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.

Living at the YMCA in Harlem dramatically broadened my view of the world.

Had it not been for James Meredith, who was willing to risk his life, the University of Mississippi would still be all white.

I soon found law school an unmitigated bore.

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

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.

We African Americans have now spent the major part of the 20th Century battling racism