I never thought I would live long enough to see the legal profession change to the extent it has.

Columbia Law School men were being drafted, and suddenly women who had done well in college were considered acceptable candidates for the vacant seats.

The last state to admit a black student to the college level was South Carolina

I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

Doing away with separate black colleges meets resistance from alumni and other blacks.

My father kept his distance from working-class American blacks.

I was born and raised in the oldest settled part of the nation and in an environment in which racism was officially mooted.