Judge Damon Keith, Civil Rights Champion, Dies at 96: NPR

Judge Damon J. Keith passed away today at the age of 96. A native of Detroit, one of the nation's oldest federal judges, he was a tireless defender of human rights and freedoms.

Born in 1922, Keith was the grandson of enslaved people.

He later became the sixth African-American in US history to sit on the Federal Court of Appeal.

During his tenure, he made a series of decisive decisions that changed the social and legal landscape of the country.

His remarkable achievements were all the more remarkable in light of the racial bigotry obstacles he faced on several occasions.

In an interview with Tavis Smiley by PBS in 2015, Keith described the Detroit of his childhood.

"I never had a black teacher, and the Fisher Y[MCA] was right in front of Northwestern High School. Black people could not go to that fisherman, "Keith said. There was no black police officer above the rank of sergeant. There were no black judges. There were no black elites. "

Going to college, Keith was forced to sit at the back of the train because of his race.

He served in a separate army during the Second World War.

Even his professional success as a lawyer and then as a judge did not protect him from racism.

"There is not a day in my life, be it big or small, I do not remember the fact that I'm black," said Keith at the age of 92 in the same interview with PBS.

Federal Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright, one of Keith's former legal assistants, said that Keith's experience with racial discrimination had reinforced his unwavering commitment to fairness.

"The legacy of Justice Keith is one of courage, justice and willingness to tell the truth to power," Wright said.

Keith was appointed to a Michigan federal court in 1967. It was only three years after the signing of the Federal Civil Rights Act.

In a short time, litigious cases have resulted in his hearing room.

Keith found deliberate systemic racial discrimination at work in Pontiac schools, Hamtramck housing, and Detroit Edison recruitment and promotion.

And his findings angered those who viewed the North as free of the kind of intentional racial discrimination associated with the South.

"What he is ready to do is make very, very difficult decisions," said Saul Green, former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. "But also to put in place remedies that are far-reaching and ensure that the results will really be useful to those who have been injured."

Among the remedies that he prescribed in the Pontiac case, there was school transportation. This unleashed the fury of some white residents, including school bus fire.

Sometimes Keith was threatened with death and he and his family were placed under the protection of the US Marshals Service.

"These are not safe decisions," said Peter Hammer, a law professor at Wayne State University and co-author of Keith's biography. "Be politically secure in what will advance your career, either by making you popular or safe by your physical integrity."

About five years after becoming a federal judge, Keith stood up to President Nixon in what was called the Keith case.

The case concerned three leaders of the White Panther party, an anti-war and anti-racism group with far-left ideology. The three men were charged with conspiracy to destroy government property, and one of them was accused of bombing the CIA office in Ann Arbor, Michigan. .

Keith rejected the government's claim that he had the authority to conduct wiretap-free electronic surveillance of anyone who poses a threat to national security.

Hammer emphasized the courage needed to make this decision at the height of Nixon's popularity and the social turmoil caused by the Vietnam War.

"A young African-American judge, against all the best lawyers, told the president:" No, "even a president can not be above the investigations and the wiretapping of law and order without a court order, "said Hammer.

One year after the Sept. 11 attacks, Keith – who was then a member of the Federal Court of Appeal – said no to another US president.

This time, Keith said that the Bush administration could not secretly conduct eviction hearings on the grounds of a general justification for national security.

Written for a panel of unanimous judges, he coined the memorable phrase "Democracies die in camera".

Hammer said that Keith remained active and went to his apartments every day until he was 90 years old.

At the age of 94, he published a burning dissent in a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals court case of 2016, in which the majority had maintained the new voting requirements. in Ohio.

In his dissenting opinion, Keith included photographs of 36 human rights martyrs and he wrote:

"The total brutality of white supremacy in its efforts to deprive people of color of their rights is the foundation of the tragedy that is the effort of the majority to roll back the progress of history I will not forget it – I can not forget – the pain, suffering and sorrow of those who died for equal protection and for this precious right to vote ".

Keith's life has been devoted to using the law to correct injustices, according to Hammer.

"Decade after decade in various areas of law, it truly was the conscience of the country and made the Constitution a living document guaranteeing the protection of people's rights," Hammer said.

At Howard University Law School, Keith studied with Thurgood Marshall, who will later become a US Supreme Court Justice and will remain Keith's mentor for the rest of his life.

Keith said that Marshall had explained to his students that it was up to them to concretize the phrase that white men had inscribed on the front of the building of the US Supreme Court: "Equal justice before the law" .

"Equality of Justice before the Law: That's what I tried to be as a lawyer and as a judge: make sense of it," said Keith at the 2015 interview with PBS.

That's what Justice Keith did and so has imposed himself as an icon of civil rights and one of the giants of US law.