Z 238 Z nOTes abbreviations used in source notes John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, Mass.: JFK. Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Tex.: LBJ. McCain Library, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Miss.: USM. Preface 1. See Adam Cohen, Editorial Observer, “The Supreme Court’s Hostility to the Voting Rights Act: A peculiar assault on the power of Congress to protect basic rights,” New York Times, May 13, 2009, A26. 2. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370 (1886). 3. 42 U.S.C. 1971. See Robert Mann, “In praise of mild reforms: The Civil Rights Act of 1957 paved the way for much more,” Boston Globe, August 21, 2007, A11. 4. 42 U.S.C. 1973. Writing for the Supreme Court, June 22, 2009, Chief Justice Roberts stated: “The historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable. When it was first passed, unconstitutional discrimination was rampant and the ‘regisZ tration of votingZage whites ran roughly 50 percentage points or more ahead’ of black registration in many covered States. [citations omitted] Today, the registration gap beZ tween white and black voters is in single digits in the covered States.” Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder, 129 S. Ct. 2504, 2511. 5. Poverty and Social Justice Challenges Facing the Nation, John F. Kennedy Library Forum, February 8, 2009. 6. In a major magazine article, “The Kennedys Move In On Dixie: How the two brothers are planning to change the whole political climate of the South, by opening the ballot boxes to hundreds of thousand of Negroes,” Harper’s, May 1962, Louis E. Lomax chronicled the “unprecedented campaign.” 7. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 312 n. 13 (1966). 8. Id. at 308. Prologue 1. Interview with Vernon Dahmer, Jr., at the family home in Kelly Settlement, Forrest County, July 4, 1989. notes Z 239 Z 2. United States v. Theron Lynd (S.D. Miss., January 20, 1965) reversed because of the District Court’s failure to find a pattern and practice of discrimination, 349 F. 2d 785 (5th cir., June 16, 1965). 3. McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 339 U.S. 637 (1950); Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950). 4. 347 U.S. 483 (1954) Richard Kluger’s thorough account of all aspects of the case is Simple Justice (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975). 5. Letter dated April 30, 1952, from Marshall to Assistant Attorney General James M. McInerney contained, along with two of the affidavits, in a notebook maintained by David Norman, when a young attorney in the Civil Rights Division, and provided to the author by Professor Brian Landsberg, McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, also a longtime division lawyer. Chapter 1 1. Strongly supported by Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, Eastland became chairZ man of Judiciary in 1956 despite an effort to override his seniority by Senators Herbert Lehman of New York and Wayne Morse of Oregon. Transcript, James O. Eastland Oral History I, 2/19/71, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet Copy, LBJ, 3–4. 2. Neil R. McMillen, Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), xiii. 3. James Franklin Barnes, “Negro Voting in Mississippi” (Master’s thesis, University of Mississippi, 1955), 1, citing Jesse Thomas Wallace, A History of the Negroes of Mississippi (Clinton, MS, 1927), 8. 4. Id., 4. 5. Hiram Revels (1870–1871) and Blanche K. Bruce (1875–1880). 6. McMillen, Dark Journey, supra n. 2 at 334 n. 45. 7. Id., 41. 8. Id. 9. Id., 42. 10. Id., 46, quoting Laurel Leader, May 2, 1903. 11. McMillen, Dark Journey, supra n. 2 at 229. 12. Id., 230. 13. Kathleen Woodruff Wickham, The Role of the Clarion-Ledger in the Adoption of the 1982 Education Reform Act: Winning the Pulitzer Prize (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007), 9. 14. Voting: 1961 United States Commission on Civil Rights Report 1, 108. The commisZ sion had data for only sixtyZnine of the state’s eightyZtwo counties. 15. Id. at table 8, 272. 16. 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 17. See Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958). 18. Education: 1961 United States Commission on Civil Rights Report 2, 58. 19. Barnes, master’s thesis, supra n. 3 at 38–42. After World War I, the number of blacks registered in Forrest County was reportedly four. McMillen, Dark Journey, supra n. 2 at 46. 20. Peay v. Cox, 5th cir. no...