Page 19 - NYLS Magazine • 2014 • Vol. 33, No. 1

Associate Dean Deborah N. Archer presents the opening
remarks at the Remembering the Dream Symposium.
the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, sitting He dismissed state voter ID requirements

in the audience, shouted to him, “Tell
as thinly veiled voter suppression eforts,
’em about the dream, Martin, tell ’em observing, “he IRS can ind you based

about the dream.” He saw Dr. King’s body on identity, so why is any identity you
language change and recalled thinking to have insuicient?”

himself, “hese people don’t know it, but
they’re about ready to go to church.” Dr. Professor Jones and the speakers who

King then delivered the famous lines for followed him agreed that while litigation
which the speech is now remembered.
advances civil rights, it is most efective

when augmented by political action and
“he speech he gave was a summons to the creation of a righteous public mood.

the conscience of America,” said Professor
Jones. “he speech he gave followed “We can point to signiicant progress,”
said Debo P. Adegbile, senior counsel
events in our country.”
for the U.S. Senate Committee on the
In the spring of ’63, Professor Jones Judiciary, “and we can also say there is

reminded the NYLS audience, Dr. King much more progress to be made. Two
and his Southern Christian Leadership things can be true at the same time.”

Conference organized sit-ins, marches,
and boycotts to protest de jure racial Mr. Adegbile expounded on his

In his 1963 address, Dr. King segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. philosophy of civil rights litigation: “You
Police Chief Eugene “Bull” Connor cannot do this work unless you have faith
cited optimism as the antidote for
imperfection:
responded to the nonviolent uprising by that things can get better. I’m not naïve,
attacking demonstrators with ire hoses but the fact is, there is more freedom and

“America has given the Negro people
and attack dogs.
equality in this country and the world
a bad check, a check which has come
today than in all history. he strength

back marked ‘insuicient funds.’ But we Professor Jones said today’s battles involve of resistance is a product of the progress
refuse to believe that the bank of justice is voter suppression eforts directed against we’ve been making. Victories in court

bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there blacks, educational disparity between are not inal victories, and defeats are not
are insuicient funds in the great vaults
white and black students, and continuing inal defeats.”

of opportunity of this nation. So we have incidents of police brutality and racial
come to cash this check—a check that will proiling.
Prior to his recent Senate appointment,
Mr. Adegbile was director-counsel for the
give us upon demand the riches of freedom
and the security of justice. We have also “All rights stem from voting rights,” he NAACP Legal Defense and Education
said. “If we ix that, you can get a police Fund. As such, he argued before the
come to this hallowed spot to remind
chief, school boards.. Don’t come out U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby v. Holder
America of the ierce urgency of now.”
and demonstrate unless you are registered, in favor of retaining Section 5 of the

he man who drated those lines— prepared to vote.”
Voting Rights Act of 1965—the so-called
preclearance provision mandating that
attorney Clarence B. Jones, today a
scholar in residence and visiting professor

at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research
and Education Institute at Stanford

University—opened his presentation by
singing “Oh, Freedom,” the anthem of the

1960s civil rights movement performed
by Joan Baez minutes before Dr. King’s

iconic speech.

Professor Jones said, “he irst seven

paragraphs of the ‘I have a dream speech’
were the paragraphs I had drated. For

some reason Dr. King chose not to change

a word. And then he added on.” Professor
Jones said that Dr. King put the speech

aside and seamlessly continued orating
in his own words. At some point, he said,

Geofrey Canada, Clarence Jones, and Stephen Bright enjoy a scholarly conversation during the lunch break.

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