Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality

Speaker Quotes

Tomiko Brown-Nagin

“When Motley was appointed to the Bench, women’s rights groups and civil rights groups were overjoyed. They thought that with one of their own on the bench she would be able to achieve tremendous things, sort of like when she was a gladiator in the courtroom as a lawyer. She was one of the first to, quote, ‘diversify’ the bench and I want to consider—and have considered in this book—what she was able to achieve over her 39 years on the bench. I think there are risks and rewards to the project of diversifying the bench and I use her life to talk about it.” [11:02- 11:39]

“Overall, I conclude that Motley was not a revolutionary on the bench. She was more of a workplace reformer, unlike when she was a civil rights lawyer where she was a gladiator. And yet, her story helped to demonstrate the value of symbolism to the legitimacy of public institutions. She argued in favor of the appointment of women and people of color judges on this basis, not because she said that they would do something totally different than white men but because the appointments would demonstrate that government is fair. In a way, I think that the overarching theme of the book is the paradox of change. How her ascent to the bench is important, but if we are seeking—as so many people do—to draw a straight line between personal success and group outcomes then it’s disappointing, and yet, I think that the story of her breakthroughs in so many ways does underscore an anti-discrimination imperative.” [16:50-18:08]

“Her sense of intellectual engagement and excitement is very clear… in terms of Brown (Brown v. Board of Education), she litigated all of these cases that implemented Brown. As a judge, she was not dealing with school desegregation cases but did have a Title Seven case, involving teachers—black and Latino teachers—who argue that certification tests were discriminatory and Motley ultimately rules against them, she is reversed by the second circuit. I use it to illustrate just how far she had gone from her days as a civil rights lawyer. [1:13:41-1:14:26]

H. Timothy Lovelace, Jr.

“As I started reading the book, I began to think about these questions of judicial merit, of judicial diversity, of objectivity, and how they’re shaping these debates today—and they certainly shaped Constance Baker-Motley’s nomination and confirmation, and we’ll get there in just a moment. So, in my comments today, I really want to do three things and tell you why this is an incredibly important book. The first is I’ll talk about how this book really challenges our understandings of the civil rights historiography and this is just different methodologies and approaches to the civil rights scholarship. Second, I’ll talk about major themes in the book and the importance of those themes in the book. And then finally, I’ll discuss the rule of law and lawyers in social and legal change.” [20:14-21:12]

“We also see the power of the book’s gender analysis. Black women were only a fraction of a percentage of America’s bar in the mid-twentieth century. And so, in this way, we might think about Constance Baker Motley as being nearly invisible. But, as this wonderful book shows us, she was also hyper visible. She was a black woman, who was a lawyer, who was on the national—and even international—stage, at the forefront of the civil rights struggle. And that here, she was able to negotiate relationships with powerful men in the civil rights movement.  [25:34-26:19]

“This book really shows us the power of protests on law. This really builds from courage to dissent. One of the major themes that emerges is that activists working with lawyers—and this was often a tense relationship—helped to create the context for political change. In this book, we see this theme really develop in Constance Baker Motley’s character. She’s a movement lawyer. She has a very different style of lawyering from someone like Thurgood Marshall, who actually opposed the sit-in movement initially. She’s working very closely in places like Birmingham, where there are incredible demonstrations, and she understands that her role as a lawyer is not to supplant civil rights activists but rather to support civil rights activism.” [27:44-28:35]

Risa Goluboff

“A related and second theme that I wanted to explore in the context of how you, and Tim, and I all have, I think, historically approached legal history—and I think is a big theme in recent civil rights history—is the importance of lawyers… I feel like one of the things that I took away from the book was how you showed the importance of her role as a lawyer and how she was constrained… that her constraints on her as a judge seemed more significant than her constraints as a lawyer.” [47:14-48:29]

“All three of us [panelists] grew up on the importance of the social history of law, thinking about law really as a conversation about social history… and we’ve each of us moved in various ways from social history—generally—to the relationship, as Tim talked about, between social history and more formal forms of legal history and doctrinal history from above. For Tim, I think that has been more toward international law, legal processes, and treaties; For Tomiko, toward biography, in this book; and for me, toward the Supreme Court. And so as I read this, it really made me re-reflect on questions that I had when I was writing about the court.”  [42:02-43:03]