Julius L. Chambers
Chancellor of North Carolina Central University
From "Explorations in Black Leadership"
"Where Are We?: Education and Desegregation"
November 8, 2000

Julius Chambers: I was asked to come talk about "where are we in education and desegregation" and I am prepared to talk about that. I also though wanted to talk about another problem that really bothered me that I raise as a means of getting other people to think about it. I lectured in law schools quite a bit when I was younger and was practicing law more… or practicing with the NAACP Legal Defense. I was lecturing in Michigan at the law school and a young student asked me whether I would want to go back through what I had done before with civil rights, or whether I would want to do that. "Was it worth it, she asked me, "to go through those years of fighting for equal opportunities and then watch decisions that had been established slowly eroded?" And it was a good question. And it’s a good question in the year 2000. I remember years ago, coming to Charlottesville to watch the efforts to increase minority enrollment in Charlottesville. I remember working with Henry Marsh, Sam Tucker, Oliver Hill, and others as we would map litigation strategy for either education or employment and the slow progress we made. I remember appearing in the four circuit court of appeals with Sam Tucker and we were talking before about whether we ought to be arguing about grade or year freedom of choice plans. That was progress, or so we were told. And Sam did something about it and he ended up with a case called Green versus New Kent County Board of Education that helped to speed up the efforts of desegregation. Then we mapped strategy about how we could bring about those kinds of decisions in metropolitan areas and I ended up with Swan versus Charlotte - Mecklenberg Board of Education.

They were great experiences and we did map strategy with the lawyers in Richmond and the lawyers in Little Rock, Arkansas and the lawyers in Atlanta, Georgia and Mississippi. Those were real trying periods and all of us were frustrated. And then we were rejoicing at some of the victories we achieved. I remember talking with some people after the Swan versus Charlotte - Mecklenberg Board of Education and talking about how that would now be used to desegregate schools all over the country. And it was used. As Garrof Orfield tells us it helped to effect desegregate in most of the schools, particularly in the South, in the country. It was an interesting struggle because we started that case in 1964 and we argued with a judge who didn’t believe that you ought to push school districts because he felt white residents of Charlotte, North Carolina would simply move out – "white flight" they called it. And rather than see the schools turn black with "white flight" he would rather leave them white or segregated. And we were able to effect some change but it was sort of strange the way that case evolved. It was the first go round between 1964 and 1968 with the court finally deciding that we would have desegregation of some of the schools and we would desegregate faculty. That was the progress he thought was appropriate.

Then we started the case anew in 1968 talking about complete desegregation and bussing. Bussing wasn’t a strange word in schools. In desegregation cases we had been talking about it earlier but we had not developed the nerve to go to court and argue about bussing. It had been raised in New York in a couple of cases and not pursued and so we raised it in Charlotte-Mecklenberg. We found a judge who had grown up in the South in a segregated community and never had been that much of a friend to black people. But he believed in doing what was right. He looked at the performance of minority students in schools and he saw this big gap between black and white students on achievement tests and he was moved, believing that there was a need to do something. So he listened patiently to the arguments that we really needed to bus students and bring them all together in order to enhance the performance of black students in the Charlotte-Mecklenberg system. Brown probably had to study about the dolls that motivated the Supreme Court to rule as it did in Brown versus Board of Education. In Swan versus Charlotte-Mecklenberg we had the court looking at the academic performance records of the minority students. And the judge believing that he really needs to do something to ensure that the black students would be able to do better in academic performance. So he ruled that we really had to achieve complete desegregation of the schools in Charlotte-Mecklenberg.

It’s interesting the way that case moved up through the circuit court and the Supreme Court. In the four circuit, you all are too young to have known Judge Hainsworth, who was chief justice of the four circuit court of appeals. He was convinced that something had to be done, but not as much as the court had ordered. Really, the court had not ordered that much. In the U.S. Supreme Court, the chief justice Berber, who also was before your time it seems, felt that the Court had to move ahead with desegregation. And I don’t know how many of you have time or have had time to read the history of the Charlotte school case in the Supreme Court. The appellate court, mowed back and forth about whether it ought to affirm bussing as a desegregation measure. But there was a big argument in the Supreme Court and the Court really divided on the issue but finally affirmed Judge McMillan’s decision in that case. And so we had the bussing decision.

Now I want to come back…let’s move forward. That case was back in the district court just a year ago with a group of white parents challenging the continued operation of the desegregation plan where the school district had achieved a unitary state. And we had a judge hearing that case who was an opponent of the case during the time that it was litigated initially in the district court. There was a motion for him to recuse himself and he refused to recuse himself and he didn’t think he was prejudiced and would be able to decide the issue even though he had opposed the case back in 1964 and 65. And in 1999 he ruled that it was time to abandon desegregation in Charlotte. And he was moved by the fact that the Supreme Court had decided that race could no longer be used by a state in either determination of liability or in a revenue. You heard about it. It’s like no race for affirmation action. And so the court dismissed the case or ordered it dismissed. The school board ardently opposed that ruling by the district court. So the school board and the black plaintiffs went back to the fourth circuit. Surprisingly the fourth circuit granted a stay and even the judge of the fourth circuit decided that a stay out to be issued. That case is still pending and, I am sure, will likely get back to the Supreme Court.

During all of this period, a lot of us were sitting around talking about whether school desegregation efforts were really worth it. You may or may not recall that a lot of black people became opposed to desegregation efforts. I never will forget the first case I had going to the Supreme Court was out of Atlanta, Georgia. In Atlanta we had sought to desegregate the Atlanta public schools and I was preparing a circuit petition in the U.S. Supreme Court and we had to address the issue of the support of black people for desegregation of the Atlanta schools. There was strong opposition, even from the NAACP in Atlanta, contrary to the position of the national NAACP. There was an attractive alternative for some of the people in Atlanta, namely Atlanta would get a black superintendent and would get black members of the Board of Education. In other words they would be able to control their schools, or so they thought, and that was better than the desegregation of the public schools.

We had the same opposition or concern (however one wants to describe it) in Charlotte. Was it really better for black students to sit next to white students than for black students to have control of the schools themselves? Wouldn’t they do better with a black superintendent, a black teacher? Why go through that time of animosity in the school system? And that issue is still here. And I said in the beginning that some things have been of concern to me and I like to raise them because I like to hear what others have to say about them. In the year 2000, we have a U.S. Supreme Court that sits there, maybe not surprisingly, deciding that some schools that have maintained a desegregation plan for a year, should now be free to go back to neighborhood schools, segregated schools in fact. It decided that they had done enough to appease and accommodate the interests of black students.

So in Norfolk, Virginia we re-segregated the schools, and 40% of the black kids in Norfolk are concentrated in black schools and 80% of those students have been flunking out of school or never finishing school. In Oklahoma City we have over 35% of the students re-assigned to segregated schools, all with terrible performances in the schools or never finishing school. In Austin, Texas we have re-segregated over 40% of the black kids and they are assigned to schools where they are performing very poorly. Many never finish. In Charlotte, North Carolina if the court proceeds as it has ordered, we will re-segregate over 50% of the students in Charlotte and I am sure with the same kind of consequences we saw in Norfolk, Virginia and as we see now in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Is it better to go back to neighborhood schools? I remember when I worked with the Legal Defense Fund, we had the big fight about immersion black schools. We wanted, some people, to have all-black male schools, all black faculty teaching black students because people felt it would be better and the black students could relate to the black males. In Detroit there was opposition. In a lawsuit black women said they needed similar support and a court ruled that they indeed needed similar support. That issue is still going on and I really fear that unless we reverse that position and return to desegregated schools, where all people are able to sit together and learn together, that we are producing a kind of divided America none of us would like to see. But I am just one voice and there is a need for many more, but also a need for you to think about what you really want.

For years we argued about job opportunities and I don’t know how many of you have read history about black people trying to get a job but I will give you a personal experience of mine. I went to an all-black undergraduate school and eventually to law school at Chapel Hill. And I finished as number one in the class and edited the law review. The practice had been, editors of the law review would walk into a major law firm. All the law firms in North Carolina were white. I even came to Washington. "Covington and Burling"…I will never forget the experience. The senior partner told me as I walked in, "We never have hired any colored boys," and they didn’t hire one at that time. And I won’t forget walking the streets with Frank Thomas, who became president of the Ford Foundation, as we both looked for jobs on Wall Street. At the time, Wall Street didn’t hire any black people. To bring it forward, I won’t forget walking the street in 1984 with several black lawyers complaining about the lack of black partners in the major law firms in New York City and learning about the discrimination in the legal profession in San Francisco and Chicago and Atlanta and Washington, D.C. It isn’t easy to accept that kind of discrimination. And we litigated to challenge discrimination against black people in public and private employment. And we won some decisions. I felt good about ?? Power, Albemarle Paper Company, Loralar Tobacco Company. So did Henry Marsh in Richmond and Sam Tucker, and so did John Walker in Little Rock, Arkansas and across the country. Then we noticed in the spring quarter, a trend towards reversing decisions that had provided some opportunities for black people. It was sort of devastating to us. The Supreme Courts latest announcement on employment discrimination basically tells black Americans that, "Sure the law prohibits discrimination, but we won’t allow a standard for you to prove that there has been discrimination. And even if you do, we won’t allow an effective remedy." And the issue is dangling out there now, how far the court will go with the remedy, particularly if the remedy includes race. Can a court, in other words, direct that an employer hire black people, or is that the use of race that the Supreme Court has rejected? At the same time we see an increasing gap among black and white in earnings, like an increasing gap among men and women. And is anyone going to be able to provide any remedy despite the statutes that we now have on the books.

The third area of concern is in criminal law. I won’t forget, years ago, trying to represent a young black man charged with rape of a white woman and how quickly he was rushed through the system with no concern about whether he was really innocent. The objective was to make sure we brought swift punishment. And they did. You know, at that time we didn’t have DNA, or we didn’t know what it was. We had eyewitnesses and you go and fingerprint a person you believed to be guilty. But what was more damaging was to go into a court and see a white judge, a white jury, a white prosecutor, a white clerk of court, a white sheriff -- in other words, everybody in the court is white and certainly opposed to this young black man charged with assaulting a white woman. We had swift justice, swift convictions. And it was disappointing for me, at least, to lose. Most of us thought we were Perry Mason and we would go in and defend despite the odds. And most of us left disappointed Perry Mason’s with the jury.

But then, who cared? -- which is the last issue that I want to raise with you. I watched just two months ago as the educators published a report about the increasing gap in academic performance of black and white students. It didn’t make any difference whether the black kid had any money, the black kid simply would not perform as well as the white kid. Was the black kid inferior? I don’t think anybody could establish that, but they certainly offered it and are continuing to argue it. There is another issue that we haven’t addressed and that is whether the white student was taught according to a different standard. How many black kids are really individually taught and enabled to perform? We have now enough proof from educators that it is possible to teach a child, whatever his or her race, whatever his or her economic status in life. We simply follow a mutual practice that is based on middle class white standards and we don’t pay the kind of attention to many of the black kids who need individual or special attention. And one might ask whether it would be a valid constitution to provide that special attention for black students. In any event, the gap now between black and white students and their performance leads to all kinds of difficulty all over the place.

For example, would it constitute affirmative action, prohibitive affirmative action at the University of Virginia, to admit a black kid who doesn’t score 1400 on the SAT if the average white kid scores 1400? Would it violate the constitution for an employer to hire a black employee who didn’t score as highly on an exam as a white kid? Would anybody want to look at whether the exam today measured one’s ability to perform? Would anyone care? I served on a board of the Education Testing Service and was sort of appalled that we have been using an SAT and an LSAT, a GRE, neither which clearly measures one’s ability to perform. And we use it religiously. And so in Texas and Hopkins, we say that black kids who are getting admitted to the University of Texas were given preference. In Virginia, we say that black kids who get into the University of Virginia law school were given preferences. Who measures whether those performances actually determines fairly the ability of students to perform? Worse, who cares?

I’ll quit with another problem. And again, believe me I am just raising issues that we are still trying to address because I am leaving the Chancellorship of North Carolina Central because I really want to get back into litigation and to look at an area that I think is crucial. We sort of dropped it. Why aren’t we litigating whether a school district violates the Constitution where it fails to use teaching methods that clearly proves that black kids can perform in education? Why don’t we sue a school board that fails to provide that kind of education and ensure that the black kids will be able to learn? It should be, in my opinion, an equal protection violation. A second area of concern that I hope to work on is…you all may or may not have heard of a case called San Antonio versus Rodriquez. This is a case where the courts said it doesn’t violate the Constitution to discriminate against people because they are poor. As a result, nobody pays that much attention to poor kids in the public school system. Nor do they pay that much attention to poor people who are trying to get housing or health care or a job. Why can’t we reverse San Antonio versus Rodriquez? Can you imagine what it would mean for the court to hold that it violates the Constitution to discriminate against people because they are poor? Why isn’t that one of our objectives? A decision like that would have as much of a repercussion, as much meaning as Brown versus Board of Education. In fact, in my opinion, more meaning. And I think it’s a great opportunity to provide a service for poor people to establish their rights to equal protection of the law.

The young lady who asked me that question years ago about would do this again, again posed a good question. I thought about it a minute and answered her quickly, "Yes, I would." But I think in 2000, despite all the problems that one sees across this country and in the court, one ought to be willing again to get out in the market and provide similar services. I just mentioned two areas. There are many more and I think the court, the Constitution, America, all begging for someone to devote some time and attention to raising these issues, providing an answer, and helping to ensure that we have a better America for all people. You know, the world in 2000 is quite different from the world that I saw in the 1960’s. We now have white people and black people and yellow people and red people. All kinds of people. And we aren’t all just men and women, we have sexual preferences. And we aren’t all good Baptists. Some of us are Methodist and some of us are Jew and some of us are agnostics, but every person has rights that need to be protected and I believe that the Constitution provides that kind of protection. I believe that you and I have an obligation to ensure that that kind of protection is accorded. I appreciate you listening to me. I don’t know that you want to react to whatever it is that I said but I was told you may have a question afterwards and I will be glad to try to respond. Thank you.

Julian Bond: Thank you a great deal, Chancellor Chambers. I am sure there are some questions. We just want to ask those who have questions if you will just go to one of the opposite mikes in the aisles because we are recording all of this and your words will be taken down. We are recording all this so it just makes it easier for the recording devices if you could go to the two microphones.

Questioner A: Chancellor Chambers, it is an honor to have you here. Two questions -- the first one is more specific about the benefits of desegregation. You mentioned academic performance as well as the social integration and I guess I am trying to understand…if you could clarify what is it when schools re-segregate that causes black students to fail? Then, my other question is more broadly, how do you cope personally through your career with the disappointment that you’ve talked about in the response of the system and others and how do you keep your spirits and motivations up in the face of eroding support and indifference with others? Thank you.

Chancellor Chambers: Thank you. I think again that black students don’t necessarily fail when they are in integrated situations or necessarily in segregated situations. I think it all depends on how they are taught and the kind of resources we bring to the subject area. I have seen a number of kids in integrated situations who have done exceptionally well and are continuing to do it. I believe they will do better if provided that kind of opportunity. I never will forget the studies that Gary Orfield and others had presented talking about the effects of integration. So I think they do, do well and I think they will continue to do well and I think it is going to be absolutely essential to promote that kind of society.

How does one cope? You know, I remember black people and their history and they have been going through a struggle like this all the time. I always think about what it was like for a slave who dreamed of one day being free and struggling to gain freedom. I asked a number of people, including students today who talk about the difficulty of being able to do things, to think about what their forefathers or mothers did or thought about. It was an almost impossible struggle and it’s not unique to black people. I know Jewish Americans have gone through some of those struggles. I know that Hispanics have gone and are going through similar struggles. So it’s not a unique problem but it’s one that our fore-parents have endured and survived.

Another thing that’s very encouraging to me is to see how this world has changed (not a whole bunch but it has changed) over the past few years with a low effort by different organizations. Can you remember or think about how segregated Charlottesville was just a few years ago? How many restaurants black people could go to? Whether you could go to a hotel? Where am I staying? I am staying in the Omni. Did it open on an integrated basis? Have you ever been to Howard Johnson’s and been told that you couldn’t come in? These are things that happened in the 1900’s. Some of them happened in the year 2000. I guess all you have read about some of the restaurants that didn’t want to serve black people. But that’s the major change from my youth. When I finished high school I couldn’t go to the University of New Carolina because they didn’t have any black people. When I finished law school I couldn’t get a job in a major firm because they didn’t hire black people or women. And those are major changes. You don’t have a complete answer but we have made some progress. I firmly believe that continuing to press the issue will allow you to effect even more change and achieve the kind of goals that we all would like to see.

Where is the gentleman? I guess I responded to him. Maybe not satisfactorily, but I did respond to him. Yes sir?

Questioner B: My name is Gerrard Robinson. I am a Ph.D. student at the Curry School of Education and education policy is one of my areas of study. There are three issues that you have brought up here and I would like to address those. The first is "Do you think de-segregation made a difference?" and I would say yes. The work that you and other lawyers participated in during the 60s and 70s helped to eradicate American style apartheid in public life and the vibrations of what you did actually found its way into the fabrics of American social life. So yes, it was worth it. You also asked whether or not sitting black and white students together is a good thing and the answer is "Yes, but it’s only good where it’s possible." Right now you have many enclaves in American society where you don’t have enough white students either living in certain areas or able to be bussed in where you will be able to make it real. So in areas where Gary Orfield, Chuck Willy, and others have seen it work, I agree it’s good.

The third issue of "Are neighborhood schools good?" -- the answer is "Yes, where necessary." Because right now you have racial isolation in certain areas, it is simply going to be financially impossible to bus so many students out and at the same time try to give students a good education. So neighborhood school have their place.

My question has to do with school choice, which is an area that is politically charged. In the state of North Carolina right now there are a number of charter schools in your state where the predominant student population is black. Given that you now have black parents willing to put their children in racially isolated schools for the purposes of academic advancement, do you see that as a challenge or a threat to the tenets of Brown?

Chancellor Chambers: As a threat. And I have said it before and don’t mind saying it, I think…. First of all I am opposed to charter schools. I think they are enclaves for segregation, whether by African Americans or by white people. They simply segregate students within the schools. We have several charter schools in North Carolina and an argument is developing now about whether the majority black charter schools should be eliminated. And I think before long you will see that they are eliminated. We are a long way from getting to a society where black and white people can sit down and live together. I have worked with a number of organizations talking about the ways we can promote integration. And it’s really been disturbing to me to see the animosity that has developed between black and white people and how that is increasing. I don’t really know anybody who is working to address it. In my school we talked about diversity and a lot of black kids opposed it. It was expected by me but I thought it was absolutely horrible but they did. And one should probably expect that. As whites talk about the need for escaping through different means from integrated schools, one hopes that they also think about what blacks are thinking about under those circumstances and what it is going to mean for America. So I hope that we do more to bring people together. I fear that we are getting more segregated and the animosity among people is absolutely frightening. Yes, mam? Hi. How are you doing?

Questioner C: Good. I was wondering what you feel the future role is for historically black colleges along the same lines?

Chancellor Chambers: I told my people and I’ll tell you that I don’t think HBCU’s are going to survive as an all-black institution. I don’t think there is any way that they can survive. And I don’t think they necessarily should survive. Our school now is only 14% white. We anticipate an increase of 50,000 students in North Carolina in the next 8 years. Those students are mostly non-black. That means Hispanic, Asian, and White. And if you are running around with an institution talking about you are recruiting only black students you are going to be out of step. The black students I see today who go to North Carolina, Duke, or Virginia are a different group of people. I respect them and they, in North Carolina, have started their own alumni association. It’s interesting watching at Chapel Hill as black alumni come back to Chapel Hill and as they interface with the students or alumni who come back to North Carolina Central. And that threatens the future of the HBCU’s. A lot of people in HBCU’s like to think that they can keep the schools all black. I went down to meet with students at Southern University Law School who were upset that Southern, at that time, was over 50% white. I assured them that there was nothing they could do about it, that Constitutionally they shouldn’t even be thinking about it. At my law school we are over 50% white. If a black school is doing anything, it is going to attract all kinds of students because of the shortage of space. As it does there is nothing you can do to try to keep people out and you ought not to keep them ought because I also believe that we get the best education when we have diversity present. Thank you.

Questioner D: Good evening, sir.

Chancellor Chambers: Good evening.

Questioner D: I guess I have a statement as well as a question. I am a resident of Charlottesville as well as a Vietnam vet who was shot down in Vietnam. As I was sitting here in the audience listening to you I obviously have to come to understand, I missed a great, great portion of my history as a black man. Not that I haven’t been confronted with racism, but the question that came to mind while I was sitting back there when you were talking about affirmative action, I was wondering…to me, as an example, sir, it would be like having a shotgun (if you will) held on me for 300 years while someone allowed you to go running off to a race and then I was told I now can take off to catch that person. This leads to my question, sir, of what is your opinion… as a parent of two sons here in Charlottesville who I do not personally find the school equal although they are integrated, I do not find them equally teaching African American students. How do I get involved on a local level through…I guess I am asking through a legal level… to try to change that, because it is my understanding that I was shot down in Vietnam for the rights of all people to have a better tomorrow? I try to look at it, sir, as in if you will, in closing, that we are all like automobiles. You know, we are different colors that you might find even in this parking lot, but they all have one thing in common – they must have an engine to get here, unless you pushed it. So my question to you would be how can I get involved as a parent to try to push equality for all people at a legal level? Or did I make myself clear?

Chancellor Chambers: Yes, and it’s a good question. I, maybe not as directly as I should have, hinted at some of the things I think can happen. Let me tick off some things. First, I think one has to be committed to an integrated environment and has to insist that we all work to achieve that kind of society, or at least that we all work to ensure that there are equal opportunities or exposures for all people in whatever setting they have. Second there are a number of people working within school systems now to make sure that all students get the kind of education, training, or support that they need in order to be able to achieve. There are federal programs that have grown out of this gap in the academic performance. There are a number of foundations that are providing support. And the number of individual efforts that people have initiated in integrated schools and even in segregated schools to ensure that black students are able to perform more. We are sort of shifting more to the out-product than to just the input.

Third, there are a number of lawsuits that are being batted about that one ought to look at. There are lawsuits now that are talking about the kinds of exposures that students get in the schools to ensure that they are able to perform on an equal basis. There is some that are being brought…there is a great case you might want to look at out of Connecticut called Chef versus Hartford, Connecticut, that focuses on the disparity in the educational opportunities that poor and minority kids have been exposed to as compared with white. So you can either do it through a number of organizations within the schools or you can do it through litigation or through legislation. In North Carolina we have an active black political organization and we are looking at legislation designed to ensure that the students get the kind of educational exposure they need in order to close the gap in the performance of the black and white kids.

Questioner E: Hi.

Chancellor Chambers: Yes mam?

Questioner E: I have a question about educational policy too. I am a product of Richmond city schools after they were desegregated but when I was there the signs of re-segregation had already begun and the white flight was very evident to the surrounding counties. And I know that Richmond’s re-segregation plan followed Charlotte’s bussing and that before that there had been consideration for consolidation of Richmond into the wealthier white counties. I was wondering if you think that, that plan has any place in our policies today – consolidation -- or spreading out the tax base?

Chancellor Chambers: You ask if it has any place in your society today.

Questioner E: Is it a viable option?

Chancellor Chambers: A viable option. That is a good question. I will tell you that Henry Marsh, Tucker, and I talked about that back when we started the Charlotte case for example and Richmond had just lost the merger of Henrico and Chesapeake. We also started a case in Durham, North Carolina that was designed to do the same thing. I thought then and I am sure they did and I believe now that it would be advantageous for all students in the system to have that kind of racial mix. There are a number of African Americans who do not agree with it and there are a number of whites who do not agree with it. It is difficult to get them to think ahead about what kind of society you are building and will build without that kind of mixture. I believe that it would be very helpful if you could effect that kind of change in Richmond. I know that one of the reasons blacks weren’t that interested in Richmond is that they feared it would affect their political position. Like when they were adding to Henrico county and the annexation and you had the litigation that affected the voting rights thing and that is another issue that is of concern. But I don’t think anybody can really argue that bringing the races together for an educational purpose is not advantageous. I think we all have to see that it is for a lot of reasons.

Yes,sir?

Questioner F: Chancellor, welcome to Virginia soil. I was born and raised on Virginia soil in the commonwealth. I just want to go back a little bit and let’s talk a little bit of history about blackness and then take it into the educational realm. We were brought here to this country, shackled, after we were made slaves, we were not allowed to read or write or hold property. We were freed, then we were downgraded or told that we were inferior. From that point after slavery we couldn’t get a job. Then we go through the Plesey-type case and to bring it even further to modern day on this soil, they had massive resistance here, which meant of course of that the schools would have remained segregated. The persons that perpetrated that, one of them had been the governor of the state of Virginia and the Byrd machine of course was ... There were only two schools closed in Virginia as a result of massive resistance. One is Prince Edward County, the other was here in Charlottesville. We heard about Prince Edward County and no one ever talked about Charlottesville. However, after Judge Cobb made his judgement they integrated the schools here in Charlottesville. I guess what I would like to say also here is that we didn’t ask to be born black. God did that and the spiritual thing that happened in the 60s that went on for about 20 years where the races really got along together and were going to school and progress was made and wealth was accumulated by blacks. Then all of a sudden we get this feeling where we are here all of these years after slavery still dealing with the same issue. Where are we going? Should we do this? We have laws and more laws and laws being appealed and then we come up with more laws. Why should we, in this country, have to sue when there are actually laws on the books? So that’s my thing, bringing it up from history. Why does it have to happen? Does it have to go back into a spiritual thing? Martin Luther King gave his life for us and from that point on things have been going…you hear statements today that he is being quoted about the character thing -- "don’t consider my color but my character." This type of thing. Where are we? We are talking about this thing 400 years since, where are we going?

Chancellor Chambers: Well, first let me go back to the beginning of your comments. I don’t apologize to anybody for being black, or African American. I am proud of it and I think that my blackness can be as effective as anybody else. So that’s the first thing.

The second thing is I think the struggle for opportunity is one that is worthwhile and it helps to build a lot of people. When we prevailed with the Charlotte school case, I was extremely happy despite the problems we had encountered we were able to achieve a lot. Then the next thing we knew we had our first black mayor. I had been arguing for years about a minority majority electoral district. We subsequently got this district and Mayor Watt was our first black congressman since Reconstruction. So we made some progress with that. Is it that others don’t have to fight to achieve? I think everybody has to fight. They may not bring all the lawsuits we bring, but they bring some. They get out and…I don’t know how much money did we spend on this last presidential election? Somebody is fighting about something and trying to achieve something. And I think it’s the way we run our democracy that ensured something. I think even other minority groups are having problems they have to go through with something. I think having to fight builds character in all. I relish it. I think it’s great and I hope we all keep doing it until we achieve the kind of goal that we all would like to see.