When Justice Wasn't Simple. Review on Simple Justice - Richard Kluger

For a long, thorough, painful yet uplifting look at the legal issues surrounding the treatment of black people in the United States, I urge you to read Simple Justice : The History of Brown V. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality. Anyone who thought the civil rights struggle began in the 1950s and 1960s will be surprised to find the long threads that date back to court cases in the 19th Century, and the legal strategy, the careful assessment of judges, courts, regions and cases that would advance the cause of black people struggling to get free of the legal and social impediments that kept them from getting a decent education.

Author Richard Kluger has done his usual outstanding work searching through documents, interviewing witnesses, comparing history to tell us the very personal effects and reasons behind much of what was public policy in the United States. Readers will find many heroes on these pages, most of whom have gone unacknowledged in standard history accounts. They were, in many cases, very ordinary people who couldn’t stand what was inflicted on them, or, in some cases, what was inflicted on others, because of the color of their skin. It’s also a story of redemption, with accounts of a few white southerners who had grown up believing deeply in segregation who, for a variety of reasons, came to see its evil nature and did something about it. Above all, it’s a great story about the legal strategy and fear that surrounded the lawyers and judges who were pushing cases carefully through the court system, looking for exactly the right case to bring to exactly the right forum to strike a death blow to legal segregation. Certain judges are goats, while others are heroes, none more than the members of the Supreme Court who knew that the Brown case was groundbreaking, and knew that they had to reach a unanimous decision for the ruling to have its maximum effect on Americans and policy. This is, without a doubt, the best history book I've ever read. I recommend it to all who want to understand American history.