I was just a very small player; I did what I could. Some friends and I opened a Law Students Civil Rights Research Council (LSCRRC) chapter at Brooklyn Law School around 1965. We did research. I was a LSCRRC volunteer in Selma during the summer of 1966, and winter school break of 1967. I took the statements of parties and witnesses growing out of the police riot at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in 1965.
But I took away much more than I could ever give. For one, I never miss a vote, and never will. Also, I realized that my honest place was to fight this fight at home, and that civil rights would be the center of effort of my life and legal career. I did, and it was until I retired in 2003.
Looking back, I think the Movement produced one very profound change. Equality in the eyes of the law, certainly in its most narrow and narrowing terms, is not all that is needed, but it is much of what is needed, and much of what is needed to achieve more. And all this came from a movement based on nonviolence. I think about that.
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