A veteran civil rights attorney applied Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to 21st-century issues Thursday during Mississippi Valley State University’s annual MLK convocation.
John Brittain said if King were alive today he would be pleased with progress that has resulted in the election of the first black president and appointment of the first black attorney general and first Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court justice.
But the University of the District of Columbia law professor said King would be disappointed in a moral deficit that has created segregated “dropout factories,” a high rate of youth imprisonment and the unsuccessful war on drugs, which Brittain said is a new form of slavery in low-income communities.
Brittain said the U.S. education system was not designed for black children and that IQ tests are the linchpin used to maintain racial stratification. He called for an Afrocentric teaching of art, language, math, social studies and music and challenged Valley students and faculty to lead the way.
“Will you be a drum major for character and education in the future?” he said.
The attorney said King would enlarge his dream today to include gays, Muslims and emerging immigrant groups from Latin America and Asia. He said King would oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as he opposed the Vietnam War.
In addition to teaching law, Brittain serves as chief counsel and senior deputy director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, which enlists private lawyers to take civil rights cases without pay. He’s the former dean of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University.
He also has Mississippi ties, having practiced law here from 1969 to 1973.
Brittain said he was glad to be back at Valley for the first time in nearly 40 years and recognized a longtime friend and colleague, attorney and former Leflore County Supervisor Alix Sanders.
Brittain said he represented Mississippi civil rights icons Fannie Lou Hamer and June Johnson, a Greenwood teenager who was arrested and beaten in Winona in 1963 for her participation in the movement. A strong black community helped support such leaders, Brittain said, carrying a motto that “the hands that once picked cotton now pick presidents.”
• Contact Charlie Smith at csmith@gwcommonwealth.com.
