thurgood Marshall on the bench then. Absolutely. As it turned out, I spent a great deal of my life defending the Baki case and was deeply involved in those cases in the 90s that you talked about and in the Michigan cases in the early 2000s. And I remember leaving the Supreme Court. after Bakke was decided and announced. And I was devastated because for African Americans, at the moment it was decided Bakke was a loss. Many people don't remember that or never knew it. But it was a loss for a number of reasons. And yet there was this rationale.

that Justice Lewis Jerome Powell came up with. And it wasn't clear what it meant, but it was the diversity rationale as opposed to what... We, I had long thought was the most significant and powerful rationale for consciously working to include African Americans in higher educational institutions that had once discriminated against them. And that was a remedial rationale. And I don't mean remedial in the sense that you were making up for weak academics. Right. But I mean medial in a sense of remedying. remedying the history of discrimination against African-American. So here's the danger. I can go on talking about this forever, and I talk too much. Because it's come back, you know, just in 20, was it, 2023, the Supreme Court spoke again against affirmative action, and we're right back at that point. Yes, and I was with my wife. And I was in the Supreme Court when the SFFA cases, the Students for Fair Missions, which is, well, I won't say much about that name, but when they were argued, the Harvard case and the UNC case. And I remember after that time, you know, I had. been in the Supreme Court countless times. And I turned to my wife and I said, I'm not coming back here anymore because this court had been engineered with two hijacked seats and we could clearly see what was coming. You know, at what point in your civil rights journey? I guess did you say, I want to be a civil rights attorney? You know, I was, I think I was a boy when I decided I wanted to do that. I remember hearing of Thurgood Marshall. and the NACP. At that time, I didn't quite know about the distinction between the NAACP and the NWACP Legal Defense Fund. But, you know, I was a child of the 60s and 70s. I was born, as you say, in the year of Brown. And so the civil rights movement and the black consciousness movement, that was the fulcrum.

in which I was shaped and formed. And at some point, I said what I want to do with my life is that work. And I thought that law was the best way to do it, even though I had no idea how to get there. But I knew of Thurgood Marshall. And I wanted to... I wanted to be what he was, not that I thought I could be as great as he was, but I wanted to do that work as he did. Well, congratulations. You received the Third Good Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund not too long ago. Last year. What did it mean to you receiving that honor? Well, it was... It was a singular honor, and if you bear with me and forgive me, I actually was supposed to get it the year before I actually picked up the award. But in 2024, I was hospitalized. and came as close as I could come to dying, but miraculously survived it. But I couldn't make that dinner that the legal defense fund had that may. And so I picked it up last year. It was a great honor. It is a great honor. It's a... It's something that I really can't express how I feel about it, except that my heart was full, but I also... recognize that when you get a lifetime achievement award, and I've gotten one of those before from the American Constitution Society. So this is my second one. And a lifetime achievement award, I was very clear about what that means. Does that mean you're at the end? No, what is it? Yeah, it means you're closer to the end than the beginning. I know. And I'm still here, and I don't feel like I'm done yet or want to be done. Well, no, you're not done. You're still here. And, you know, later in the hour, we're going to come back to our conversation. And I'm going to continue speaking with UNC School of Law Professor and Director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, Ted Shaw, and just learn more about, you know, what led to this great career of yours. But first, we'll hear from two of the creators of the new PBS documentary about Thurgood Marshall called Becoming Thurgood, America's Social Architect. That coming up after the break. I'm Leonita Inge, and this is due south on WUNC.

I'm Leonita Inge, and this is Due South on WUNC. A new documentary explores the life and legacy of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court justice. Whatever was going on, people said, don't worry, Thurgood's coming. Third Good's coming. He understood how to use the power of his voice. So he wasn't just a litigator. He was doing so much more. He had to know the law up and down and backwards. And he did. Here you have this eloquent storyteller, Mr. Civil Rights, arguing, and it was inspirational. Mr. Civil Rights Indeed, that's from the new PBS documentary about the civil rights attorney turned Supreme Court justice, is called Becoming Third Good, America's Social Architect, and it premieres on PBS September 9th. I'm joined by Alexis Agri, principal of the Agri Company, and producer and director of Becoming Third Good, and Travis Mitchell, Senior Vice President, and Chief Content Officer at Maryland Public Television, and an executive producer on the film. Alexis and Travis, welcome to Do South. Thank you for having us. So you're both in Maryland right now. We know Thurgood Marshall was born and raised in Baltimore. I like in the film, he says, way up south, because that's what Baltimore is, right? So let's just start from the beginning. What did Marshall's childhood look like? You know, I know it was extremely segregated, but definitely loving and nurturing for him. Alexis, maybe you can start. He had a really beautiful childhood came from a really proud, educated family that worked really hard. And while he grew up in the segregated section of Baltimore, often people from that particular community don't think of it as segregated. It was just black. And it was very normal, middle-income community of hardworking African-Americans that often... sent their children to HBCUs like Lincoln University. So a really beautiful childhood and a really strong familial background. Both of his grandparents were grandfathers were grocers and owned grocery stores. One of his grandfathers owned multiple grocery stores, almost a grocery store chain. So business owners and a community of people that really encouraged scholarship and curiosity. And that's what he was known for, sort of being curious, a little argumentative, but a good kid and very smart.

A good kid and very smart. Well, Travis, how did this documentary really come to be? I know we talked a little bit about HBCU Week Now, something that I definitely admire. But tell me about why this documentary now. Well, it started about two and a half years ago. And at Maryland Public Television, we are fortunate and blessed to have some outstanding visionary leaders who saw what we do at MPT and who value PBS greatly. And so as we thought it was. our opportunity to tell stories of iconic Marylanders. We started with two natural PBS films several years ago, Harriet Tubman, Visions of Freedom, and becoming Frederick Douglass. And these films were made possible by funds that were made available by the Maryland General Assembly for the establishment of the Maryland Center of History films, which told the stories of native Marylanders who had had a global and a national impact. And so as we wrapped up production on those two films, we began discussions early on that Thurgood Marshall's story is an undertold story. And I thought it was really important to reach out to who I believe is one of the most dynamic filmmakers in the nation and Alexis and give her an opportunity to tell the story. And I don't want to jump ahead because she'll probably share a little bit about our first conversation. But she was able to. conceptualize how to tell Marshall's story. in a contemporary way to reach a very new audience. You know, I'm a Gen Xer. So I grew up during, you know, Black History Month when Thurgood Marshall was a staple of our study. Right. He was somebody who's going to be Third Good Marshall this year. Who's going to be Third Good Marshall this year? That's exactly right. And so we knew him growing up intimately. But then there's a whole generation who really didn't know him. And we thought in the spirit of why we do these films and the opportunity. we have to tell these films on a platform like PBS, I wanted Alexis to be the one to create the narrative and to share his story in a new and exciting way. And I'll let her tell you what that way was. But that's where the idea came from for the film going back two and a half years ago. You know, Alexis, I definitely want you to tell that story. And I don't want to... tell too much about the documentary, but there's some amazing archival footage in the documentary. And I just really enjoy the use of animation in some sections. So Alexis, can you describe really what viewers will see and why you took that approach?

Travis alluded to it two and a half years ago. He called me on my birthday. I was heading out the door to go to my birthday dinner. And he was like, I've got this amazing opportunity. But what would you do? Like, how would you tell a story about Third Good Marshall? And in that moment, I had done a lot of work on iconic African American and African diasporic figures. And I couldn't place his voice. All the work that I've done, I... contributed to the African American History and Culture Museum, 37 films and permanent exhibition there. And I could not place his voice and it bothered me. So after we got off the phone, I went into deep research, the nerd, the archival nerd that I am. I went into deep archival research to just... figure out what he sounded like. And my favorite researcher, a woman named Daph Daphne, Ferrier Glover, was like, let's see if he's done any oral histories. And she was able to identify an oral history at Columbia University and one at Yale. And we used that as the framework to make the film. We let. Justice Marshall tell his own story in his own words. And I felt like it was really important as a storytelling technique because Travis talks about being in Gen X. I'm a millennial and my son is Gen Alpha. And Gen Alpha once... the facts and they want to hear it directly from the source. And they don't want any editorial. They don't want you to editorialize it at all. And I thought, how can I teach my son about Third Good Marshall in a fresh way that lets him be curious about this figure, not just his work, but who he was as a man? And I felt like telling his story in his own words with these oral histories was the best way to do that. Well, I really enjoyed that. I mean, I... When I saw the way that you even opened the film, I was like, oh, I'm going to like this. I'm going to like this. Well, one of the people interviewed in the documentary is Irving Joyner. He's the Charles Hamilton, Houston, and Doubt, Sharon, Professor of Law at North Carolina Central University right here in Durham, North Carolina. How appropriate is that, you know, we know Houston, you know, is a great mentor of Marshall's. I want to play some audio of Professor Joyner. from becoming third good. Coming out of the enslavement period, there was this notion that African Americans would not be able to gain a higher education in white institutions and that it was necessary for African Americans to provide for themselves, to educate themselves.

HBCUs became the engine to advance in a society that did not want us, did not need us, and was looking for a way to keep us suppressed and back in the enslavement mindset and the enslavement reality. We're discussing the PBS documentary becoming Thurgood America's social architect. I'm here with Alexis Agri producer and director and Travis Mitchell, an executive producer on this project. Those are some strong words. We know that Thurgood Marshall attended Lincoln University, known as the nation's first degree granting historically Black College of University in this country. And it was not far away from Baltimore either, was it, Travis? He didn't go that far, but he definitely found his footing there. Yeah, less than an hour. And it was really amazing how Alexis tells the story. You're literally able to follow Marshall. from Baltimore and this upbringing that she mentioned where in the way up south, as he called it, he didn't necessarily see Baltimore as a segregated city. He saw it as a black city and everything that he needed. All of his socialization was within a certain area of town. So there was no need to really go outside of his comfort zone. When he goes to Lincoln, which is uproot one directive, it's less than an hour depending on traffic, but he goes to Lincoln and there his world opens up. And I don't want to give too much of the film away, but it's at Lincoln where both his mind opens because he meets people like Langston Hughes and Kwame and Krumah. So he now begins to open himself up to the possibilities that the struggle is real. But he has to come to grips with his lack of understanding. And then when I think when I hear Professor Joyner, And again, in my conversations with Alexis, we thought it was important for people to truly understand that had it not been for Lincoln and later Howard University Law School, where he was under the tunage of Charles Hamilton, Houston. Thurgood Marshall would not have become third good marshal. So so many of our HBCUs excel in helping us become who we really are meant to be. It's a place where we're nurtured, challenged to grow, and we can be authentically who we are and we can be our authentic selves. And so it's that HBCU experience that we wanted to capture in this powerful, powerful narrative. And so I say, no Lincoln.

No Howard, no Marshall. Alexis is a graduate of the Norfolk State University. It's hard for me to say that as a Morgan State University graduate, but I'm proud of those Spartans anyway. And so no Norfolk State, no Alexis Agree, no Morgan State, no Travis Mitchell. And so we wanted to tie our experiences to Marshall. Yeah, and I've been trying not to brag because I'm a Florida A&M University graduate, so I'll just have to throw that. In there, you can come on in there. You know, bears eat rattlers. Oh, no, no. Oh, yeah, that did kind of. I'm not going to talk. Anyway, so Alexis, you know, I want you to talk, I mean, we're going to move past Howard. Our time is going to go. We've got to move to the, talk about the NACP and his large footprint. But I know the subheading of the documentary is America's social architect. And I would have thought, why didn't you call it, I don't know, civil rights architect? I mean, tell me about this title, America's social architect. Well, it sort of nods back to Charles Hamilton, Houston, and that he wanted and felt like lawyers were social engineers, social architects. And lawyers, their jobs are to look at problems and to come up with... ways to make things more fair, to provide recourse and clarity when a dispute has happened. And he felt like their job... as he wanted, he didn't want them to just be lawyers, you know, for an income or to provide a service in what was then segregated America. He wanted to figure out ways and to come up with schemes and schematics and plans to make America live up to its... truest ideals. If we're saying, you know, all men are created equal and Americans are about the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, well, what are we doing as Americans to make sure that the law is equally applied to all people? And African Americans are people. And we were at that... Point Americans. So how can we come up with ways to challenge the state laws in such a way that allows African Americans to live more free and more fairly in the United States? So it's a nod to what Charles Hamilton, Houston was encouraging that cohort of law students to do, to make lasting important impact by... changing laws one case at a time. And we know that Brown and sort of the plan for Brown comes from the work that Marshall and his classmates did clerking under Charles Hamilton Houston's tutelage.

One thing that this film reminded me of that, yes, Third Good Marshal was Mr. Civil Rights, but he was a rock star. I mean, everywhere he went, people waited in line to meet him, to hear his words. And I think I read that he was probably one of the most, I mean. Only Supreme Court justices who was more well known before he became a Supreme Court justice than any of the others. Travis, maybe you can speak to that, just his presence. Oh, yeah, I think it's hard for us to understand today with so many different options and platforms and so many different idols in different industries. But during this moment in time, when you talk about seizing headlines, Thurgood Marshall was walking news. And so in our communities, Alexis really goes through great detail in helping people understand his arrival in the community and the impact and the anticipation where families understanding that here comes Thurgood and would bring their kids and everybody wanted to see this articulate black man who was well versed in the law. present cases that will ultimately make their lives better. And I think it's almost the way that the film mirrors his life. He had done so much and had such an impact, not only here, but in helping African nations who had really just become liberated, influencing. the writing of and helping them, advising them on the development of their own Constitution. So by the time he arrives on the Supreme Court, he had a life well lived and well documented. And so for some, the Supreme Court is the pinnacle. For him, it was just the next phase of significant, but so much of his life had been given to his work and to... making history that the Supreme Court was the final step in a career that was incredible. Well, Alexis, we have to wrap up, but maybe quickly you could mention just some of the work that he did, not. Up south, but down south. I mean, he risked his life over and over. You know, he could have been lynched, actually, you know, working, just trying to level the playing field when it came to voting, education, just life in general for a disenfranchised black people.

You know, he, I'll take a note from Justice Marshall himself. He thought of the work as he wasn't really thinking about it in an accumulative way in the way that we think about it and analyze it today. He just wanted to make people's lives better one case at a time. And we spend some time talking about some of the most significant cases in his career. But. as told by him, one being Smith versus Allright, which is about white primaries. While we had voting rights for... black men in America with the 13th, 14th, the 15th amendments. We didn't actually get to see that because what we find is states create sort of all kinds of rules, grandfather rules and poll test and things like that, to dissuade people from being able to register and actually vote and participate in the voting process. And he was most proud of Smith versus All right, which when you see the film, you'll hear more about that case. But we spend some time talking about cases that were important to Marshall and that stood out as being some of the most dangerous or some of the most impactful cases of his career. But he thought about... each case as really important in each jurisdiction and the rules that were changed for each small jurisdiction as important. And he thought that everyone should think about, instead of thinking about accumulatively, we should think about one case at a time and just trying to help one community. At a time like this, when there's so many problems in the world, it's... It's a good time to remember that it's one case at a time, it's one film at a time, it's one luminary at a time that's going to allow us to become a more perfect union. Well, Alexis Agri is principal of the agri company, producer and director of becoming Thurgood, America's social architect. Thank you, Alexis. Thank you so much. And Travis Mitchell, senior vice president and chief content officer at Maryland Public Television and an executive producer on this film. Thank you, Travis. Thank you so much for having us. And check out HBCU Week Now.com for more information on HBCU Week and Becoming Thurgood. Becoming Thurgood, America's Social Architect, premieres tonight on PBS. Coming up, more from my conversation with Ted Shaw, professor at the UNC School of Law, director of UNC's Center for Civil Rights, and a recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award. I'm Leonita Inge, and this is due south on WUNC.

I'm Leonita Inge, and this is Due South on WUNC. Back to my conversation with Ted Shaw. He's the Julius L. Chambers, Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights at the UNC School of Law. And Professor Shaw is a recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award from the NWACP Legal Defense Fund. We've talked about your connection to Justice Thurgood Marshall, who passed away in 1990. But Professor Shaw, I want to go back to before you started your legal career and learn more about your beginnings. So your grandmothers both played a huge role in your life and in shaping your understanding of civil rights. Tell me more about them. Well, my grandmothers, my two grandmothers were as different as day and night. My maternal grandmother, was what I call Harlem bourgeoisie. She and my grandfather had a brownstone in Harlem. So that made them bourgeoisie. Special, yes. It was a beautiful brownstone. It was finally appointed, as they might say. And they were members of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. in Harlem, which was Adam Jay Clayton Jerome Powell's church and his father before him. And so I remember as a boy going to Abyssinian. Some of my earliest memories were of hearing Adam Jay Clayton Jerome Powell Jr., who was a congressman, hearing him preach. And I remember my sisters and I would cry because he was so fiery, but we thought he was yelling at us personally. And my grandparents were the first couple to have been married in the present. sanctuary of Abyssinian Baptist Church when it moved up from Midtown, Manhattan, Harlem in 1923, and they got married in 24. So I could go on and on about that. My grandfather was a deacon. My great-grandfather was a deacon. You know, in time, my wife and I would become deacons. And I loved my grandmother deeply. My mother died when I was just shy of three. And so my two grandmothers played an outsized role in my life. My paternal grandmother was four foot nine inches tall. Really? And she never married. And back in those days, that was the scarlet letter. And she was a domestic worker, very dear to me, as both my grandmothers were. But in terms of civil rights, I was so proud because she talked about civil rights often, all the time. She read the paper every day. She talked about Thurgood Marshall, as did my maternal grandmother.

And on August 28, 1963, my paternal grandmother, Grandma Hattie, the 4-foot-9 grandmother, got up early that morning. She had stayed the night with us in the Public Housing Project in which we lived. And she made her way down to... Penn Station where she got a bus that was leaving from Penn Station and went down to the March on Washington. By herself? Well, she was on the bus with a lot of people. But yes, there was no other family. She wanted to take you, I'm sure. She did. And I wish that I had gone. But my second mother, my stepmother. with the best of intentions, she feared violence because there were rumors of violence. And so she didn't let me go. Whenever I, to this day, whenever I see photographs or film footage of the March on Washington, I'm always looking for my grandma Hattie. Oh, wow. Which, of course, you know, I'll never see her. She was four foot nine. There were 250,000 people there. And yet I can't. help but look for her every chance I get an opportunity. When I think about that history and really just the mixture of religion and politics, you know, that was how black people lived. That's how we lived. They were definitely together. They were not separate. That's why we have Adam Jay Clayton Jerome Powell. That's right. That's right. I'm surprised Thurgood Marshall wasn't a preacher. Because he sounded like a breacher. Well, he had another calling. He had to answer. I know. So when you were in New York City growing up in the late 50s and 60s, tell me some more about your experiences, I guess, even in school. Well, my – well, first let me say I went to Catholic school for 12 years, even though my – maternal grandmother was a Baptist. Are there many black students there? In Catholic school? With you? Not in the one I went to because I went to school outside of my neighborhood. And it was basically all white except for my family. And those who are hearing this and can't see me, they don't know. I'm very light skin. But that didn't matter to many of the white students. They could still tell. Well, not only did they tell, but they also, you know, a lot of them did not have enlightened views when it came to issues of race. It was like being in the South in many ways. In many ways. I remember, and I don't mean to be cruel or mean-hearted.

But, you know, we had one nun who was from Missouri, as she used to call it. And she would refer to black people as darkies. And in music class, we would sing this song. I don't know if you've ever heard it. Jumped down, turn around, pick a barrel of cotton. I've heard it. Yeah, yeah. Catholic school was both my salvation and my damnation. My salvation because the education we got was better than what I would have gotten. Otherwise, my damnation, because as I've often said, once you get those nuns in your head, you never get them out. But I went on to a Catholic high school that had a tremendous group of black and brown students, although we were only 10% of the student body. My classmate. And friend and dear friend for life was Sonia Sotomayor. Really now? Yes, really now. And, you know, I testified at her Supreme Court nomination and supported her when she was nominated before that to the Court of Appeals. And, you know, we're... We're friends for life. So growing up in the Bronx, you ask about living there at that time, public housing project. And, you know, I could tell you a lot about that, but I don't know how much of that you would want to hear. I will say that it was a time of great consciousness. And it made a huge difference in my life. I could go on talking about that, but we'll spare you. You'll spare me. I'm speaking with Ted Shaw, Professor of Law and Director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights at the UNC School of Law about his life and career in social justice work. So now you're out of school, you're out of even law school. Now you're on to your first job. Wow, the Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division, your first job. It was. I had two dream jobs. One was the work.

at the United States Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division because I knew the folklore and the legend of the work that Civil Rights Division did when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was Attorney General and John Doer was the Assistant Attorney General and John Doer faced down these mobs of racists as they were trying to desegregate schools. That job was a dream job. It was my first job out of law school. My second dream job was the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The thing about the legal defense fund was you didn't call them. They called you. So I never thought I'd have much of a chance of that job. But I had gone to Columbia for law school. And one of the... Adjunct professors there at the time was Jack Greenberg, who was Thurgood Marshall's successor, and one of the lawyers who argued in the Brown cases. There were five cases. And I took his seminar, got to know Jack, and he, to some degree. And Jack remembered me when he... went to hire a lawyer in the early 80s, and I was at the Justice Department, and I was unhappy by that time. I loved working at the Justice Department starting out there, but when Reagan was elected president, He changed the practices and policies at the Civil Rights Division, and I found myself more at war with those who ran the division for President Reagan. Did you have brought in during Jimmy Carter's time? I came under the Jimmy Carter. That's right. And so it was a question of when I was going to leave, you know. I don't know. Most of your visitors, listeners rather, wouldn't remember this. One of the things that happened under Reagan was that the Justice Department changed its position in a case involving the question of whether the IRS could deny tax-exempt status to institutions that practice racial discrimination. It was two cases consolidated. One. was Bob Jay Jones University versus IRS. And the second case was Goldsboro Christian Schools versus IRS. And Justice Department changed the position they had taken under the court administration that the government could deny tax-exempt status to those institutions that practice racial discrimination. And I was there when justice changed that position. I was one of the lawyers who went into open revolt. Yeah, you didn't want to be there anymore. No, it was time to go. You know, as the saying goes, you may not have to go home, but you sure have to leave this way. So when you were at the NACP Legal Defense Fund,

I know we don't have a lot of time, but I really want to know, was there a case just most memorable, something that you really put your heart into? Well, there were a number of what I considered to be important cases I worked on. There was a huge school desegregation case that also involved issues of housing that came out of Kansas City, Missouri. It was Missouri v. Jenkins by the time it went to the Supreme Court for the second or third time. I actually argued that case in the Supreme Court, and we lost five to four. It was one of the cases in which the Supreme Court... backed away from school desegregation. By that time... Even after Brown. Oh, this is... Well, it took a long time to try to get Brown enforced. My mentor and friend and my former boss, Julius Chambers, you know, he argued the case in 1971 that finally... began to see serious enforcement of Brown, Swan v. Charlotte Mecklenburg Board of Education. But Jenkins and two other cases were the last cases that involved mandatory school desegregation. And by that time, the Supreme Court had begun to back out of school desegregation cases. That case was hugely important. And so I spent a good deal of my life for many years working on that case. But there were other cases, too, that meant a lot and meant a lot to me. that I worked on when I was at Justice. One of the thing, if I may, I was at the Justice Department. just a few days before the second inauguration of President Trump. I was there to say goodbye and to honor Kristen Clark, who was the head of the Civil Rights Division under President Biden. And there were many lawyers I had worked with over the years, both while I was at Justice and after I left, but as a civil rights lawyer.

I knew what was coming, but I did not know how bad it would be. And under this administration, the Civil Rights Division has been dismantled. And it's been a painful thing to see that legacy. destroyed in the way it has been destroyed. I couldn't talk about my work as a civil rights lawyer and my time at justice and at the Legal Defense Fund without acknowledging that. These are really dark days that we're in right now. Do you see any hope? Especially when I think of... You know, I don't know. In some spaces, the resegregation of schools. Oh, yes. Yes. Well, I see hope, but not because of the present moment, but because I think that hope is a choice, that we have to choose hope and then work to make it reality. But if you ask me whether this is a hopeful moment, It's not. This is an idea. You know, it's a low moment for civil rights, and there's a lot that's being undone or has been undone that's going to be hard to redo. This is a period that we could call the Second Redemption that echoes the post-Civil War. years after Reconstruction. Well, I'm glad you're here and still working. We're never going to let you really retire. Ted Shaw, Professor of Law and Director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights. Thank you so much for speaking with me and just learning so much more even about your life and career. Like I say, you have a lot of work to still do. Well, thank you, and it's always good to be with you. I'm Leonita Inge, who've been listening to Mike DeWine South on WUNC.

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