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I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

Constance Baker Motley

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Constance Baker Motley
Age: 84 †
Born: 1921
Born: September 14
Died: 2005
Died: September 28
Former New York State Senator
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
New Haven
Connecticut
Case
Criminal
Involved
Capital
Cases
Trials
Defendant
Stage
Arguing
Arising
Chance
Criminals
Alabama
Firsts
Supreme
Counsel
First
Critical
Trial
Right
Court
Argue

More quotes by Constance Baker Motley

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A Negro who does not vote is ungrateful to those who have already died in the fight for freedom. ... Any person who does not vote is failing to serve the cause of freedom - his own freedom, his people's freedom, and his country's freedom.
Constance Baker Motley
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The black population now consists of two distinct classes-the middle class and the poor.
Constance Baker Motley
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Columbia Law School men were being drafted, and suddenly women who had done well in college were considered acceptable candidates for the vacant seats.
Constance Baker Motley
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New Orleans may well have been the most liberal Deep South city in 1954 because of its large Creole population, the influence of the French, and its cosmopolitan atmosphere.
Constance Baker Motley
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When I went to law school, nobody heard of civil rights.
Constance Baker Motley
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Affirmitive action is extremely complex because it appears in many different forms.
Constance Baker Motley
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There is no longer a single common impediment to blacks emerging in this society.
Constance Baker Motley
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Sexism, like racism, goes with us into the next century. I see class warfare as overshadowing both.
Constance Baker Motley
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The last state to admit a black student to the college level was South Carolina
Constance Baker Motley
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How long must the American community afford special treatment to blacks?
Constance Baker Motley
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King thought he understood the white Southerner, having been born and reared in Georgia and trained a theologian.
Constance Baker Motley
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King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.
Constance Baker Motley
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Today's white majority is largely silent about the race question.
Constance Baker Motley
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We African Americans have now spent the major part of the 20th Century battling racism
Constance Baker Motley
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Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade.
Constance Baker Motley
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Had it not been for James Meredith, who was willing to risk his life, the University of Mississippi would still be all white.
Constance Baker Motley
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We Americans entered a new phase in our history - the era of integration - in 1954.
Constance Baker Motley
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Doing away with separate black colleges meets resistance from alumni and other blacks.
Constance Baker Motley
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By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader.
Constance Baker Motley
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The fact is that racism, despite all the doomsayers, has diminished
Constance Baker Motley