I found this article about a speech given by Clarance Darrow ...

[1StrongBlackMan]

in Akron, OH ... back in 1921.

In brutally frank remarks, the white attorney declared that the U.S. legal system was inherently biased against black people.

“There isn’t a state in the union where a colored man has an equal chance in a court of justice,” Darrow told the audience. “You’ve got to have money if you want a fair break in a court today. People never get money working — that’s why I’ve been a lawyer — and what chance does a colored man have to get enough money to prepare the defense demanded in a modern court?”

http://www.ohio.com/news/local-history-attorney-clarence-darrow-spoke-out-against-stupid-brutal-ignorant-prejudice-in-1928-akron-speech-1.468695

And his observation is as true today, as it was then.

[KT2000]

1. Great words from a great man

thanks for sharing this article. He has long been a hero of mine. In fact I have often hoped for a "play" where his words were re-enacted. There are a few other lawyers who have made great speeches for justice in closing arguments. It would make for an inspiring evening.

[sheshe2]

2. Powerful speech by Darrow.

• “Eventually, it will be realized by all that the world is kin and that whether men descended from Adam and Eve or were evolved from lower life forms, men of color or nationality are true blood brothers, the same essentially, however different they may appear.”

You are right 1SBM, " as true today, as it was then"

[JDPriestly]

3. So true. And also true for a lot of poor white people.

Difference is that white people even the poorest and stupidest were allowed to own property and homestead property in most of the US during our freebee, come-and-get-it, land-for-grabs period of development. African-Americans were not allowed to do that.

Also, in the South especially, African-Americans were either excluded from putting on boots of education, even the most basic education, and thereby deprived of the straps to pull themselves up with.

The effects of slavery on the African-American community even after a half a century since the Civil Rights movement and more than 200 years since the Civil War are so clear.

But the fact is that a certain class of white people, for example those who somehow got stranded in West Virginia and other God-forsaken, corrupt, hopeless places in the US also received to the African-Americans' third-class treatment what I would characterize as second-class treatment.

But you know what is interesting?

Now that middle-class white Americans are starting to take a look at their DNA, they are discovering that they are related, that they personally share the same DNA as some of those African-Americans that they love to hate, that they even in some cases share DNA with Native Americans and people they think of as "Mexican" simply because they have Hispanic surnames.

DNA is a big wake-up call. It tells you who you are and who your brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles way back really are and were. I think that may shock a lot of privileged white Americans and amuse a lot of people of color.

Wait till the fun really starts.

[Stonepounder]

4. plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose n/t

[DeSwiss]

6. plus les choses changent, plus elles s'aggravent habituellement n/t

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. The book "Attorney for the Damned" is excellent.

Has some of his famous closing arguments in it, like the Leopold-Loeb trial plea for clemency for both the defendants--life imprisonment instead of the death penalty.

[AverageJoe90]

7. Darrow was a truly principled and honest man.

I'd say we need more men like him in this day and age.

[Number23]

8. bravenak said it best in this thread

"End the racism first, otherwise we'll never get to the class struggle." http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4557522

[1StrongBlackMan]

9. Yep ...

because after we win the class struggle of us all, only we will have to struggle against that same, but now economically empowered, racists/racist system that is a major source of our economic disempowerment.

[JustAnotherGen]

13. go bravenak

[kwassa]

10. The Ossian Sweet case

Ossian Sweet

On September 9, 1925, a white mob in Detroit attempted to drive a black family out of the home they had purchased in a white neighborhood. In the struggle, a white man was killed and the eleven blacks in the house were arrested and charged with murder. Dr. Ossian Sweet and three members of his family were brought to trial, and after an initial deadlock, Darrow argued to the all-white jury: "I insist that there is nothing but prejudice in this case; that if it was reversed and eleven white men had shot and killed a black while protecting their home and their lives against a mob of blacks, nobody would have dreamed of having them indicted. They would have been given medals instead...." [14] Following the mistrial of the 11, it was agreed that each of them would be tried individually. Darrow, alongside Thomas Chawke, would first defend Ossian's brother Henry, who had confessed to firing the shot on Garland Street. Henry was found not guilty on grounds of self defense, and the prosecution determined to drop the charges on the remaining 10. The trials were presided over by the Honorable Frank Murphy, who went on to become Governor of Michigan and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.[15] Darrow's closing statement, which lasted over seven hours, is seen as a landmark in the Civil Rights movement and was included in the book Speeches that Changed the World (given the name "I Believe in the Law of Love&quot . Uniquely, the two closing arguments of Clarence Darrow, from the first and second trials, are available and these show how he learned from the first trial and reshaped his remarks.[16]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Darrow

[1StrongBlackMan]

11. I read ...

but cannot remember where that that closing argument was the source of inspiration for John Grishom's closing in the A Time to Kill novel.

[kwassa]

12. My only knowledge of Darrow's speeches ...

is the ones made up for him in "Inherit the Wind" and made by Spencer Tracy, who was great, of course.

[JustAnotherGen]

14. I have heard that too

And I can't remember where. . .