Trailblazers Reflect
The video clips below are pulled, primarily, from oral history interviews. Please note that the images and recordings you are accessing are provided for your personal and/or scholarly use, and you are responsible for obtaining any copyright permissions that may be required for your further uses.
The Hon. Justice Elizabeth B. Lacy, justice from 1989 to 2007, was the first woman to serve on the court in its two-hundred year history. In this video clip, she reflects on how the presence of women influenced the tone of debate among the justices on the Supreme Court of Virginia. Lacy was joined by Barbara Milano Keenan in 1991 and Cynthia D. Kinser in 1997.
Transcript of oral history interview, October 8, 2008
Transcript of oral history interview, September 15, 2008
U.S. Circuit Judge Barbara Keenan reflects on choosing a career in public service and being one of the first women prosecutors in Fairfax County in 1974. Keenan served on the Court of Appeals of Virginia from 1985 to 1991 and the Supreme Court of Virginia from 1991 to 2010.
Transcript of oral history interview, June 6, 2013
The Hon. Johanna Levenson Fitzpatrick, chief judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia from 1997-2006, describes her work as a legal aid attorney in Fairfax County and her subsequent appointment to the bench in 1977.
Transcript of oral history interview, July 13, 2009
The Hon. John Charles Thomas, justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia from 1983 to 1989, recalls arguing cases for corporate clients when he was a young attorney with Hunton & Williams. Thomas was the first African American attorney hired by the firm.
Transcript of oral history interview, August 8, 2007
Transcript of oral history interview, June 11, 2007
Remembering the Fight Against Jim Crow
The Hon. James W. Benton, judge on the Court of Appeals of Virginia from 1985 to 2007, remembers his teacher Aline Black Hicks, who taught science at Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk. Black was the plaintiff in the first teacher salary equalization lawsuit filed in Norfolk, in 1939. Her teaching contract was not renewed for the 1940-1941 school year, but she was later reinstated. Benton remembers she encouraged students not only to pursue their own success but also to fight segregation. As a student, Benton took part in sit-in demonstrations against segregation in downtown Norfolk. As a young lawyer in the 1970s, he worked for the NAACP on continuing Norfolk school desegregation litigation.
Transcript of clip from Benton interview
As counsel for the NAACP, Senator Henry Marsh litigated 55 school desegregation cases in Virginia the 1960s and 1970s. In this clip, he reflects on his experiences facing U.S. District Court Judge Walter E. Hoffman repeatedly in a case that wasn’t settled for 19 years.
Transcript of video clip from Henry Marsh oral history interview
Transcript of full interview, September 8, 2008
Transcript of full interview, October 8, 2008
Courtesy Norfolk Portsmouth Bar Foundation
In a 2009 panel discussion moderated by author and journalist Juan Williams, Chief Justice Leroy R. Hassell, Sr., discusses the Supreme Court of Virginia ruling in Harrison v. Day (1959). The court ruled that state laws ordering schools to close their doors rather than desegregate violated the state constitution.
Hassell was four years old when Virginia Governor Lindsay Almond ordered schools closed in Norfolk, Charlottesville, and Warren County, but he had older siblings in the Norfolk schools. As a justice on the court, Hassell recalled, he had conversations with Harrison, then a retired justice, about his role in massive resistance. He said Harrison believed his legacy, and the legacy of Governor Almond, during the time, was the “avoidance of violence, and, from his perspective, that was a great achievement.”
Transcript of clip from Chief Justice Hassell’s comments
Attorney William T. Coleman, one of the lead strategists and co-author of the brief for the NAACP for Brown vs. Board of Education, clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1948 and 1949. Coleman was the first African American attorney to clerk for that court. In this video clip, he remembers Justice Frankfurter inviting him to lunch at the Mayflower Hotel one weekend when the court cafeteria was closed, only to discover it did not serve African Americans. The incident, Frankfurter, Coleman later learned, influenced the court’s 1953 ruling, District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc., which struck down Jim Crow in the District.
Transcript of clip from Coleman interview
Justice George M. Cochran served in the legislature before he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Virginia in 1969. Cochran was part of a group of younger legislators, sometimes called the “young Turks,” veterans of World War II who tried to moderate Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s. In this video interview, recorded in 2007, Cochran describes the difficulty of challenging the Byrd machine in the General Assembly before Governor Almond decided to abandon massive resistance in 1959 in favor of a plan that allowed limited desegregation.
Transcript of clip from Cochran interview
Citations:
Citations: Trailblazers Reflect
Hon. Johanna L. Fitzpatrick, interviewed by Professor Cassandra Newby-Alexander, July 13, 2009. Supreme Court of Virginia/Virginia State Law Library Oral History Project.
Hon. Barbara Milano Keenan, interviewed by Professor Cassandra Newby-Alexander, June 6, 2013. Supreme Court of Virginia/Virginia State Law Library Oral History Project.
Hon. Elizabeth B. Lacy, interviewed by Professor Cassandra Newby-Alexander, September 15, 2008. Supreme Court of Virginia/Virginia State Law Library Oral History Project.
Hon. John Charles Thomas, interviewed by Professor Cassandra Newby-Alexander, June 11, 2007. Supreme Court of Virginia/Virginia State Law Library Oral History Project.
Audio recordings and transcripts of the complete interviews of these justices and 17 other judges and justices are available through the online biographical directory for the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Citations: Remembering the Fight Against Jim Crow
Hon. James W. Benton, interviewed by Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, March 12, 2009, at the Supreme Court Building in Richmond. Supreme Court of Virginia/Virginia State Law Library Oral History Project.
Senator Henry L. Marsh, III, interviewed by Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, September 8 and October 8, 2008, in Richmond. Supreme Court of Virginia/Virginia State Law Library Oral History Project.
The triumph of the rule of law over massive resistance: a community celebration, broadcast by Norfolk’s Neighborhood Network. Community forum, January 28, 2009; sponsored by the Norfolk Portsmouth Bar Association.
William T. Coleman, Jr., interviewed by Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, January 30, 2009, O’Melveny & Myers law firm in Washington, DC. Supreme Court of Virginia/Virginia State Law Library Oral History Project.
Hon. George M. Cochran, interviewed by Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, March 30, 2007, in Staunton. Supreme Court of Virginia/Virginia State Law Library Oral History Project.