Audio
Oral History Interview with Irving Morris 2
Transcript
Oloye Adeyemon: Brown versus Board oral history collection. Belton and Bulah versus Gephart court case interviews. Second part of the interview with Attorney Irving Morris. Uh, earlier, we talked about, uh, some of the history, uh, leading up to the court case, but I'd like to ask if you go back just a little further and talk about, um, Delaware and its, uh, history as a slave state and border state. Perhaps that as well may be helpful for people trying to get an understanding of what the conditions were like in the 1950s.
Irving Morris: Delaware, as you mentioned, is a border state, is a border—was a border state at the time of the Civil War. Delaware was also, assuredly, in the southern part of the state, a slave state. It stayed within the union. The, um, Emancipation Proclamation, again, as you know, effective January 1, 19—I'm sorry, 1863, applied to the states in rebellion and secession. Accordingly, it did not apply to Delaware, which was still part of the Union. The upshot of that was that slaves were sold in Delaware throughout the Civil War, and I'm not so sure that I should say were sold after the Civil War. It wouldn't be surprising to me if that were the case.
Parts of our state, even well into the, uh, 20th century, were manifestly racist, uh, in their attitudes. Georgetown, Delaware, so it's been told, and I never saw the sign, had a sign—again, I emphasize, supposedly as you entered into Georgetown, Delaware, which is in the southern part of our state—"The sun doesn't set on the head of the nigger here." Whether or not that was true, as a matter of fact, I don't know. But there was certainly not a receptivity to the recognition of rights of black people.
Delaware did not ratify the 14th—the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution until the 20th century. I'm not sure of the date, but it was the early part of the century. Whether it was 1906 or 1912, I'm not positive as I sit here, but the general assembly of our state didn't get around to that until well after these amendments to our Constitution were effective.
In terms of attitudes, I can tell you from my representation of a chap by the name of Norman Benjamin Parson in this—my involvement, uh, terminated in 1963. But this was a chap who was charged with rape and murder of a, uh, white babysitter near Georgetown. He was black. I did not represent him at trial, where he was convicted. But before he was, uh, I think he was sentenced. The sentence was—uh, it was mandatory that it was death. And I knew the lawyer who had tried the case, Jack Reysor. I got a call from, um, two members of the News Journal, would I look into this matter because their stringer in Georgetown had reported that, uh, it was, uh—the representation was poor. There had also been, upon the conviction, a parade in Georgetown—a parade that a man had been convicted of rape and murder.
So I called Jack Reysor, whom I knew quite well. He had practiced law in Newcastle County, and I had tried cases against him and got to know him well, and I called him. Couldn't get him the first day, but I got him the second day. And it was a situation where a feller needs a friend. I asked Jack if I could be of any help to him. And he said, "Sure, come on down." And I went down to Georgetown and, uh, participated with Jack in the preparation of a petition for a new trial, which was unsuccessful. But, in the process, Jack let it be known to the, uh, sitting judge, who was then the judge in Superior Court is John McNeely. And Jack Reysor told me that the only help he got from the lawyer who was working with him, a fella named Ralph Baker, which served as a Deputy Attorney General at the same time I did for the brief period I was there. I was a Deputy Attorney General in the early part of 1955, which relates to Brown, too, and I'll tell you about that. Uh, but many of that—Jack Reysor said Baker's only contribution was to sit with him and say to Reysor, "What are we going to do for this coordinator?" And that was not much help.
Oloye Adeyemon: How did he spell his last name? Reysor.
Irving Morris: R-E-Y-S-O-R. So I joined with Jack, and we petitioned for a new trial unsuccessfully, took it to the State Supreme Court, by which time Judge McNeely formally designated me to replace Baker as the attorney of record for Parsons, along with Jack Reysor. And I got a call from then Chief Justice Daniel Wolcott, who said to me that he didn't want me to misunderstand, uh, what he was saying, but that he was pleased I had been appointed because he was now satisfied that Parson would get his constitutional rights. He assured me, he said, "Now, I don't want you to think that I'm gonna go out of my way and do anything for Parson." "Oh," I said, "I wouldn't assume for a moment that you'd do that. I assume you would go ahead and do what, uh, you thought you should." And he and I both understood each other. He wasn't going to do much for Parson at all, and he didn't. State Supreme Court affirmed. And, uh, we then petitioned the United States Supreme Court for cert, unsuccessful but I’m getting somewhat far afield.
Oloye Adeyemon: It helps. It helps [crosstalk 07:22].
Irving Morris: But the attitude is what I wanted to share, a parade in Georgetown.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand. Sure. You had, uh, mentioned that you were in law school at the time that you assisted Redding and Greenberg with the Parker versus the University of Delaware case, doing some research—
Irving Morris: Yes, sir.
Oloye Adeyemon: And you've just mentioned this case. Is it safe to say that you had an interest in this area, desegregation [fading voice 07:58]?
Irving Morris: Well, if you're Jewish and you lived in the home that I did as a child, uh, and you were brought up with a sense of what is right, if you had the advantage of going to a synagogue where the rabbi was of equality of Jacob Kraft of blessed memory, um, you would have a recognition that, uh, there's more to life than just going out and earning a living. If you have a sense that you didn't go to law school just to make money, then it was a natural bent to this.
I recall while I was still at the University of Delaware, and this was right after the war when I come back to complete my undergraduate work, that there was some incident locally there that was kind of about the contribution of blacks in the—in World War II. I recall writing a letter to the editor of our local paper, not that I’m—I'm not into letter writing, but I did at that time, and I remember talking with, uh, Hilmar Jensen, J-E-N-S-E-N, who was the executive director of the Walnut Street Y, which was at that time, perhaps even today, I'm not sure, exclusively for black people and, um, expressing to him my views about it. He welcomed my interest and support. So I would say it was not unusual for me to take the position that I did.
Oloye Adeyemon: After—
Irving Morris: I didn't—if I may interrupt, I didn't recognize that I was doing something exceptional or that I deserved—[crosstalk 10:05]— precisely.
Oloye Adeyemon: After, um, having done that research with them on that case, uh, I guess not too long after they filed a—
Irving Morris: Public school case?
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah, the public school case of Belton. There's a couple of things I want to get to before we go directly into that. But did I understand you to say that you did not work directly on that particular phase of it [crosstalk 10:36]?
Irving Morris: That is correct.
Oloye Adeyemon: When did you—
Irving Morris: At least as I sit here, I don't recall doing anything in that phase.
Oloye Adeyemon: When did you next get involved in that series of things that continue to [unintelligible 10:51]—
Irving Morris: After Brown won and, indeed—go back and get a little bit of history—in November of 1954, uh, my party, the Democratic Party, for the first time in approximately 35 years was successful in electing the attorney general. And J. Donald Craven was the Democratic nominee and was elected attorney general. H. Albert Young did not stand for reelection. Fellow by the name of Vincent A. Theisen, T-H-E-I-S-E-N, was Craven's opponent. It was, I would say a—I’d say acerbic election campaign, though it was. But I think Craven's margin of victory was solid. It was a Democratic year, and, uh, Craven assumed office. But before he did, right after the election, there was an election parade in Wilmington by the Democratic Party. And I was on the sidelines watching it. And as Craven came by in his car, he waved to me to come over to the car [unintelligible 12:14] and I did, and he said, "Call me," wanted to talk to me. So I called him. And that conversation resulted in an offer to become a deputy attorney general, which I accepted. I accepted without even first talking to my mentor with whom by this time I was engaged in the practice of law.
Oloye Adeyemon: That was [crosstalk 12:34].
Irving Morris: Philip Kellen 12:38, who was a classmate with Craven at the University of Delaware many years before. Craven, for his part, as he told me, he wanted a lawyer who knew how to try cases. Not that I had tried that many, but for whatever reason, he thought that I could do that work, and I agreed and did it for all—I was a member of that staff and deputy attorney general for six months, during which time Craven turned to me, I would say, every hot issue that came his way.
Thus, when he was investigating what he thought was Mafia control here in Delaware, certain aspects of our society, he had me by his side in that. When there was a question about granting the license to the Colonial Bank, which was then located out on Fourth Street but had a branch bank in the center of Wilmington and the larger banks didn't want to have Colonial in town, he assigned me to be advising the state banking commissioner about that. When, uh, the school case—before I get to that, he tried a murder case, and he had me by his side in doing that. All interesting experiences. But in the school case, again, it was one where he turned to me to join with him in going down for the argument in what came to be known as Brown 2.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what year would that have been?
Irving Morris: Uh, 1955. Brown 1 had—was argued twice—in December 1952 when Chief Justice Vincent presided and after his death and with the appointment of Earl Warren, it was reargued in December of 1953, um, and resulted in the opinion that came down without an order. And then the Court decided that—uh, the opinion was unanimous, uh, saying that there had been a violation of the law, reversing the four cases, but not reversing Delaware. In fact, if anything, it was an affirmance of Delaware because Delaware's Supreme Court had affirmed Sykes, saying in the opinion, however, that if things change, you can come back again and re-argue this. But in the meantime it did away with, by affirming Sykes, it did away with the segregation of those schools in those cases.
Oloye Adeyemon: So we're really saying that you became involved again with Redding and Greenberg in '55 with Brown 2?
Irving Morris: Yes, but on the opposite side.
Oloye Adeyemon: But on the opposite side.
Irving Morris: Because I was a deputy attorney general—
Oloye Adeyemon: And you were working [crosstalk 15:40]—
Irving Morris: - and I went with Craven to argue before the Supreme Court. But I want to tell you about the argument. The night before the argument before the Court—the argument, in my recollection, this took place over about three days. Lindsay Almond, who was governor—I'm sorry, later became governor, but he was at that time attorney general in Virginia, and, uh, he hosted a bourbon and branch water conference at a hotel in Washington, the first and only time I ever attended a bourbon and branch water conference.
Oloye Adeyemon: What hotel was that?
Irving Morris: It was not the Willard. It was—we were not staying in that hotel. We stayed across the street. I forget whether it was—I'm not sure now, but it was right in-in Washington, the center of Washington. He was a vociferous fella. He hoped that, uh, one of the lawyers there would have a habeas corpus petition. Because after he got through saying to the Supreme Court what he was going to say to them, they were going to hold him in contempt, lock him up, and he would want some help in getting out of jail. He, subsequently, when he argued, he was meek as a churchman. In any event—
Oloye Adeyemon: And his name is?
Irving Morris: Lindsay Almond.
Oloye Adeyemon: And he was representing?
Irving Morris: The State of Virginia in the-the segregation of—in Virginia, they'd been successful in resisting segregation. When I returned to the suite that Craven had for us until we stayed—and I probably have notes somewhere where we stayed on that. He was worried about what position we should take before the Court. I told him I thought it was real simple. “What was that?” I said, "Well, we go before the Court and tell the Court that we will do our level best to implement whatever order the Court enters for the desegregation of the schools.” And Joe said to me, he said, "I can't do that." I said, "Why not?" He said, "Well, I was elected by all the people in the state of Delaware, including people down in Kent and Sussex County—
Oloye Adeyemon: Georgetown.
Irving Morris: Georgetown. And he said, "They don't favor this." So what Craven did, when he argued, was to say to the Supreme Court, and I talk about Belton—he said, "We are"—this is a quote now—"We are a troubled and divided people," end of quote. And that appeared in a Time Magazine article that week after the argument about the case argued before the Supreme Court in the black letters before they went on with the text of their article. I don't think he said anything of moment, but that was the famous phrase—"We are a troubled and divided people.” And I suppose he was right about that. Uh, but we shouldn't have been. That may be an ideal situation to say that we shouldn't have been because the violation, as I think I said earlier in the first part of this interview, was a violation of equal protection of the laws. It was a constitutional, a clear constitutional provision and, uh, regrettably, there were people who were not willing to abide by that.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you meet John Bates at that time?
Irving Morris: No, I saw him, but I did meet Thurgood Marshall, and I had met him before when I had gone to the NAACP, the Incline headquarters in New York to visit [crosstalk 19:22].
Oloye Adeyemon: Where were you sitting this time? [crosstalk 19:25].
Irving Morris: No problem. But, um, Marshall had such an easy—if I say casual—lounging stance before the Court. He did not stand formally before the Court, arms hugging the rostrum in order to not fall down as many of us lawyers in awe of the members of the Supreme Court. Marshall had argued so many cases before, and he was at ease in front of them. He was not—respectful, yes. In awe? Absolutely not. His argument was as easy as the conversation you and I are having. He was at home. He knew his case, and it was a good thing that he did.
And this will get me into going back somewhat to the earlier arguments before the first argument in Brown 1 on the substance. I think I told you that Sykes, after he handed down his opinion, there was an appeal from it, which affirmed it. But Sykes' attitude was that he sat in a court of equity. Delaware has separate courts, still does to this day. I think we're the only state in the Union that still does.
Oloye Adeyemon: Explain that.
Irving Morris: Separate courts of law and equity. It stems from the English system. I think the English may have abandoned this, I'm not sure. But we have courts where there's separate jurisdiction over certain matters. For example, if you want to seek relief against a corporation for some wrongdoing by the directors of the corporation, you must go to the Court of Chancery. And it stems from what relief a Chancellor could give in England hundreds of years ago. Uh, the Chancellor could give relief that was not available in the law courts. I mean, critical sort of comment about the relief that you'd get in the Court of Chancery to say you'd get relief just as long as the length of the Chancellor's foot, meaning it was arbitrary.
But there was relief that you could not get in the law court that you could get by going to Chancery, because it was equitable to get that relief, whereas in the law court, you would restrict it to whatever is the law. This did not mean that there was not precedent, and indeed, over a period of time, chancery courts achieved their own precedents that we follow and are followed to this day. I forgot the point that I was making about this.
Oloye Adeyemon: Well, what we were talking about was the fact that the—we were talking about—
Irving Morris: I think I recall.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. Citizen Sykes, whether—and the fact that—
Irving Morris: Well, when it came back to Chancellor Sykes, he said that it would be inequitable not to grant immediate relief. And, accordingly, he admitted the children in the litigation to attendance at the schools in Claymont and [unintelligible 23:08]. HA Young—
Oloye Adeyemon: He was the attorney general?
Irving Morris: Attorney general. After the Supreme Court affirmed, he said he would have to seek to remove those children from the public schools. Initially, he wasn't going to take an appeal—
Oloye Adeyemon: This is the case that they actually integrated Claymont High almost immediately, is that correct?
Irving Morris: That's right. Because of Sykes' ruling. He said they're entitled to relief. You know, if you find that someone's rights have been violated, you don't decide to grant them relief years later. You grant them the relief they're entitled to.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did they seek an injunction during appeal?
Irving Morris: No, they did not. And that was the point about all this, was that Young went to Lou Redding, so I'm told, and asked Lou's—uh, told Lou that he would have to move to have the kids taken out of schools. And Lou Redding said, "Oh, what—really? That's unfair. The kids are there. There's no incident. They're just attending class [distorted audio 24:14]." And Young said, "Well, all right, uh, I'll leave the kids there. I won't move [fading voice 24:20], but you have to agree not to use the fact that they are in school as an argument that the case is moot or that relief should be granted because the kids were there." And Lou agreed to that. Well, at the—
Oloye Adeyemon: Why did he agree to that? Why do you think—
Irving Morris: Uh, because he didn't—I-I don't know. I never discussed it with him. I inferred that he wanted the children not to be disrupted in their education—
Oloye Adeyemon: [Crosstalk 24:53] told you that—
Irving Morris: - a matter of just compassion with the status of the children. And Young, for his part, agreed to it, and he didn't have to. But, again, it was a matter of these two people, who knew each other, of reaching an understanding. At the argument, Lou did say the world wouldn't come to an end if children went to school, black and white at the same school. He said, "In fact, these kids are there." He was not making an argument that judges, you got to affirm here because the kids are there or anything of the sort. Lou Finger had said to me that, as he sat there, he saw Vincent turn to another justice, whether it was Jackson or whoever it was, and whispered to this other judge, "The black kids are in the school." [Laughter]. He understood. He was shocked about this. Nobody was doing anything.
Oloye Adeyemon: So no one knew that. No one knew that.
Irving Morris: No, that's right. And one of the problems that Redding and Greenberg had, and the person that goes into this is Richard Kluger in the book Simple Justice, that when Jack Greenberg—I don't know whether he discussed this with you, but when he got up to argue, he was given a rough time because he was asked, "What is your status to be before the Court," and, of course, the—and to be arguing equal protection and all that.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what year would this have been?
Irving Morris: This would have been 1953, when Vincent was still—
Oloye Adeyemon: This was the second before the—
Irving Morris: No. This is—there were two arguments in Brown 1, one in December of probably '52, and the second one—I may have misquoted the years before—and the second one in December of '53. And then there was the decision in May of 1954, and then there was the argument on the order that the Court would enter in the spring of 1955.
Oloye Adeyemon: But this point, when he's getting a rough time, is this the second argument in the first case?
Irving Morris: No, it was the first argument.
Oloye Adeyemon: In '52?
Irving Morris: That's right.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Irving Morris: And he, um, the Court went after him on the fact that—uh, of his standing to make the arguments because he had not sought any relief from the Delaware Supreme Court or made any application to the Court about it. He didn't take an appeal. And when Lou Finger went to file the petition for cert, which he didn't expect to have granted—initially, there wasn't going to be any appeal in the Delaware case. But Young, under pressure from the people on the State Board, perhaps others within the state, brought pressure on him.
He, in turn, directed Lou Finger and Steve Hamilton prepare a petition for cert, and they were hard-pressed to draft one, but they did it. It got filed. They didn't expect it to be granted. Lo and behold, they get this order from the Supreme Court, you're expected to come down and participate in the argument, and they did.
And Jack did not fare well in his argument, as I understand the account by Richard Kluger, and, um, uh, Marshall, after a recess, got up to complete the argument and made the point that the—the point about the equal protection of the laws had been raised in the other four cases and, therefore, it was before the Court, and Delaware got the benefit of that.
And I'm not sure whether there was an order of the Court affirming the decision of the Delaware Supreme Court affirming Sykes in the Court of Chancery, when they entered the order. It may have been merely a dismissal of the Delaware action at the appeal. I'm sure that there's a factual answer to this, but I just don't know, as I sit here. I perhaps do know it, if I could recall it. But if you look at Simple Justice, Kluger does go into what I've told you, although he doesn't go into the point, I don't believe, of what Lou Finger has told me about one—about Vincent.
Oloye Adeyemon: The surprise that—
Irving Morris: Yeah, that the kids were in the school.
Oloye Adeyemon: It's interesting that they would have been missed.
Irving Morris: Well, I hope you interview Lou, as I—Lou Finger. As I understand from Dr. Benson, you do intend to do that. Ask him about that. I would be interested in Jack Greenberg's account of this, whether he fessed up to, uh, what the Supreme Court justices thought was dropping the ball and not taking an appeal to the Supreme Court from the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware or not seeking that application for suit. Did he mention anything about that?
Oloye Adeyemon: What Greenberg said in his interview was that they were counting on Delaware appealing, but that they wanted Delaware to be part of the case because, in essence, it was a win for them—
Irving Morris: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: - but that they didn't want to take any action on that.
Irving Morris: I was not privy to his thinking, and in my book—
Oloye Adeyemon: That it was in their best interest to let that take its course and hope for the best?
Irving Morris: Well, it proved to be—as I look at Richard Kluger's version of this, it proved to be an embarrassment from the standpoint of the school kids’ case and failing to take an appeal that is [crosstalk 30:57].
Oloye Adeyemon: Explain that to me, because I'm understanding what you're saying, but I don't understand why that would be the case.
Irving Morris: Well, the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware affirmed Sykes—
Oloye Adeyemon: Yes.
Irving Morris: - and said that— never set his aside, his decision aside, and he went off on the facilities in the state, white schools being far superior to the black schools. Let me just make an aside here. Part and parcel of the way the State of Delaware was trying to react to this litigation was they suddenly, after years of neglect, built new schools for black—
Oloye Adeyemon: In order to circumvent it, per se?
Irving Morris: That's right. They were gonna—they were now providing equal facilities, but that didn't cut the mustard, and the Supreme Court affirmed, but the Supreme Court in its decision didn’t [mumbling 31:58] in its decision, it did not go off on the equal protection of the laws. Sykes' finding was a factual one. The facilities weren't there. He said that if it—if he were free to do so, as I think I referred to earlier, he would have found differently from Plessy against Ferguson, and there would never have been an issue here, just the fact that the facilities were different equalities and equal protection laws argued. And Warren, in his opinion, quoted Sykes at length on that very point in the Supreme Court's opinion. But Jack Greenberg and Lou Redding, who in my book are bright guys and courageous guys, and they were on the scene and in the heat of a fray making the decision. I don't want to fall for any [distorted audio 33:03] but the Supreme Court did go after Jack. Read-read Kluger about it.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. And the reason they did that is because, in essence, they did not appeal a ruling that, in fact, did not address what they were talking about?
Irving Morris: That's right.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Irving Morris: They could have argued that there was a violation of equal protection laws under the Federal Constitution, a point that they had raised but was not decided by the Delaware Supreme Court.
Oloye Adeyemon: Do you think that there was any anticipation of an adverse reaction to his ruling that could cause Sykes to actually go out and visit the sites? Do you think that he was actually doing that in addition to seeing them, but also doing it to strengthen the position he was going to take? Because I understand that was unusual, that several officers mentioned the fact that he actually went out with everyone [crosstalk 34:09].
Irving Morris: Well, he was entitled to go and visit.
Oloye Adeyemon: They didn't do that in the other cases, though.
Irving Morris: Oh, they didn't? I didn't realize that.
Oloye Adeyemon: As I understand, I'm sure they'd do it in South Carolina [crosstalk 34:17].
Irving Morris: Well, I've never discussed that aspect of his ruling with Sykes, whom I knew quite well and, sadly, died in quite a short time [mumbling 34:30] spent almost his entire professional life as a judge, first as a vice chancellor, then chancellor here in Delaware, and then as a member of the Third Circuit, eventually chief judge, and then a senior judge.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Crosstalk 34:46] that he was—
Irving Morris: He was on the bench so long that he was amused, as he shared with me, and I'm sure with others, that he would have lawyers come and say, "Well, as your father held in the Court of Chancery," but it was his decision. He didn't realize that. But then he met them.
Oloye Adeyemon: Am I missing the point? Was there a special significance with him taking—wasn't he making a statement by doing that [fading voice 35:12]?
Irving Morris: Well, I think what he was doing was satisfying himself factually that he had visited the schools and that in his factual finding—after all, there was testimony before that about the inadequate facilities and the fact that, uh, you couldn't get as good an education in the black schools as was available to you in the white schools, but because of the physical facilities. But he went out and he looked. Nothing wrong in that. It was not a situation where he was doing something that he shouldn't have done. I know you're not suggesting that.
Oloye Adeyemon: No, I'm not suggesting that. But it seems that by taking that step, he might have been indicating something, because in so many cases, in cases of this type, the judge would, you know, not even take the time. I just wondered if you—
Irving Morris: Yeah, I'm not helpful to you on that.
Oloye Adeyemon: So the cases, when they reached the Supreme Court in '55, you were directly involved. I want to go back, though, because you've indicated that you knew Sykes and you knew others. Are there any things that you think would be helpful based on your contact with people that were involved with their cases? You know, it might not be obvious or might not—might have been overlooked [distorted audio 36:43] concerning the process [fading voice 36:46]/
Irving Morris: HA Young was empathetic to the rights of the black kids. He was, quote, "doing his duty," end quote, as the—
Oloye Adeyemon: As the defense?
Irving Morris: - as the attorney general of the State of Delaware. He was doing what he thought was the right thing to do to defend the existing situation. Every attorney general from Young through, I guess, to the end of the last century took an official position in favor of segregation of the races in school. I say took a position in favor of it. They didn't—just by their actions to defend the system. And that, uh, and millions of dollars were spent in the defense of the system from public funds, funds raised from taxation of not only white citizens of our state, but black citizens as well.
But those funds were used in local school districts and by the State Board of Education because continuously the State Board was in favor of the segregation by the actions it took. The one district that clearly favored the rights of the black kids was the City of Wilmington, that school district. And, indeed, now I'm going past Brown 1, past Brown 2—I'm coming into the '70s, when we had the three-judge court address the Educational Advancement Act of 1957, which—1967—which set the City of Wilmington School District aside not by saying the City of Wilmington School District, but by population. It said any school district with a population of 15,000 or more students was not permitted to be subject to the consolidation of school districts within the state, and then proceeded to begin the consolidation of the other districts and, lo and behold, found that when Wilmington's school population fell below 15,000, the legislation—and I did a study of this, which was introduced eventually as an exhibit at the trial—um, they said the significant point of difference would be 12,500. Any school district with more than 12,500 kids would not be subject to consolidation. And, lo and behold, they picked up the City of Newark because it had more than 12,500. So they couldn't permit the Newark School District [fading voice 40:00]. But the, uh, let's see, the point that I-I lost my point that I wanted to make here. Oh, yes. The one district that I said turned up on the side of the kids, by the time that we were in court—
Oloye Adeyemon: This is the—
Irving Morris: - the city of—this is in the '70s—the city of Wilmington had a population that was tipping over the edge in terms of numbers in black people and also among the kids. And the city of Wilmington got to a point where it had 85, 90 percent black kids in it with just a sparse number of white kids. And in order to achieve a desegregated system in the city of Wilmington, you'd have to have these kids, white kids, bussed around within the city to put them in this school for half day, which wasn't done.
But what we did—I went to Vic Battaglia, who my wife and I will have breakfast on Saturday morning, dear friend, who was then city solicitor, and I asked him to become involved for several reasons. I wanted him to convince the Board of Education in the city of Wilmington to join in the litigation as a party on the side of the plaintiffs. And he did that.
And there's another reason why we had to do it. And I told them this. We needed the money to fund the litigation. And we really needed a lawyer who was expert in desegregation litigation. It had become more complex than just walking into a courtroom—nothing is ever done that way—and saying, "Judge, give us relief because there is an unfairness here." And we were given the name of Louis Lucas of Memphis, Tennessee, and Lou Lucas, who had been with the Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division in years past—extremely able lawyer in my book, as fine a lawyer as I've ever met, as I've ever seen practice.
And Lou was hired by the City of Wilmington as its attorney and intervened. And Lou really ran the case, as I think I said earlier. He sat first chair. I sat second chair. I mentioned to you the—uh, I had done the research about the Educational Advancement Act, it was called. We all use euphemisms. They never said we are restricting black kids. But they didn't permit the City of Wilmington, where the overwhelming number of black kids reside, to become participants in education in the other districts, which are really white bastions. I had prepared—oh, it got to be a large piece of paper. I would say it had to have been maybe four or five feet in length and at least three feet in width, where I've had the various changes. I don't recall all the details. I think I may still have it. I think it was—
Oloye Adeyemon: It was introduced—
Irving Morris: Oh, it was introduced in evidence. It’s probably in the Third Circuit archives or the District Court archives. But we had examined it so many times during the course of trial as we were examining witnesses. We would refer to it, absolutely. But, well, within the trial, Judge Gibbons asked whether we would mind—that document that you're looking at, what is it? And he told him what it was. This is in open court. He said, "Well, would you mind very much marking that as an exhibit?" And he turned to Bill Prickett, who was the chief lawyer for the State by designation of the Attorney General. They kept redesignating that firm. "Do you have any objection to that?" And Prickett, who was in a poor position, said, yes, he did. But he looked at it. There was nothing inaccurate about it because I tried to make it as factually accurate, and I think it did. And it was admitted in evidence, which is an unusual thing for a lawyer's work product to come into evidence that way.
Oloye Adeyemon: You've provided so much, um, and there's so much that remains, especially about your work after '55 that I'd like to request an opportunity, if time allows, to do one additional interview. But, before we close, I had a question that perhaps you can answer and help us understand. There was only one high school for blacks in the state of Delaware at the time of the case, is that correct?
Irving Morris: Howard High School.
Oloye Adeyemon: That's correct? That's my understanding.
Irving Morris: I'm going to say yes. For many, many years it had been. Eventually, there was another school around Dover, but I think the Howard High School was and, indeed, I'm going to say yes, it was the—
Oloye Adeyemon: Because I've read [crosstalk 45:30]—
Irving Morris: - because Herman Holloway Senior had to be bussed to Howard High School and replaced downstate.
Oloye Adeyemon: How far? That's the thing that I'm wondering, how far a person had to be bussed.
Irving Morris: Sadly, Senator Holloway is deceased. But his son, who has—well, subsequently, I think he was a representative elected to our General Assembly, but no longer is. But I think he's still around and about. If you would ask Herman Holloway, Jr., I'm sure he could tell you just where the family resided downstate.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah, um, that's, um, that's something I want to touch on later. I really appreciate you taking the time during your busy rehab. Appreciate it.
Irving Morris: I'm delighted and honored that I've been asked to be in it.
Oloye Adeyemon: And your input has been extremely [fading voice 46:26]. Thanks.
Irving Morris: Why, thank you, sir.
[End of Audio]
Description
Brown versus Board oral history collection. Belton and Bulah versus Gephart court case interviews. Second part of the interview with Attorney Irving Morris.
Date Created
01/11/2024
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