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Author: Geraldine R. Segal Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 1512806404 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
In Blacks and the Law, Geraldine R. Segal carefully and completely details the history and current status of black lawyers, judges, law professors, and law students in the United States. Extensive research into all available materials for Philadelphia, supplemented by interviews and questionnaires, results in an unrivaled study of the situation in one city. Her findings are then placed in a national setting by using comparative data from fifteen other American cities. The wealth of data presented here shows the persistence of high degrees of racial exclusion and underrepresentation practiced by the legal profession over many years. Countervailing these findings are success stories of enormously motivated and determined blacks who have overcome great obstacles to attain high positions as lawyers and judges. Within the legal establishment, increasing numbers of whites have dedicated themselves to lowering barriers to black participation. Blacks and the Law brings to light the racial prejudices of the white American legal community as well as its efforts to overcome such biases. It also shows the massive effort black people have made to achieve significant but limited progress toward integration of the legal profession and indicates the amount of work still ahead. This study is therefore of vital interest to all members of the legal profession, students of race relations, social mobility, and the professions, Philadelphians, and others who follow the struggle for racial equality.
Author: Robert R. Bell Publisher: Susquehanna University Press ISBN: 9780945636267 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
One focus of this book is to look at the interrelationship between the old Philadelphia upper class and the legal profession. The upper class refers to a group of old Philadelphia families whose members are descendants of financially successful individuals. Through their families, those men have had the means to enter, train in, and practice law. While over the two centuries covered here the percentage of upper class lawyers decreased, their influence for many years continued to surpass their numbers. In 1944, about 10 percent of all lawyers were listed in the Social Register. In the eight largest law firms in the city they accounted for 37 percent of the partners and 23 percent of the associates. But by 1990, their influence was waning: they represented only about two percent of all lawyers in the city. Moreover, in the eight largest law firms in the city, 12 percent of the partners were in the Social Register, but only one percent of the associates. Indeed, with the twenty-first century approaching, the old upper class was - and is - becoming increasingly irrelevant to Philadelphia law. In each chapter, an examination is made of the emerging American legal system and the training and practice of law in a given historical period. Before the Revolution most American law was British law. After the Revolution there were often bitter struggles over the continued use of British common law. Rapidly the British common law was modified, giving way to American common law - and that was the major focus of law up until the Civil War. Following the Civil War and well into the twentieth century the major thrust of law was related to business and industry, especially corporations. By the 1930s there was an increasing focus on Federal Commissions and statute law. Over the decades the training of lawyers underwent change. Until the twentieth century, most lawyers were trained in law offices, and it was only slowly that law schools became the accepted means of legal training. For most of American history, the lawyer practiced alone and often appeared as an advocate in court where his forensic skills were highly valued. For the various historical eras, this study attempts to show how the Philadelphia lawyer lived, some of his values, how he learned the law, and how he practiced it. Anecdotal material is used to illustrate these points whenever possible. Forty-two Philadelphia lawyers were interviewed who, for the most part, had first entered the bar in the 1920s and 1930s. Six modern-day Philadelphia lawyers were interviewed at length, and their insights are presented in the epilogue. Following each chapter there is a profile of a Philadelphia lawyer contemporary to the period discussed. Most of the profiles are of men who, considered outstanding lawyers in their own time, have come to be regarded as outstanding in the history of Philadelphia law.
Author: John Clay Smith (Jr.) Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 9780812216851 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 764
Book Description
"Emancipation is an important and impressive work; one cannot read it without being inspired by the legal acumen, creativity, and resiliency these pioneer lawyers displayed. . . . It should be read by everyone interested in understanding the road African-Americans have traveled and the challenges that lie ahead."—From the Foreword, by Justice Thurgood Marshall
Author: Julie Winch Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 9780195347456 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 532
Book Description
Winch has written the first full-length biography of James Forten, a hero of African American history and one of the most remarkable men in 19th-century America. Born into a free black family in 1766, Forten served in the Revolutionary War as a teenager. By 1810 he had earned the distinction of being the leading sailmaker in Philadelphia. Soon after Forten emerged as a leader in Philadelphia's black community and was active in a wide range of reform activities. Especially prominent in national and international antislavery movements, he served as vice-president of the American Anti-Slavery Society and became close friends with William Lloyd Garrison to whom he lent money to start up the Liberator. His family were all active abolitionists and a granddaughter, Charlotte Forten, published a famous diary of her experiences teaching ex-slaves in South Carolina's Sea Islands during the Civil War. This is the first serious biography of Forten, who stands beside Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Martin Luther King, Jr., in the pantheon of African Americans who fundamentally shaped American history.
Author: David A. Canton Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi ISBN: 1604734264 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 267
Book Description
Raymond Pace Alexander (1897-1974) was a prominent black attorney in Philadelphia and a distinguished member of the National Bar Association, the oldest and largest association of African American lawyers and judges. A contemporary of such nationally known black attorneys as Charles Hamilton Houston, William Hastie, and Thurgood Marshall, Alexander litigated civil rights cases and became well known in Philadelphia. Yet his legacy to the civil rights struggle has received little national recognition. As a New Negro lawyer during the 1930s, Alexander worked with left-wing organizations to desegregate an all-white elementary school in Berwin, Pennsylvania. After World War II, he became an anti-communist liberal and formed coalitions with like-minded whites. In the sixties, Alexander criticized Black Power rhetoric, but shared some philosophies with Black Power such as black political empowerment and studying black history. By the late sixties, he focused on economic justice by advocating a Marshall Plan for poor Americans and supporting affirmative action. Alexander was a major contributor to the northern civil rights struggle and was committed to improving the status of black lawyers. He was representative of a generation who created opportunities for African Americans but was later often ignored or castigated by younger leaders who did not support the tactics of the old guard's pioneers.