Justice Older than the Law: The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree (Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies)

285 Pages·2009·2.41 MB·English

by  Katie McCabe

Justice Older than the Law
o
Photograph by Margaret Thomas, courtesy Washington Post
Justice Older than the Law
The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree
o
KATIE McCABE
and
DOVEY JOHNSON ROUNDTREE
university press of mississippi • jackson
MARGARET WALKERALEXANDERSERIES IN AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
www.upress.state.ms.us
TheUniversity Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of
AmericanUniversity Presses.
Photos courtesy of Dovey Johnson Roundtree, unless otherwise credited.
Copyright © 2009 by Katie McCabe and Dovey Johnson Roundtree
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the UnitedStates of America
First printing 2009
b
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCabe, Katie.
Justice older than the law : the life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree / Katie McCabe
and Dovey Johnson Roundtree.
p. cm. — (Margaret Walker Alexander series in AfricanAmerican studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-60473-132-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Roundtree, Dovey Johnson,
1914– 2.Lawyers—UnitedStates—Biography. 3.AfricanAmerican lawyers—United
States—Biography. 4. Women lawyers—UnitedStates—Biography. 5.Segregation in
transportation—Law and legislation—UnitedStates—History. 6.Segregation—Law and
legislation—UnitedStates—History. 7.UnitedStates—Race relations—History. 8. Civil
rights—UnitedStates—History. I. Roundtree, Dovey Johnson, 1914–II.Title.
kf373.r686m34 2009
340.092—dc22
[B] 2008045574
BritishLibrary Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
To the memory of my grandmother, Rachel Bryant Graham,
the greatest warrior I ever knew
—D. J. R.
and
To the memory of my parents: John T. Burns, who loved the law,
and Kathleen Hynes Burns, who loved the dawn; and to both of
them, who loved words and taught me to love them too
—K. J. M.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
PREFACE xiii
Chapter 1
WALKING UNAFRAID 3
Chapter 2
MAKING SOMETHIN’ OF YOURSELF 12
Chapter 3
“PASS IT ON”
Spelman and the Legacy of Mae Neptune 21
Chapter 4
MY AMERICA 39
Chapter 5
“EVERYBODY’S WAR” 55
Chapter 6
UNEASY PEACE 73
Chapter 7
MAKING WAR ON A LIE
TheAssault on Plessy v. Ferguson 91
contents
Chapter 8
TAKING ON “THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
CONFEDERACY”
The Case of SarahLouise Keys 118
Chapter 9
AT THE THRESHOLD OF JUSTICE 156
Chapter 10
OUT OF THE DARKNESS 180
Chapter 11
“PEER OF THE MOST POWERFUL” 189
Chapter 12
HEALING THE BROKENNESS 217
BENEDICTION 229
NOTES 233
INDEX 247
viii
Acknowledgments
When two lives intersect as fruitfully as have Dovey Roundtree’s
and mine over the past thirteen years, there is much to be grate-
ful for—more than can be articulated in any conventional reckoning.
For Dovey, Justice Older than the Law is one long, sustained, profound
“thank you” to each of the great figures in her life, from the grand-
mother to whom she has dedicated this book to the staggering proces-
sion of legal, intellectual, and spiritual mentors who shaped her.
“I have found that there is always somebody who would be the mira-
cle maker in your life, if you but believe,” she told the Washington Post
in February 1995, and it was that utterly unlawerly statement, printed
under the photograph that appears on the cover of this book, that com-
pelled me to seek her out and attempt to capture her life in words. In
that journey, I encountered many a miracle maker of my own.
Without my colleague and friend Adina Rishe Gewirtz, this booksim-
ply would not exist. It was her belief in the importance of Dovey’s story
and in my ability to tell it that sustained me in this endeavor, beginning
with my first foray into writing about Dovey’s career in a 2002 Wash-
ingtonian magazine article and continuing through every stage of the
book’s preparation. To capture the voice of a human being as compli-
cated and multifaceted as DoveyRoundtreeand discern the narrative
shape of her life proved so difficult that had it not been for Adina’s
story genius and unwavering faith, I do not believe that I could have
completed the task. To her and her husband, Danny, who patiently tol-
erated our endless consultations and made deeply insightful contribu-
tions of his own as the manuscript took shape, I say, inadequately but
sincerely, “Thank you.”
I thank, too, writing colleagues Judith Hillman Paterson and Nancy
Ruth Patterson, whose unflagging enthusiasm kept me going. Judith’s un-
erring sense of voice, pacing, and style were critical in the early chapters
ix