Epilogue

Always Looking Forward

Page 237 →My life has been an odyssey with many unscripted twists and turns. In my quest to find purpose and intellectual and spiritual fulfillment, I have encountered many challenges that were uncomfortable, even painful and frightening, and I learned from those experiences. However, I have known far more meaningful, interesting, and enjoyable experiences that have made my life complete.

Notwithstanding, the central theme of my life has remained consistent. I have always sought new challenges and have not been afraid to fail. My loadstar has been the unending pursuit and advancement of educational excellence, which is essential to eliminating the inequities in our society. My grandfather, James A. Brown, bequeathed to me his drive for academic excellence and the accumulation of knowledge, and with the encouragement and help of my parents, teachers, and the community, I developed a strong belief in my ability to break down barriers that have prevented other Black Americans from succeeding.

From an early age, I have been a dreamer. I longed to accomplish something significant in life. While I had the intellectual facility to go in many directions, it took me a while to find the right path. Following in the footsteps of my older brother, Wally, medicine was my preoccupation when I entered college. In preparation for that pursuit, I worked as an orderly at Orangeburg Regional Hospital. That experience exposed me to the joy and pain of being a doctor. Page 238 →Knowing of my interest in medicine, a white doctor took me under his wings and instructed me on how to perform a spinal tap. I also recall the sobering experience of seeing a man bleed to death from an internal injury caused by an automobile accident. Experiencing that person’s death taught me that the science of healing had its limitations and could not cure everyone.

Shortly after I commenced my premedical studies at Fisk University, the civil rights struggle steered my career direction. I felt that the study of law would better equip me to advocate for social change. However, I would learn later that medicine is just as important as law to the plight of Black people. Disparities and inequities in providing health care to Black Americans are as invidious as any other form of discrimination. Indeed, one could argue that it is worse since poor health care dramatically shortens the lives of Black people. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless unless one is assured a healthy life.

Although I chose a different career option, my love for medicine has remained unabated. My interest in medicine led to stewardship at Hartford Hospital, where I became a member of the hospital’s Board of Directors and Board of Governors. As a former law professor, I have always valued research and was appointed to the hospital’s Research Committee, whose primary role is to allocate funds to promising medical research proposals. Over the past twenty-two years on the committee, I have read close to a thousand proposals. I have learned a tremendous amount of medicine through my years of service. Because I believe in the power of research to improve people’s lives, my wife and I have established a philanthropic fund that supports research initiatives at Hartford Hospital.

When I embarked upon the study of law, I had every intention of returning to Orangeburg after graduation to pursue the important work of a civil rights lawyer. That was a noble calling embraced by my parents and the Black community, who felt I could make a difference. I was expected to fall in line behind other skillful civil Page 239 →rights lawyers, who had brought about meaningful change to South Carolina.

Things did not turn out that way. The exposure to new ideas and career choices at Harvard Law School opened a vast world of possibilities beyond Orangeburg that were tempting to explore. I could not have imagined, when I enrolled at Harvard Law School, how that institution would change me. My professors and fellow students introduced me to new ways of thinking about how to use my legal talents for the good of society.

Harvard Law School drilled in me that I was going to accomplish meaningful things in life. How could I not? After all, I was taught by the best professors the legal academy had to offer and had access to the resources of the premier law library in the country. The Harvard Law library even has the original copy of the Magna Carta, the 1215 document establishing the principle that King John of England and his government were not above the law. The Law School embedded in my brain a belief in the inevitability of success. I was one of the chosen few. Most of my classmates bought the storyline of manifest destiny.

In preparation for law practice after graduation, I clerked at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan & Cromwell after my second year of study. That experience introduced me to the concept of the lawyer-statesman—a lawyer whose legal career included facets of both private counseling and public service. I embraced this concept. At S&C, I felt I was a part of the power elite. I shared an office with two high-achieving associates, lived in a brownstone in the gentrified Brooklyn Heights, was given a key to a private bathroom, dined at upscale establishments, including the India Club, and invited to the Greenwich, Connecticut estate of a well-heeled partner, who gave me special attention. All that was expected of me in return was total loyalty to the firm, and doing the work assigned in a skillful manner. At the end of the summer, I received a tempting offer to return as an associate after graduation. After a great deal of soul searching, I Page 240 →turned down the offer. Being a person with small-town roots, I could not envision happiness in the bustling metropolis of New York City.

Joining Hale & Dorr, a white-shoe Boston law firm, after graduation provided a legal experience like the one I got at the New York City firm. As the firm’s first Black associate, the partners went out of their way to give me good assignments and the help necessary to successfully complete them. I recall joining the legal team that represented the powerful Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in a real estate matter. The archdiocese owned large landholdings in the Boston area. I joined the team that challenged the constitutionality of Boston’s first rent control law. Although I philosophically disagreed with the position of the landlord association, I was taught and believed that every person has a right to legal representation and that a just result would be achieved in an impartial tribunal. I was very comfortable mingling with firm members, whether at the weekly firm meetings, playing touch football on weekends, or attending the annual outing at a country club. I loved my office so much that I would often go in on Sundays just to read the Sunday Boston Globe newspaper at my desk.

Amidst the glitz and glamor, I got addicted to a lifestyle of power and comfort and lost sight of the reason I went to law school. I desperately needed to get in touch with myself and find out who I truly was. That was the beginning of a journey to find myself and my place in the law.

Recognizing that I had forgotten the reason I wanted to become a lawyer, my rehabilitation began with a move to Washington, DC, to pursue a public interest job. Eschewing the glamour, power, and money of the law firm world, I signed on to a public interest project that involved researching the child labor laws of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to guide the development of a new education model by the US Department Health, Education, and Welfare. That was a very satisfying experience that led to a larger public interest Page 241 →assignment with the American Bar Association. There I worked with state legislators to remove state laws that prevented ex-offenders from gaining meaningful employment opportunities. Those work assignments grounded me and brought focus back to why I had attended law school—to help members of society who are less fortunate.

Given the path I was on, it was logical that I would pursue law teaching at USC for the next four years. Law teaching was the quintessential job. It gave me the freedom to think about the meaning and purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of shaping young legal minds. I enjoyed teaching students about how law can be used to benefit society. It was the most important and significant work I have undertaken in my legal career. Lawyers rarely get positive feedback on what they are working on, usually managing problems rather than resolving them. With law teaching, I got feedback at the end of each semester through the appreciation I received from students who thanked me for guiding their learning in my course.

Although I left full-time law teaching in 1977 after four years, the same tenure of Professor Greener, the first African American professor at USC during Reconstruction and part-time teacher at the law school, I continued to teach law as an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut and Yale University. I believe that teaching is in my DNA passed down to me by my ancestors. Near the end of my professional life, it was important for me to establish a memorial to honor the contributions of my ancestors to Black education. Equally, I wanted to leave a legacy memorializing the barriers I broke and the important work I accomplished at USC both as a student during the early days of desegregation and later as the first full-time African American professor at the School of Law. To burnish that legacy, I have endowed a law professorship in my name, the first to bear the name of an African American. In addition, I have endowed a lecture series to study and share knowledge on the important topic of Democracy and the Rule of Law.

Page 242 →Without question, the rule of law is the backbone of our democracy. If the rule of law is destroyed, power rather that fairness would become the prevailing arbiter of what rights we hold. And the voice of the people would be silenced.

The people of the United States have grown complaisant over the years by taking for granted that our democracy will preserve itself without attention and work on our part. We have neglected to teach our youth the basic tenets of civic responsibility. Many don’t understand the structure of our government and its constitutional protections of checks and balances among the three coequal branches. Many don’t vote and have forfeited their voice on choosing leaders that represent us. It is my desire that the lecture series will be publicized broadly and opened to all students and leaders of Columbia, South Carolina.

Further, I commissioned a portrait that hangs with other South Carolina legal luminaries in the ceremonial Coleman Karesh Reading Room of the law school library. Current and future generations of students and professors should know that in 1973 there was a voice at the law school for greater inclusiveness. It is my hope that young Black students will look up at my portrait and believe that they too can reach the heights that I have achieved. I am proud of what I accomplished in four years as a law professor at USC. Many students who studied law under my tutelage have become successful legal practitioners, judges, and businesspeople.

Notwithstanding my early success as a law teacher, it was important for me to gain the practice experience that I lacked to become a better teacher. It was my intention to return to teaching later. I received the practice experience that I sought through successful government, corporate, and law firm experiences at the SEC, Aetna Life & Casualty, and Day Pitney LLP. When I retired from Day Pitney, I had come full circle from where I had started law practice. Although I ultimately mastered the practice of corporate law, the question that Page 243 →lingers is whether the path taken was as socially beneficial as my original plan to return home as a civil rights lawyer.

Over the years, I have watched Black lawyers make meaningful contributions in a myriad of career experiences. Since there are so few Black lawyers, indeed only 5 percent of the legal profession, and the legal needs of the Black community are so pressing, any role that a Black lawyer chooses provides a benefit. There is no “one” role that a Black lawyer should aspire to undertake. They should think about multiple roles—the lawyer-statesman paradigm. Black lawyers can make useful contributions in large or small law firms, solo practices, corporate law departments, government service, law teaching, the judiciary, public interest work, and business. A lawyer has not failed because he or she is not suited for a particular type of law practice. It Page 244 →may take time and experimentation to find the right fit. Fortunately, I was not afraid to explore possibilities.

Over my legal career, I have learned that, given the paucity of Black lawyers, it is imperative that we remain open to opportunities for public service. Those opportunities may come serendipitously when we least expect them, but we must be willing to accept those challenges to enhance the image of all Black lawyers and be of service to the Black community. I was presented with such an opportunity when I received a back-channel overture from Connecticut Governor Lowel Weiker’s office to consider becoming an associate justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. At the time, I was successful and comfortable with my role as a law practice group head in the Aetna law department. However, I felt that I owed it to the Black community to take on that new role, if offered. Unfortunately, the expected vacancy on the supreme court never materialized because of circumstances that derailed the departing justice’s plans. However, the important takeaway was my willingness to end a successful career at Aetna to blaze a trail in a new and totally different legal role. All Black lawyers should be prepared to abandon the safety and comfort of the known for the unknown if presented with an opportunity for public service.

I am at peace with myself and contented with my place in the law. As a consummate corporate lawyer and business counselor, I don’t feel that I have betrayed my initial dream of becoming a civil rights lawyer. I have simply evolved from the place I was at when I set that initial goal. Now I am equipped to provide needed legal and business advice to Black entrepreneurs engaged in their own struggles to find success in a white-dominated business world. At Day Pitney, I provided legal advice on many complex legal and business issues to Black and white general counsel and corporate executives and was glad to be equipped to provide service. My work involved providing interdisciplinary compliance solutions to a host of state and federal regulatory issues in the insurance, energy, transportation, Page 245 →investment, and media industries. The indirect benefit of serving in many different environments is that you have an opportunity to change the stereotypical image that white people often have of Black people. Being successful at what you do goes a long way in changing prejudices formed over many years.

With deep reflection, I harken back to my teaching years at USC, where a white student thanked me for teaching him because it was the first time he had been taught by a Black person in his entire educational experience. That unexpected compliment is emblematic of the dual satisfaction I have received over my entire professional life. While holding high the banner of Black excellence, I have promoted positive and inclusive relationships with white people. In a larger sense, I have promoted the essential underpinning of our democratic society—an informed and critical thinking citizenry, and mutual respect, tolerance, and understanding among the groups that make up America.