Podcast with Vernon Jordan

Today our publisher Tom Goldstein spoke with Vernon Jordan – a senior counsel at Akin Gump who has also served as president of the United Negro College Fund, field director of the NAACP, and an adviser to former President Bill Clinton – about his experience with de jure segregation and the effect of the Supreme Court’s rulings on that subject on the civil rights movement.  This is the latest edition in our Race and the Court program.

Here is the link to the fourteen-minute podcast and a road map of highlights:

• 0:50—The meaning of Brown v. Board of Education: “1954 was a clarion call”
• 1:37—Indications that Brown was “coming down the pipe”
• 2:37—Jordan’s impression of Brown while at DePauw University, and his experience with segregated universities and law schools
• 4:48—The launch of the civil rights movement after Brown: “The Supreme Court decision was an answer to our prayers and a signal to the country that things were going to change”
• 5:43—The long and gradual road to full desegregation
• 7:30—Learning constitutional law from James Nabrit, who used to say “Raise it [the constitutional issue]!”
• 8:17— Is the Court still the friend of the black community?
• 12:08—The writing of the Voting Rights Act

Subscribe to the SCOTUSblog feed on iTunes to receive our latest podcasts automatically–this one should be available by this evening.