John Pemberton Jr., Civil Rights Crusader, Dies at 90 - Please remember him!

[Are_grits_groceries]

John de J. Pemberton Jr., who as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Unionduring the turbulent 1960s helped double its size and shift its focus to the criminal courts as an arena for issues like civil rights and Vietnam, died Oct. 21 in Monte Rio, Calif. He was 90.

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Mr. Pemberton, who said he considered himself a militant on civil liberties issues, sometimes had to balance the views of other militants with those of A.C.L.U. members who favored a more moderate approach. A contentious issue early in the Vietnam War was whether the civil rights group should help draft resisters. It eventually did, in 1968.

<snip>

Mr. Pemberton helped orchestrate a major shift in the A.C.L.U.’s legal strategy. The group had historically chosen to pursue appeals of important test cases in higher courts in order to establish a constitutional principle, often as a friend of the court.

But, under Mr. Pemberton and his board, the A.C.L.U. came to serve as criminal counsel for an individual defendant in 95 percent of the cases. He said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 1966 that this change was necessary to make the lower courts work.

“We no longer think that, because the Supreme Court says thus and so, the cop on the beat will behave that way,” he said. “But if the cop knows that the citizen he meets in the street will be able to get a lawyer and go to court, then his behavior will change.”

Nowhere was the new focus on defending criminal cases more critical than in the South, where in 1964 the A.C.L.U. created a legal unit to ally with other civil rights organizations to provide legal counsel. One case involved 1,100 people arrested for parading without a permit in Jackson, Miss. Another involved defending a black man accused of raping a white woman.

<snip>

He practiced law in Rochester from 1950 to 1962, and was chairman of the Minnesota branch of the A.C.L.U. from 1955 to 1958. In one of his cases for the union, he represented a white man and an Indian woman who were barred from completing the purchase of a joint cemetery lot because contract language limited the cemetery to Caucasians. He won the case.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/us/30pemberton.html?ref=obituaries

:patriot: RIP John Pemberton Jr.

We stand on the shoulders of many giants we aren't even aware of.

[Blue_Tires]

1. r.i.p.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. One more k. nt

[Heidi]

3. Recommended.

:kick:

[ThatsMyBarack]

4. That's a classy photo of him.

RIP, sir. :patriot:

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. You never can tell what a hellraiser

looks like can you?