Research Catalog

Title

A bridge to justice : the life of Franklin H. Williams / Enid Gort and John M. Caher.

Author

Gort, Enid

Publication

• New York : Fordham University Press, 2022.
• ©2022

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Caher, John M.

Description

xiii, 231 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Documents the life of a gifted African-American leader whose contributions were pivotal to the movement for social justice and racial equality Franklin Hall Williams was a visionary and trailblazer who devoted his life to the pursuit of civil rights-not through acrimony and violence and hatred, but through reason and example. A Bridge to Justice sheds new light on this practical, pragmatic bridge-builder and brilliant yet complex individual whose life reflected the opportunities and constraints of an intellectually elite Black man in the 20th century. Franklin H. Williams was considered a "bridge" figure, someone whose position outside the limelight allowed him to navigate both Black and white circles, span the more turbulent racial waters below, and persuade people to see the world in a new way. During his prolific lifetime, he was a civil rights leader, lawyer, diplomat, organizer of the Peace Corps, United Nations representative, foundation president, and associate of Thurgood Marshall on some of the seminal civil liberty cases of the past hundred years, though their relationship was so fraught with tension that Marshall had Williams sent to California. He worked in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, served as a diplomat, and became an exceptionally persuasive advocate for civil rights. Even after enduring the segregated Army, suffering cruel discrimination, and barely escaping a murderous lynch mob eager to make him pay for zealously representing three innocent Black men falsely accused of rape, Franklin was not a hater. He believed that Americans, in general, were good people who were open to reason and, in their hearts, sympathetic to fairness and justice. Dr. Enid Gort, an anthropologist and Africanist who conducted hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with Williams, his family, friends, colleagues and compatriots, and John M. Caher, a professional writer and legal journalist, have co-authored an exhaustively researched and scrupulously documented account of this civil rights champion's life and impact. His story is an object lesson to help this nation heal and advance through unity rather than tribalism"--

Subject

• Williams, Franklin, 1917-1990
• 1900-1999
• Lawyers > United States > Biography
• African American lawyers > Biography
• Civil rights lawyers > United States > Biography
• Civil rights movements > United States > History > 20th century
• African American lawyers
• Civil rights lawyers
• Civil rights movements
• Lawyers
• United States

Genre/Form

• Biographies.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-218) and index.

Contents

Roots -- Coming of age -- An "ole lady" at Lincoln -- The real world -- The American Veterans Committee -- Civil rights lawyer -- In the courts -- Legal lynching -- Passion and power plays -- California deliverance -- The Washington years -- After Washington.

Call Number

Sc E 23-669

ISBN

• 9781531500863
• 1531500862
• 9781531500870 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2022029070

OCLC

1293059418

Author

Gort, Enid, author.

Title

A bridge to justice : the life of Franklin H. Williams / Enid Gort and John M. Caher.

Publisher

New York : Fordham University Press, 2022.

Copyright Date

©2022

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-218) and index.

Local Note

Schomburg copy with dust jacket.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Added Author

Caher, John M., author.

Research Call Number

Sc E 23-669