Burke Marshall's memorial.

• Author: Doar, John
• Position: Yale Law School professor - Testimonial

This Tribute remembers and reflects upon the life of Burke Marshall, who began his public career in February 1961 as Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice.

Burke led the Division until January 1965. During that time, he guided the country from a segregated, second-class system for black citizens throughout the Solid South to the events at Selma in early 1965 that brought the country the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In May 1961, Burke advised Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President John Kennedy during the constitutional crisis of the Freedom Rides in Montgomery, Alabama. Experience gained during that crisis led to the desegregation of interstate bus travel. Burke quickly came to understand better than anyone the complex legal and procedural problems caused when a state threatens to abandon its public safety responsibilities whenever black citizens attempt to exercise their constitutional rights.

During May, Burke recommended to the Attorney General that the Department file four voter discrimination suits in Mississippi. One of them was against Walthall County, a back-country county lying along the Mississippi-Louisiana border where there were no black citizens registered to vote.

In early July 1961, Bob Moses, a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), wrote a letter to Burke Marshall saying that his organization intended to operate in Mississippi, encouraging black citizens to register to vote. On July 13, the Attorney General sent Burke a handwritten note, which read: "What do you intend to do about Mississippi?" (1)

On August 3, 1961, the Walthall voter discrimination suit was filed in the federal district court for the Southern District of Mississippi. On August 18, John Hardy, a black college student, opened a voter education school in Walthall County. Between August 30 and September 7, he brought eight black residents to the courthouse, but the Registrar of Voters refused to register any of them.

On Thursday, September 7, Hardy brought two elderly black residents to the courthouse. One of them told John Wood, the Registrar, that she had come to register to vote. Wood told her, "I am not registering anyone now. You all have got me in court and I refuse to register anyone else until this court [case] is cleared up." (2) Hardy stepped forward and told Wood his name. Wood told Hardy he wanted to see him. Wood went to a desk and pulled out a gun, pointed it at Hardy, and told him to get out. As Hardy was leaving, Wood hit him on the head with the gun. Hardy, bleeding, stumbled outside and tried to find a law enforcement officer. Hardy met the...