Posted on Wed, Sep. 05, 2007
50 years later, lamenting state of Civil Rights Division
Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: September 04, 2007 08:07:42 PM
WASHINGTON — The first flare-ups of civil unrest were spreading across the segregated South in early 1961 as newly appointed Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sat hunched over a map of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Justice Department civil rights chief Burke Marshall and his top deputy, John Doar, told Kennedy that the pins in the map marked counties and parishes where the department had opened investigations or sued to protect blacks' right to vote.
At age 85, Doar vividly recalls Kennedy's reaction: "That's too slow. I want pins all over the map."
So began one of the most remarkable chapters in the Justice Department's history.
In interviews marking the 50th anniversary Friday of the law creating the Civil Rights Division, Doar and others from those days offered a glimpse of how a committed cadre of attorneys helped spur profound social change.
......
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/v-print/story/19438.html