Answering the Call
An Autobiography of the Modern Struggle to End Racial Discrimination in America
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Jones, a trailblazing African American judge, delivers an urgently needed perspective on American history . . . [A] passionate and informative account” (Booklist, starred review).
Answering the Call is an extraordinary eyewitness account from an unsung hero of the battle for racial equality in America—a battle that, far from ending with the great victories of the civil rights era, saw some of its signal achievements in the desegregation fights of the 1970s and its most notable setbacks in the affirmative action debates that continue into the present in Ferguson, Baltimore, and beyond.
Judge Nathaniel R. Jones’s groundbreaking career was forged in the 1960s: As the first African American assistant US attorney in Ohio; as assistant general counsel of the Kerner Commission; and, beginning in 1969, as general counsel of the NAACP. In that latter role, Jones coordinated attacks against Northern school segregation—a vital, divisive, and poorly understood chapter in the movement for equality—twice arguing in the pivotal US Supreme Court case Bradley v. Milliken, which addressed school desegregation in Detroit. He also led the national response to the attacks against affirmative action, spearheading and arguing many of the signal legal cases of that effort.
Answering the Call is “a stunning, inside story of the contemporary struggle for civil rights . . . Essential reading for understanding where we are today—underscoring just how much work is left to be done” (Vernon E. Jordan Jr., civil rights activist).
“A forthright testimony by a witness to history.” —Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jones, who retired from the U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, in 2002, offers a forthright and revealing memoir of serving as a judge and lawyer on the front lines of the civil rights era. In the 1960s, he served as deputy general counsel on the Kerner Commission, formed by President Johnson to study civil disorder, and argued for greater compassion for protesters condemned as "rioters." In his role as NAACP general counsel, he coordinated the defense of school desegregation initiatives during the 1970s, and as a judge on the Court of Appeals, he insisted on hiring African-American law clerks. In a work rich in context and analysis, he covers a variety of topics, including Obama's election and the myth of a post-racial America, serving in the segregated WWII-era military, the Scottsboro Boys, and the appointment of Clarence Thomas, whom he considers one of history's "most colossal double-crossers." He also writes that the champions of states' rights have managed to "reinstate a variety of once-outlawed Jim Crow tactics" to disqualify minorities and suppress their votes. This careful, considered debut highlights a life committed to justice and to the principle that the law is the "inescapable route" to attaining equality.
