Simple Justice
Simple Justice(1993) This superb American Experience docudrama, with Richard Kluger, author of the seminal Simple Justice (1976) as the principal writer, is a classic both in the civil rights study and in the curious pace of the constitutional process.
Frequently history books jump from the ‘separate but equal’ of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) to the unanimous 1954 overturn of Plessy in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka without discussing the tortuous legal and political path that resulted in eventual public school desegregation.
The first hero in this story was Charles Houston, the single-minded dean of Howard University's fledging law school. Houston assembled a handful of bright students, including Thurgood Marshall, to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. Marshall is portrayed as a smart ass who swiftly came under Dean Howard’s tutelage. Howard wrote Plessy in bold letters on the blackboard. Overturning Plessy was the crusade for which he was assembling a legal SWAT team. Marshall was on the front line, with an increasingly ill Houston as his strategist. The NAACP provided a base from which to launch a slow-developing flanking attack against Plessy.
This docudrama, adhering to the historical account in Kluger’s book, is a handbook on how one must approach the overturning of a major Supreme Court precedent. This occurred with 17 carefully chosen court victories, culminating in a hearing, then rehearing, before the Supreme Court.
Even then it was far from a slam dunk. Only with the death of one chief justice and the naming of Governor Warren as his successor, did a breakthrough seem in the offing. Marshall, while struggling to present the most persuasive legal case, seemed unaware of the internal controversy within the Supreme Court. Justice Frankfurter, as a Jew, did not wish to be the point man on such a controversial race-related decision. Governor Warren, assessing the political situation, felt it necessary to obtain a unanimous decision to overturn Plessy. Social scientist Dr. Kenneth Clark’s use of dolls to demonstrate the affects of school segregation on African-American students was yet another complicating factor.
As evidenced by the sharp questioning during the oral arguments, justices were greatly concerned with what would occur if they overturned Plessy. Thurmond had no persuasive answer. A viewer can appreciate why there was a subsequent “Brown II” decision and the implementation of “Brown I,” slow off the starting blocks, didn’t result in wide-spread school desegregation for well over a decade.
