Thursday, October 16, 2008

J.L. Chestnut, Campaigning For Rights In Selma


This morning I listened to a wonderful interview: J.L. Chestnut, Campaigning For Rights In Selma : NPR, Fresh Air, Oct. 3, 2008. After Howard Law School, Chestnut returned home to Selma, the only black lawyer in a town where blacks didn't even serve on juries and the white bar leaders passed a resolution telling the town's banks not to lend him money to open his practice.

The interview was recorded in 1990, but rebroadcast recently because Chestnut just died. Here's an obituary: Bruce Weber, J.L. Chestnut Jr., Early Leader in Civil Rights Movement, Is Dead at 77, N.Y. Times, Sept. 30, 2008.

Chestnut's memoir, Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J.L. Chestnut Jr., is available through Summit.

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