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Oral History Interview with Irving Morris 1
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[Pause 00:00 – 00:08]
Oloye Adeyemon: Brown versus Board oral history collection. Belton and Beulah versus Gephardt court case interviews. Interviewee, attorney Irving Morris. Interviewer, Oloye Adeyemon for the National Park Service. Interview conducted on August 8th, 2001, at the Historical Society of Delaware in Wilmington, Delaware. These interviews are made possible through the Brown versus Board Oral History Research Project, funded by the National Park Service during the summer of 2001 as part of the Brown versus Board of Education National Historic Site oral history project. Attorney Morris, what is your full name?
Irving Morris: Irving Morris.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what’s your birthdate?
Irving Morris: December 18, 1925.
Oloye Adeyemon: And where were you born?
Irving Morris: Trenton, New Jersey.
Oloye Adeyemon: And your parents’ names?
Irving Morris: Abraham Louis Morris and Katherine Kramer Morris.
Oloye Adeyemon: Were they also born in New Jersey?
Irving Morris: No. Uh, my father was born in Europe, brought to the United States by my, uh grandparents. Who settled in Wilmington, Delaware. Uh, and my father and mother were married in, uh, 1905. And Dad worked here until shortly after the First World War. My grandmother, his mother, whom I never knew, died in the flu epidemic here in Wilmington in 1918.
Uh, my father and mother moved to Trenton, New Jersey, where he worked for a, uh, uh, department store and then started a business on his own. And then in the early years of the Depression, he gave up the store, paid all his creditors dollar for dollar what they were owed, forgave the indebtedness that he was owed, and he and my mother returned to Wilmington. [Unintelligible 02:25] I was then in the, uh, going into the eighth grade. And I attended school at the Warner Junior High School.
Oloye Adeyemon: What kind of work did your mother do? Did she work?
Irving Morris: Um, my mother helped my dad in the store they had in Trenton. And then when they came to, um, Delaware, returned to Delaware, by which time my father was recovering from, uh, a serious illness, but he had recovered from it. And for a period of time after he suffered a stroke, from which he recovered and went back to work. But, uh, she went to work. And worked at Lee Woodson’s department store, which no longer is in existence, here on Market Street between, uh, uh, Second and Third. On Market Street. So maybe between Third and Fourth, I’m not sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: What part of Europe were they from, your folks from?
Irving Morris: Uh, my father, uh, was from Poland. Near the, uh, Lithuanian border. And my mother came from Lithuania.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And when did they arrive in the United States?
Irving Morris: Um, my father about 1988 when he was an infant.
Oloye Adeyemon: 1888.
Irving Morris: I’m sorry. 1888, yes. Uh, and he was the oldest of what turned out to be 11 children by my grandfather’s first wife. Who also, after my grandmother’s death, uh, married again and had three children by his second wife. Um, and I knew my grandfather. Uh, he died in Wilmington in the mid-’30s, after we had returned to Wilmington. So he had—want to know about him. He was a tailor, uh, when he was in Wilmington. And, uh, had a tailor shop in the years I best knew him. Uh, at Fourth and [unintelligible 04:25] Streets.
Oloye Adeyemon: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
Irving Morris: Uh, I had an older sister, and older brother. And I have a younger brother. Both my older sister and older brother are deceased.
Oloye Adeyemon: Their names?
Irving Morris: My sister was named Solia 04:40 and her husband was Harry Reely 04:43. And after he died, she married Irving Rochlin, R-O-C-H-L-I-N. She survived him and died at, uh, age 80 in California.
Oloye Adeyemon: And your sister?
Irving Morris: I-I only have one sister.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Unintelligible 05:00]. Your other brother.
Irving Morris: My older brother was Melvin, Melvin Maurice Morris. I’m Irving Nathanial Morris and my younger brother is Herbert Morris. We used to say that my sister was the source of these names. Uh, was frightened by an English manor house. [Laughter]
Oloye Adeyemon: So you had, uh, some experiences with Delaware school system.
Irving Morris: I surely did.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Crosstalk 05:28]. When you graduated, where did you go to school?
Irving Morris: Uh, after I graduated high school?
Oloye Adeyemon: High school.
Irving Morris: Which was 1942. I was then, uh, 16, and I enrolled at the University of Delaware. The only university I could afford.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And what did you—
Irving Morris: And I was pleased to go there.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what was your major?
Irving Morris: Uh, history and philosophy.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And upon graduation, uh?
Irving Morris: Uh, well, I guess I was a slow learner. I did not graduate, um, University of Delaware until 1947. My attendance at school was interrupted by World War Two and service in the Army infantry overseas in the 80th Division, part of the Third Army. I was captured, uh, near Trier, Germany. Uh, sometimes [unintelligible 06:23] the French in, uh, 1940, uh, five. I was a prisoner for a little less than seven weeks.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm. And when you, um—
Irving Morris: My grandchildren think I won the war singlehandedly.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you?
[Crosstalk 06:41]
Oloye Adeyemon: Are they right?
Irving Morris: I’m not going to dispel the, uh, illusion under which they suffer.
Oloye Adeyemon: For them to find out on their own.
Irving Morris: Uh, yes. In fact, we’re taking two of them over to Europe on beginning Sunday evening. And we expect to visit battlefields in France and Germany, first and second world wars.
Oloye Adeyemon: Um, where did you do your law studies?
Irving Morris: Uh, at Yale.
Oloye Adeyemon: And when did you graduate?
Irving Morris: Uh, spring of 1950.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. As a lawyer, um, were you—you know, were you attached to a firm here in-in Wilmington?
Irving Morris: Uh, when I—
Oloye Adeyemon: Graduated [unintelligible 07:21].
Irving Morris: - finished at Yale I, um, spent the first few months with my preceptor of the bar, Philip Cohen. And then I went to work as a law clerk to, uh Paul Leahy, L-E-A-H-Y, who was chief judge of the United States district court for the district of Delaware. And then, um, beginning January 1, 1953, uh, I formed a partnership with Mr. Cohen. He was, of course, the senior partner.
Oloye Adeyemon: When did you have your first direct involvement as a lawyer with, um, the legal battles over segregated schools in Delaware?
Irving Morris: The first cases in the country where a court, in this case a state court, held that a state university must admit people of color was here in Delaware. It was Parker against the University of Delaware. I was, um, still in law school and I did volunteer work, unpaid, for, um, Louis L. Redding and Jack Greenberg, in that case.
They assigned me the, uh, task of researching the point of, um, whether the state university, the University of Delaware, was indeed a state university for purposes of the 14th Amendment. Critical issue which I know you understand. Um, of course the 14th Amendment only applies to state action in terms of violation of due process or equal protection of the laws.
And the question was whether or not the University of Delaware fell within the definition of a state university. In [unintelligible 09:19] its board of directors, its trustees they’re called, whether they were, um, people appointed by the state or state people, as it were, or whether they were, um, uh, a mixture. And indeed they were a mixture.
Found, uh, less than a third were, um, designated and appointed by the governor, with the assembly of state legislature. The others were elected by the remaining trustees. So that there was a preponderance of non-state-designated people. But the University of Delaware was the, um, university under the Morrill Act passed in 1862 I think, during the Civil War, that, um, enabled states with the designation of a particular university to receive federal funds for the purposes of agricultural training.
Now, eventually, uh, uh, ROTC, Reserve Officer Training Corps, were established there. And the state, uh, of Delaware at that time provided approximately one-third of the funding of the University of Delaware. As a result of research I did, there—I found only one other state institution in the country which was equivalent to the University of Delaware in its structure as well as in its receipt of funds, private funds, um, that were part of an endowment or gifts to the university. Tuition being another third of the income. And a third coming from the state.
And that was, uh, Rutgers University in New Jersey. And that was used, um, and, uh, Chancellor Seitz, uh, had no difficulty in concluding that the University of Delaware for purposes of, uh, the case, was a state institution and therefore subject to the 14th Amendment.
Oloye Adeyemon: How many heard the case? Was it he alone or were there three judges?
Irving Morris: Uh, fir-first of all it was in our court of chancellery in the State of Delaware. And he was the only judge sitting in that case.
Oloye Adeyemon: That would’ve been in New Castle.
Irving Morris: It’s—well, the Court of Chancery is a statewide court. It sits in each of the three counties in Delaware. So he was, uh, sitting as chancellor, he was sitting in New Castle County. But he sat all over the state.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand. Uh, you mentioned, um, attorney Louis Redding.
Irving Morris: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Am I correct that he was the first African American—I think he’s admitted to the Delaware bar in 1929?
Irving Morris: That is correct. And, uh, Mr. Redding was the only, uh, black person admitted to our bar for many years. Um, when I came in the bar in, um, 1951, when I was admitted, there were no other, um, black attorneys in our state. Eventually there were several who were admitted. And Frank Hollis, uh, Sidney Clark, uh, Leonard Williams. It’s just a handful of people.
But, uh, the prejudice against a, uh, black person was substantial. He, um, only returned to [unintelligible 12:53], Mr. Redding only returned to Delaware, as he told me, um, because of his father’s influence, [unintelligible 13:00] that he come back to Delaware.
Oloye Adeyemon: What were the factors?
Irving Morris: Over him and urging him. His father was, uh, his father was a, uh, a postman. And thought that, uh, his son’s place was to do what he could in the state of Delaware. And Lou had to endure the, uh, results of the Delaware statutes which did not permit, uh, oh, a haircut to be obtained in a place where white people had their hair cut.
He could not go to a restaurant, uh, which were, uh, strictly—uh, segregation was the order of the day. He could not go to a performance at the Hotel du Pont. He could not attend a movie theater in the city of Wilmington other than the, uh, black, uh, theater on French Street. Uh, I could go on about the, uh, restrictions on black people that he endured.
Oloye Adeyemon: It might be helpful. Because we might have an understanding what he experienced, uh, as not only as a resident, but as a lawyer.
Irving Morris: Well, as a lawyer had he been, uh, a white man his practice would have been, I think, uh, as substantial as any lawyer’s practice was in the state of Delaware. He was a brilliant lawyer. Um, his practice, though, was confined, uh, largely to a black, uh, clientele. Although he did have some, uh, white people who did come to him.
Uh, a good bit of his practice was real estate work. Some personal injury work. Oh, but the fact is, uh, many black people who, uh, suffered an injury would not go to him because they thought he would not be able to obtain the-the best recovery for them. He had great respect within the black community. Lawyer Redding was-was the person and, uh, was looked to in the black community.
Oloye Adeyemon: Is it true that, uh, lawyers are aided a great deal through the relationships they cul-cultivate through the bar and with the judges? You know, just the-the comradeship that exists [unintelligible 15:24]?
Irving Morris: I-I don’t understand one word you said. What did you say?
Oloye Adeyemon: I’m saying is it the case that, uh, lawyers, practicing lawyers, benefit from the relationships and rapport that they’re able to establish with judges and other lawyers? Doesn’t that affect greatly their ability to work [unintelligible 15:42]?
Irving Morris: Uh, my answer’s gonna be a little bit lengthy. Because just to say yes and say nothing more, uh, would deprive you of getting full, um, understanding of the texture of this community as I understood it. Um, there was a period of time, and I’m gonna do outside of black-white relationships, to include the attitude toward, uh, Jews, toward, uh, Catholics, particularly, uh, Irish and, uh, Italian, um, people.
But there was a period of time, I guess it was about six or seven years during the Depression where there was no Jew who could, uh, be admitted to our bar. Just a number applied, but they were not accepted. In-including people who were graduates of the Harvard Law School who wound up in, uh, uh, work in family businesses. Uh, but just could not find acceptance tat the bar. They just weren’t going to pass.
Identity of the applicants was then fully known to the members of the board of bar examiners. And I cannot say to you there was, um, uh, prejudice. But just off of numbers, uh, I would say it existed. The, um, number of Jewish attorneys at the bar of Delaware, um, first one was a chap by the name of, um, [unintelligible 17:25] Tokasz, and the second attorney was Aaron Finger.
Um, Mr. Finger was a most unusual person. Without benefit of either, uh, a law school degree or a college degree, he rose to become a partner in perhaps the most, um, influential firm in the state, Richards, Layton, and Finger. Representing, um, during his lifetime United States Steel Corporation, um, I think General Motors Corporation.
I know I had, uh, a number of cases where I was representing, um, individual stockholders who would sue corporations derivatively. Mr. Finger was on the other side. Uh, one of the persons you should interview and, um, I’m certain Dr. Benson will arrange for you to do that, is, uh, Louis Finger. Aaron Finger’s son, uh, who’s indeed a dear personal friend of mine.
Um, uh, Aaron Finger served on the school board of the City of Wilmington. And although the newspaper articles aren’t quite as clear about it as I, um, would prefer them to be to support the statement I’m gonna make, uh, I’m gonna jump ahead in the story. At the time of Brown one and Brown two, he was serving on the board of the City of, uh, board of education for Wilmington. Which was a separate school district.
And, uh, at that time, after, uh, the order came down in 1955 about the, um, you know—I’m gonna go back a little bit. I think it’s in 1954 about the, uh, desegregation of schools. Although the order didn’t come down until ’55, but, uh, off that decision, uh, the Wilmington school district voted to, uh, admit black kids to the schools. And, um, I cannot find any dissent reported in the press and therefore in-inferring that Mr. Finger voted in favor of that action to admit black kids to Wilmington schools. Which otherwise were all white.
The reason it is of some significance is that Lou Finger, at that time, was serving as a deputy attorney general and participated in the defense of Brown one and of the segregation in Brown one and Brown two. Although he did so, I know, to a certainty, he was not a happy camper doing so. So that was his responsibility and I can talk more about that.
Oloye Adeyemon: I would appreciate it when we get to that point. The-that’s very helpful. Um-
Irving Morris: [Unintelligible 20:35].
Oloye Adeyemon: I asked my question because, uh, again, I’ve often heard that-that lawyers depend as much on their knowledge of the law as their contacts and connections. Is that true?
Irving Morris: Well, um, uh, let’s see. Now, I wandered from your question.
Oloye Adeyemon: A little bit, but it was good.
Irving Morris: It was far afield. But, um, I was taught at law school that knowing your judge is, uh, just as significant as knowing the law. Uh, judges bring to their work, uh, their own biases, prejudices, sense of fairness. Uh, they wanna do the right thing is what we all assume. Uh, I would say Delaware judges by and large do that. Uh, are there prejudices? Sure.
You ask about the relationship of, uh, lawyers and the word contacts. Uh, [laughter] just fits in common parlance, although I have a disinclination to use the word. When I worked for Judge Leahy and, uh, uh, once used the word contact and then I never used it again. He said, “If you mean you wanna touch ’em?” And I said, “No.” But, um, uh, the Wilmington community, uh, the legal community, can be divided in terms of the work done by the lawyers.
The bar today is far more crowded than it was, uh, 50 years ago when I came to the bar. Um, the scrambling for work that exists today, uh, I do not say was nonexistent 50 years ago. But, uh, large corporate cases didn’t come to the, uh, average member of the bar. Didn’t come to Philip Cohen, for whom—who was my mentor at the bar. It didn’t come to able lawyers.
I, uh, H. Edward Young or Joseph [unintelligible 22:38] or Harry Rubinstein, three Jewish lawyers. Didn’t go to, um, uh, Francis Reardon. Uh, it didn’t go to Jack [unintelligible 22:46], who was Irish extraction. Didn’t go to Vic Columbo, didn’t go to, um, uh, uh, other lawyers of Italian extraction.
Didn’t go to, if you will please, to, uh, white Anglo-Saxon lawyers. But rather those cases were confined, at that time, to the then three major firms in Delaware. Richards, Layton, and Finger. Um, I was gonna say Ward and Gray, but it changed its—that was its name from years past. The oldest law firm in the state is Ward and Gray, but it’s no longer called that. Today it’s called, um, Potter, Anderson, and Corroon. And the time when I came in the bar it was Sutherland, Burrow, and Potter. It had been Sutherland, Burrow, Potter, and Leahy. And then Leahy went on to federal bench and that was the judge for whom I clerked.
The third firm is Morris, Nichols, Arsht, and Tunnell. Uh, Morris in that firm was Hugh Morris, who had been a district court judge and left the bench in, um, uh, oh, early-the early ’30s. And then became, uh—took with him one—I say took with him, a lot of people who had cases before the district [unintelligible 24:00] patent cases came to him and he had a most successful practice.
The firm today is still, uh, um, slight change. It’s Morris, Nichols, Arsht, and Tunnell. Although all those, uh, gentlemen are deceased. Um, when it was new it was Morris, Nichols, and—Morris. I don’t know. Morris, Steel, and Nichols, and Arsht. Which is the way I knew it and [unintelligible 24:29]. Some of us, um, used to say that the firm’s name was Morris Steel’s Nichols from Arsht. But, um, [unintelligible 24:40] I’m sure they would not be pleased that I repeat that.
Any of it, but the large cases went to those firms. The, um, now where they supped, where they dined at lunch, was not at Tenth and Washington, in the old, uh, National Cigar store that was there, United Cigar store that was there. But they, uh, went to the Wilmington Club. Which still exists, uh, today. It’s one of the oldest private clubs in the country.
[Crosstalk 25:12]
Irving Morris: … came to the bar—
Oloye Adeyemon: It was segregated, in other words.
Irving Morris: Oh. Certainly. Uh, today they have a few black members. Uh, Joe Gillingham, junior I think is a member. Uh, Stacey [unintelligible 25:25] is, uh, uh, at the du Pont company I think as a member. Um, I’m not a member. Uh, but it, uh, has a few Jewish people who are members. It has some Italian people who are members.
Oloye Adeyemon: But during the years [unintelligible 25:40].
Irving Morris: In-indeed it was. Aaron Finger, uh, was not a member of Wilmington Club. And I recall a case that I had when, um, I was a young fellow and, uh, it came time for lunch and you’re in the midst of trial. And lawyers on the defense side went off to the Wilmington Club, but not Mr. Finger. He was not accompanying them.
Oloye Adeyemon: So is it safe to say that, uh, Attorney Redding experienced a certain degree of isolation [unintelligible 26:14]?
Irving Morris: It’s shameful to say that, but it certainly is true. When I would go to lunch with Lou, frequently I had to go to Pennsylvania to do it. And, uh, on one occasion we, uh, decided to test the, uh, Eagle Restaurant. Which had moved from its location on Tenth Street over to Ninth Street in the Parking Authority building there.
And when we walked in they wanted to seat us, uh, startled to see us and wanted to seat-seat us in the back of the restaurant. And I insisted that we sit up front. We did and they—we were served and, uh, had lunch and paid for it and left. Um, so we passed the test.
But then when William Burton, who was a member of city council who had been invited to attend the opening of that restaurant, when he went there to be served they wouldn’t serve him. And he went to Lou and, uh, that resulted in the Supreme Court of Burton against the Wilmington Parking Authority over the, uh, uh, failure, uh, to permit, uh, Bill Burton to have, uh, uh, lunch there. That’s a landmark case in, um, uh, the history of desegregation in our country. You cannot use a public facility funded by, uh, federal funds.
Oloye Adeyemon: Do you happen to remember the name of the case?
Irving Morris: Sure. Burton against the Wilmington Parking Authority.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what year was that? Approximately.
Irving Morris: If I thought, Oloye, that you were going to quiz me this way I would have—
Oloye Adeyemon: Just approximately.
Irving Morris: I would’ve come better prepared.
Oloye Adeyemon: Not an exact.
Irving Morris: It’s-it’s, um, would have to be in the late ’50s.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Irving Morris: I say even have to, but I mean I think it was in the late ’50s.
Oloye Adeyemon: Despite that isolation, would it be safe to say that Attorney Redding further alienated himself by taking segregation on head-on in terms of legal challenges?
Irving Morris: I don’t know how to answer that because I never raised that with him. I never thought that he considered that he was, uh, alienating himself, uh, from his community. I think he thought that this was a responsibility.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yes [crosstalk 28:43].
Irving Morris: I know that when he undertook, um, uh, the school case, the public school case which was after the University of Delaware case, he did so, uh, first, um, receiving the assurance of the, uh, parents who came to him. That he would not attack just busing. They were concerned about that, but because the kids had to be bused long distances to go to school in many instances. And the schools were inferior.
[Unintelligible 29:14] they would, uh, they would arrive at schools. Schools were nowhere in the same class as the, uh, white schools. But he wanted to make sure that [unintelligible 29:23] what he considered a terrible injustice and a violation of the law and a violation of our federal Constitution. Uh, so it wasn’t, um, his attitude about alienation. He was alienated anyhow from the—
[Crosstalk 29:38]
Oloye Adeyemon: From the legal community.
Irving Morris: [Unintelligible 29:41]. He would tell the story that when, uh, as a young man, uh, and I guess before he came to the bar. Where when he went to just come to court, just to see what was happening, as many youngsters do to see what-what’s goin’ on. Um, it was his passion, his love, the law. But he was not permitted to sit in the white areas. He had to sit in the restricted, colored areas.
Did I—I think did mention our movie houses. They were restricted [unintelligible 30:12]. Um, I-I think that, uh, Mr. Redding viewed—if I—[unintelligible 30:25] just saying different words. He viewed it, I think, as a responsibility to do what he did. He certainly didn’t do it for money. Uh, in the University of Delaware case and in the, uh, uh, school cases including, uh, Belton and Gephardt, he didn’t receive a dime for his work.
Jack, uh, Greenberg was on the payroll, the first white attorney ever hired by [crosstalk 30:49] by Thurgood Marshall. Uh, and Jack of course was paid. Underpaid in my book and I’m sure Jack’s as well. Because he was a brilliant, uh, person. But, uh, um, Lou Redding didn’t receive anything, uh, and didn’t receive any money for his efforts in the school desegregation litigation until, uh, the success.
The litigation where he played, if you will please, uh, a relatively minor and modest role. By this time he was terribly hard of hearing and, um, in the ’70s when we tried the, uh, desegregation litigation, uh, Evans against Buchanan as it came to be known. Uh, under, uh, um, it was a three-judge court presided over by, uh, John Givens, the judge on the third circuit. And the, uh, two district court judges were Caleb Wright and Caleb Clayton.
And when that ended, uh, I negotiated—and if I say I negotiated, I mean I negotiated because I was the lawyer on the scene. And although the, uh, uh, lawyer who had the, uh, chief role was that of, uh, uh, Louis Lucas of Tennessee, we brought into the case. And I sat second chair to Lou, Lou Lucas.
And after I negotiated a fee, which was the largest fee at that time ever granted, I believe I’m correct, in a civil rights case. It was $1 million. And out of that, well then Lou, uh, Redding, had not done the, uh, his role was a modest role. Uh, we set aside $100,000 for him. And I say modest role because on one occasion he came into court and this happens with many people who are hard of hearing, even when they want to whisper it comes out as a loud voice. And I recall, um, his, uh, saying something he should not have been saying. It came out sotto voce and was all over the courtroom. So then everybody learned this, uh, secret message. [Unintelligible 33:09].
Oloye Adeyemon: What would you say, um, you-you were practicing, um, shortly before the, uh, [unintelligible 33:22] and versus Gephardt and [unintelligible 33:25] Gephardt cases came to trial. Uh, what would you say—and you also knew and were working with Attorney Redding. What would you say, um, the feeling of maybe the judges and white lawyers, what-what feeling they had about Attorney—
Irving Morris: A little bit of factual material. Number one, I did not participate on the plaintiff’s side in the, uh, Belton and Gephardt cases. Uh, Lou Redding and Jack Greenberg did that. And-and initially—
Oloye Adeyemon: You did research for ’em?
Irving Morris: No.
[Crosstalk 34:06]
Irving Morris: … see a Delaware case. When they filed the what we now call the school case, meaning the public school case, they filed that in the United States district court for the district of Delaware, asserting equal protection of the laws. Then attorney general, uh, H. Albert Young, and assisted by, uh, Lou Finger, asked for the case to be removed from the federal court to the state court.
[Crosstalk 34:34]
Irving Morris: Yep. They did that on the defense side. Lou Redding and Jack Greenberg didn’t oppose that. They didn’t file the state court initially because, uh, they thought that it would come before Colin Seitz and they didn’t wanna be picking the judge.
Oloye Adeyemon: Sure. Let me apologize that I brought that up prematurely and it was [unintelligible 34:57]. It was your involvement with him, uh, with Parker versus the University of Delaware case. And I guess just knowing him—
Irving Morris: Right.
Oloye Adeyemon: - and knowing other-other, uh, lawyers and judges and, you know. Do you have a sense of how they viewed it both as an African American lawyer practicing in the state, but also his skills and his abilities?
Irving Morris: I think Lou Redding was respected in this community. I think he was also considered, um, if you will please, um, oh, a person who was not only reserved, but not very friendly. Um, and I think part of that was because he was hard of hearing. On many an occasion, people would, you know, greet him and, uh, he didn’t acknowledge the greeting. And I think only because he didn’t hear the person.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did his experiences as a lawyer practicing in restricted circumstances in any way contribute, you think, to any added sense of urgency in working with some of these segregation cases? In other words, was he-he—many African Americans, uh, were involved as much privately in efforts to change conditions, uh, outside of the legal arena as it were, inside of the legal arena.
But I guess I’m wondering with him having practiced as long as he had, uh, was there anything that he ever said or do you have a sense that any of his experiences attempting to practice law in segregated conditions would’ve contributed some way to shaping him into a person that would, uh, be very concerned not only about the conditions, but maybe taking these kinds of cases without being [unintelligible 37:15]?
Irving Morris: I think he, uh—and I don’t know this, I didn’t ever ask Mr. Redding, Lou, why, uh, did you take this case. Uh, I regret now that I didn’t. But I think in fairness, as I think about the question, it never occurred to me that he would’ve thought, uh, with any hesitation about undertaking the case. It was the right thing to do.
As a lawyer, he didn’t go to law school to preserve segregation. I don’t know whether in law school he thought in terms of doing away with it, but he certainly, when he had the opportunity, he knew what he wanted to accomplish if he could. And putting yourself back at that time, it was no easy matter.
Today we look back, I daresay we look back upon, uh, these early desegregation cases and we say, “Well, why all the fuss at that time?” Didn’t people understand that, um, barring black kids from attending superior white schools and their facilities was inherently a violation of the equal protection laws in the federal Constitution? Is-is there any question in your mind or in my mind about it today?
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah. I-I wonder, um, about—I have no-no-no real doubt that he would have opposed segregation. But I guess my question is in part because of the choice to practice law in Delaware as opposed to across the river in Pennsylvania. [Unintelligible 38:52].
Irving Morris: Well, in-in the case of Pennsylvania, it’s just got the line. You don’t cross a river to get into Pennsylvania.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Unintelligible 39:00].
Irving Morris: If he [unintelligible 39:01] in New Jersey—
Oloye Adeyemon: I was thinkin’ that—
Irving Morris: Well, um, that—I would say it was a difference on my part that I had to be part of it. Um, the, uh, note that, uh—now, it didn’t say this, but it was the fact. Uh, Lou Redding did not live in Delaware. Uh, his home, uh, had a home on Tenth Street, but he lived with his wife and raised his children in Montclair, New Jersey.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Irving Morris: Because his wife just plain would not, uh, live in Delaware.
Oloye Adeyemon: Oh.
Irving Morris: She would not subject herself and-and the family to the indignities of a racist society.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. That’s very helpful.
Irving Morris: Now Lou, uh, certainly had forceful ideas about the role of the law in society and its use. For example, he came at night, uh, one day, most, uh, uh, [unintelligible 39:58] took me to [unintelligible 40:00]. Uh, we used to have in Delaware, uh, what is known-what was known then as a conditional sales contract.
Uh, it was a way for many people could not afford otherwise to acquire title to a house. But the terms of the contracts they would enter into were nothing less than an onerous mortgage that if, uh, payment failed to be made or a few payments failed to be made, uh, they would lose everything. Uh, my, uh, mentor at the bar represented, oh, a loveable man in his own way, William V. Montogomery.
And Mr. Montgomery, um, made money out of writing conditional sales contracts. He would justify them well-well, I just said to you that this enables some people who would not otherwise be ever-ever be able to afford a house to, um, uh, be able to do so. But then when the onerous terms hit, as they did in many cases, these folks lost everything. Everything they had put in.
And Lou, uh, on one occasion when, uh, uh, a dispute arose of some kind, I don’t remember the nature of it. Uh, but when he and I were on opposite sides he, uh, remonstrated me [unintelligible 41:19]. How could I justify using my talents to defend William V. Montgomery? And he was right and I was wrong.
Oloye Adeyemon: I appreciate, um, this information. It’s, uh, very, uh, helpful in understanding some of the things that led up to [unintelligible 41:43] cases and conditions. And, uh, I’d like to, um, take those things up in the next half of the interview. Thank you very much.
Irving Morris: You’re most welcome.
[End of Audio]
Description
Brown versus Board oral history collection. Belton and Bulah versus Gephardt court case interviews. Interviewee, attorney Irving Morris. Interviewer, Oloye Adeyemon for the National Park Service. Interview conducted on August 8th, 2001, at the Historical Society of Delaware in Wilmington, Delaware.
Date Created
01/11/2024
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