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An attorney who was proud to have represented working people -- "from deep-sea divers to airplane pilots," he once said -- Gilbert helped draft the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the request of President Lyndon Johnson. He later also helped Vice President Hubert Humphrey form the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. When a labor contract dispute threatened the opening of the 1984 Olympics, he immediately went in and solved it even though it was a national holiday. "I'm a labor lawyer," he told his wife, "and the show must go on." And it did. Gilbert also had a strong interest in international law, noting over 50 years ago that "The methods used in solving labor-management problems should be used in world affairs -- negotiations, good will and mutual respect." Gilbert died July 22 at home in California. He was 80. From This is True for 22 July 2001 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Mark Rosenkranz List Price: $22.95 Amazon Price: $18.36 Editorial Review: Discrimination and racism has existed in America since the very early days of colonization. In the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers declared "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." and yet, it would be another 189 years before Americans would be equal by law. It has been suggested that with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, America had finally overcame its ugly past of racism and discrimination. As we entered into the new millennium, the author wondered if America had really set aside its biases and discriminatory practices. The author interviewed eight people as he developed the foundations for this book. One of the people he was honored to interview was Brian Swann, the brother of famous footballer Lynn Swann. Brian shared his story of a racial motivated encounter that he and his brother's had experienced in the 1970's in San Francisco, California, at the hands of the San Francisco Police Department. Each of the eight people interviewed for this book brought with them a different experience and viewpoint as it relates to discrimination and racism in America, and more specifically, white male privilege in America. The author brought these eight individual viewpoints together, and told their story as they relate to American history, from the early days of colonization through the present day.  By: William F. Pepper List Price: $25.00 Amazon Price: $16.50 Editorial Review: William Pepper was a young journalist, just back from Vietnam, when he first met Martin Luther King Jr. His photographs and first-hand accounts of the war prompted King's unflinching commitment to oppose it. On April 15, 1967, Pepper proposed an alternative to the re-election of Lyndon Johnson to a cheering New York crowd. Dr. Benjamin Spock was to be King's running mate highlighting an anti-poverty and antiwar agenda. A year later Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. The movement for social and economic change in the US has never been substantially, successfully revived. Doubts raised from an initial ten- year investigation and hours of interrogations of James Earl Ray prompted Pepper to take up his case. The King family, persuaded by the growing evidence, joined his struggle in 1996. At the 1999 trial seventy witnesses under oath set out the details of the conspiracy and the jury took an hour to find for the King family. It was ruled that a wide-running conspiracy existed and that government agents were involved. The story was effectively buried. An Act of State lays out, in hair-raising detail, the facts of the case as it evolved. These tell a tragic story of King's powerful and significant radicalism, government plans for his execution that involved the military and the FBI, media cover-ups, and the corporate forces that were already claiming their hold on the nation's polity.  By: Chris Finan List Price: $18.00 Amazon Price: $12.24 Editorial Review: The first comprehensive history of free speech in America for a general readership, from a respected historian and free speech activist A 2007 Book Sense Selection In this lively history of our most fundamental and perhaps most vulnerable right, Christopher Finan traces the lifeline of free speech from the War on Terror back to the turn of the last century. The story of the fight for free speech in times of war and peace?when writers, publishers, booksellers, and librarians are often on the front lines?is essential reading. "At a time when America's freedoms and liberties are under attack in Washington, Finan's book is a powerful reminder of why we must carry on the fight to preserve the central underpinning of the American democratic system." ?Senator Bernie Sanders "A marvelously readable account of the struggle for free speech in the United States." ?Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times "A welcome and much-needed change from the simplistic good-versus-evil treatment this subject often gets. Could be the definitive study of a perpetually complex, contentious issue." ?Booklist, starred review "American history is marred by recurrent episodes of hate?Red scares, super-patriotism, fear of sexual expression. Christopher Finan brilliantly paints that record, and shows how courageous Americans have fought for freedom." ?Anthony Lewis, author of Gideon's Trumpet and Make No Law "Finan's colorful narrative . . . shows how much progress we have made?and how far we have to go." ?Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU and professor of law, New York Law School "A book with enormous relevance for post-9/11 America." ?Gene Roman, America Magazine  By: Geoffrey R. Stone List Price: $17.95 Amazon Price: $12.21 Editorial Review: By Geoffrey R. Stone's estimate, America has lived up to the ideals encapsulated in the First Amendment about 80 percent of the time over the course of its history. Perilous Times's focuses is on the remaining 20 percent, when, during war or civil strife, the better instincts of the public and its leaders have been drowned out by a certain kind of repressive hysteria. Stone, the former dean of law provost at the University of Chicago, identifies six periods of widespread free-speech repression, dating back to the administration of the nation's second president, John Adams, and continuing through the Vietnam era. In between, two of history's greatest presidents, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, were involved in constitutionally questionable efforts to suppress dissent. Stone examines these pivotal episodes with a lawyer's attention to detail and precedence and a writer's focus on character and story structure. From Adams's secretary of state, the "grim-faced and single-minded" Timothy Pickering (who scanned the papers daily looking for seditious language) through John Ashcroft on one side, and the cheeky late-18th-century congressman Matthew Lyon and the Yippies of the 1960s on the other, there are plenty of characters enlivening these pages. Given its publication during the War on Terror, Stone's work feels particularly timely and vital. He devotes only a few pages to the post-9/11 environment, crediting George W. Bush for his refusal to scapegoat Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but castigating his administration for "opportunistic and excessive" actions centering around the Patriot Act. One wonders if Stone will some day be forced to update Perilous Times with a full chapter on the early 21st century. --Steven Stolder"A must-read for all who treasure the First Amendment."—Alan M. Dershowitz, Boston Globe  By: Glenn T. Eskew List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $24.95 Editorial Review: Birmingham served as the stage for some of the most dramatic and important moments in the history of the civil rights struggle. In this vivid narrative account, Glenn Eskew traces the evolution of nonviolent protest in the city, focusing particularly on the sometimes problematic intersection of the local and national movements. Eskew describes the changing face of Birmingham's civil rights campaign, from the politics of accommodation practiced by the city's black bourgeoisie in the 1950s to local pastor Fred L. Shuttlesworth's groundbreaking use of nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1963, the national movement, in the person of Martin Luther King Jr., turned to Birmingham. The national uproar that followed on Police Commissioner Bull Connor's use of dogs and fire hoses against the demonstrators provided the impetus behind passage of the watershed Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paradoxically, though, the larger victory won in the streets of Birmingham did little for many of the city's black citizens, argues Eskew. The cancellation of protest marches before any clear-cut gains had been made left Shuttlesworth feeling betrayed even as King claimed a personal victory. While African Americans were admitted to the leadership of the city, the way power was exercised—and for whom—remained fundamentally unchanged. |
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