None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Some years ago I said in an opinion that if this country is a melting pot, then either the Afro-Americans didn't get in the pot or he didn't get melted down.

Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish.

Ending racial discrimination in jury selection can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely.

We must dissent from the fear.

History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.

When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery. If not remedied, the scandalous state of our present system of capital punishment will cast a pall of shame over our society for years to come. We cannot let it continue.