Abraham Lincoln—150 Years Later, 0415 COBJ, 2015, April, Pg. 5
| Author | Charles F. Garcia, J. |
In and Around the Bar
CBA President's Message to Members
Abraham Lincoln—150 Years Later
Charles F. Garcia, J.
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons or property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass, Emancipation Celebration Washington, DC, 1886
April 15, 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's death. Lincoln served as U.S. President for little more than one term, and during that period, he worked to make all people of this country equal. He wrote the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, declaring that "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a state . . . shall be . . forever free." On April 4, 1864, the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery passed the Senate, and on January 31, 1865, it passed the House of Representatives. It was ratified after Lincoln's death on December 6, 1865.
Mindful of this powerful history, I began to reflect on recent events involving racial conflict occurring in the United States, including in Colorado, and to contemplate how far we have come in 150 years. We should not shy away from discussing racial conflict and related social and legal injustices simply because it is a difficult and sensitive subject for which there may be no single or immediate solution. I firmly believe that it is our duty as members of this honorable profession to reflect on the inescapable fact that people of color are over-criminalized, and constructively work toward reform. I hope this Message advances the discussion of the role we must play to ensure equality for all.
Atticus Revisted
On July 11, 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was published. Lee attended law school at the University of Alabama but chose to pursue a career in writing instead of the law. (She did receive an Honorary Special Membership to the Alabama Bar in 2008.1 )
To Kill a Mockingbird was published during a time of much racial tension in the United States. For example, in 1955, the black teenager Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi for allegedly flirting with a white woman, and the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 occurred after Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat on a bus to a white man. The book has been hailed by many in the civil rights movement for moving forward the dialogue on race and justice. For example, former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who was the first African American since Reconstruction to represent Georgia in the U.S. Congress, stated that Lee's book "inspired hope in the midst of chaos and confusion."[2]
Searching for Answers
President Abraham Lincoln sought to bring racial justice to this country, and Harper Lee sought to bring social awareness to the fact that ninety-five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, equality was not a reality. Now, 150 years after Lincoln's death and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, there may be some sense of legal equality on the books, but equality across society is not a reality, and that is evident in the criminal justice system. For example, according to information as recent as November 2014:
Arrest rates are hard to come by, but African Americans are arrested at rates far exceeding their white counterparts. In many cities, the rate is 10 times higher and in some, it is as much a s 26 times higher.3
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, "African American males are incarcerated at a rate 6.7 times higher, and Hispanic males 2.5 times higher, than their white non-Hispanic counterparts."4
On February 22, 2015, when singer-songwriter John Legend accepted the Oscar for co-writing the song "Glory" from the film Selma, he commented, 'There are more black men under correctional control today than there were under slavery in 1850." The events highlighted by the death of a young African American man in Ferguson, Missouri have again focused national attention on the issue of race and justice in America. Similar events in Colorado have spurred protests in recent months. As citizens and as lawyers, we are striving to find answers to the questions raised by these events.
In December 2014, the Sam Cary Bar Association, in conjunction with the CBA and other bar associations, presented a program entitled "Community Forum—Waiting to Exhale: A Conversation About Race and Our Justice System." The Forum was a panel discussion on long-ignored race-related issues brought to light by the events of Ferguson. Questions raised at the Forum focused...
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