Abstract: BLACK LAW JOURNAL INTERVIEW GEORGE W. CROCKETT: THE OPENER Preface and Commentary by WARNER SMITH JOURNAL: Judge Crockett, who were some of your childhood heroes? I used to give orations on Toussaint L'Overture, Toussaint L'Overture lived for me. JUDGE CROCKETT: . . . EORGE W. CROCKETT, JR., Judge of the Recorders Court of Detroit, Michigan, is a man for all seasons. Throughout his adult life he has fought racist tyranny, poverty, political suppression of dissent, and the overreaching claws of police. He risked death itself by defending civil rights workers in Mississippi. He unleashed the fury of Detroit's silent majority by applying the law to the poor as if they were rich. He violated the national taboo in defending the rights of American communists. He aroused the wrath of Detroit's finest by using the judiciary as a shield protecting ghetto citizens from police lawlessness. Such audacity exemplifies a steeled will informing his lionesque courage. The courage displayed in maturity began as rebelliousness in youth. While attending Stanton High in Jacksonville, Florida (James Weldon Johnson had been its principal), George Crockett learned a lesson from his mother which is an epiphany of his career. Stanton High conducted a speech contest with a rival school. The speakers were to debate on the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The prize awarded the outstanding speaker was $200. George Crockett wrote a speech and asked the coach if he could enter the contest. Denying the request, the coach told him two students had already been selected. Carrying his crestfallen spirits home, the young scholar informed his mother of his misfortunes. She advised him that so long as one could appeal to higher authority, one should never accept the first no. He appealed his case to the school prin- cipal who agreed that the speakers representing the school should compete in an elimination contest. Young Crockett won the contest, the interschool debate, and the $200. He has remembered that the fruits of victory often lie on the far side of the shadow cast by mean authority. Using the $200 to help pay for his school expenses, he enrolled at More- house College. He aspired to be a dentist, but as he studied, his interest in dentistry waned while his interest in political science, history and law waxed. He changed his major to pre-law. While an undergraduate at Morehouse he was president of the freshman, sophomore and junior classes, president of the student body during his senior year, president of the debating society and captain of the debating team, associate editor of the student paper, and a varsity cheer leader. Upon graduation he received the prize granted the student who had participated in the most extra curricular activities while main- taining an average of B or above. His undergraduate work illustrates three salient aspects of his character: a keen political sense, intellectual rigor, and the habit of command.
Publication Year: 1971
Publication Date: 1971-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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