American democracy might currently be in perilous waters, but the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of full equality under the law for Black Americans remains achievable, U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves told a Minnesota Law audience on February 9.
Reeves, who serves in the Southern District of Mississippi and chairs the U.S. Sentencing Commission, was the keynote speaker at the 11th annual MLK Convocation. His address, “Reconstructing Justice: Honoring Dr. King’s Vision in Our Federal Justice System”, outlined King’s positions on the need for a strong federal justice system to safeguard civil rights and why it is needed today.
“Our democracy and this nation that we love, despite our suffering, has unlimited potential to be rebuilt, to be restored, to be renewed, and yes, ladies and gentlemen, to be reconstructed,” Reeves said.
In history books, the Reconstruction Era refers to the years following the Civil War, as the nation dealt with the challenges stemming from the abolition of slavery. But Reeves pointed out that, to King, this was only the “first” reconstruction era. The former Confederate states had responded to it by enacting myriad restrictions to keep African Americans from voting and shut off avenues for advancement.
It took nearly a century, but the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, were what King called the “Second Reconstruction.” Despite its success in achieving the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, King subsequently had “what he called in his words, ‘great disappointment with the federal government and its timidity,’” Reeves said. “He said its timidity had allowed ‘economic coercion, terrorism, murder, and inhuman contempt to continue unabated.’”
Thus, said Reeves, King envisioned a “third reconstruction” built around the idea of “democratized federal justice” where citizens would have “maximum feasible participation in decisions affecting their lives.” King was campaigning on this idea when he was assassinated in 1968, and Reeves contends that its promise is as relevant today as it was then.
One problem in comparing then to now, however, is that the political landscape has changed radically. “King’s call for federal justice in Montgomery in 1960 came in the face of acts by state and local officials,” Reeves said. “What would he say if it was the federal government he was facing down? What would he do if he believed federal law and order had been perverted into an instrument of injustice?”
Reeves didn’t supply a specific answer. But he expressed confidence that King’s message would remain intact.
“For people who think federal courts are places that cannot serve democracy, that cannot hold the powerful accountable, remember that justice can always be reconstructed,” Reeves said. “Remember Dr. King’s defiant hope in the federal justice system. The forces of intolerance and hatred and oppression may defame the amendments of the first reconstruction only temporarily. They may neuter the Civil Rights Act of the second reconstruction only temporarily. But they cannot, they will not, suffocate the promise of a third reconstruction.”
Illustrating the need for patience, Reeves pointed to his own personal experience. A native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, Reeves was about to turn four years old when King was assassinated. At the time, Yazoo City’s public schools were still segregated despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling 14 years earlier in Brown v. Board of Education that state-mandated school segregation violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
They had remained segregated despite concerted efforts by residents, including a petition signed by 50 of them, to integrate the schools. “These were not famous politicians or even fancy lawyers,” Reeves said. “These were local people who loved their children, folks like we see today out in the streets of Minneapolis.”
Supporters of segregation responded punitively. Petitioners’ names were printed in the newspaper and on signs throughout the city. Signers were denied service; business owners lost their suppliers and bank accounts; tradespeople lost their customers.
Fifteen years later, however, the U.S. Supreme Court furthered the promise of Brown by ruling in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education that schools in the South must immediately desegregate. As a first grader in 1970, Reeves was a member of the first full class to enter an integrated public-school classroom in Yazoo City.
“Integration opened wonderful doors for us,” he said. “My education proved to me that federal justice is indispensable. It proved that federal justice’s tardiness, incompleteness, and failures need to be remedied and can be remedied. And it proved that reconstructing justice was a project worth committing a life to.”
Reeves became the first person in his family to go to a four-year college, graduating from Jackson State University and then earning a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. He practiced in a regional law firm for four years before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi, serving as chief of its Civil Division for six years. He then left to form his own firm, and in 2010, President Obama nominated him to fill a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. After the U.S. Senate confirmed him, Reeves became the second African American to serve on the federal judiciary in Mississippi.
Reeves concluded his speech with a stirring callout to Minnesotans for their ongoing vigilant opposition to the presence of unwanted occupiers in the finest tradition of Dr. King.
“You have shown that this nation still contains the courage to defend democracy. Like in Yazoo City, you paid the price for your protests. Like the activists in Mississippi, you’ve seen some of your heroes lose their lives. You have been given every reason to doubt and to deny this country’s aspirations. And yet, none of you have given up hope. For that alone, ladies and gentlemen, you have done more to honor Dr. King than any words I would ever speak. All I ask is that you continue to honor Dr. King by retaining his faith in the project of reconstructing justice.”