New Orleans may well have been the most liberal Deep South city in 1954 because of its large Creole population, the influence of the French, and its cosmopolitan atmosphere.

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.

I grew up in a house where nobody had to tell me to go to school every day and do my homework.

The black population now consists of two distinct classes-the middle class and the poor.

King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.

By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader.

When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. No one thought this was a good idea