Matthew Perry - Moments of the Movement

The courtroom was the ultimate battleground in the war for equal rights for all of America’s citizens, and among the names of African-American lawyers who fought on this stage is that of Matthew J. Perry Jr. Perry was the first African-American lawyer from South Carolina to ascend to the federal bench, and the federal courthouse in Columbia now bears his name. But before all that, Perry was a young lawyer attempting to try cases in the deep South, often before biased and racist judges. Perry explains how he got around the judge who routinely found his clients guilty—before he even heard the evidence.

America's Problem with Children - Focus Point

America talks a good game about loving and valuing its children, but do we walk the walk? Do we offer those tools and implement the practices for every girl and boy to live healthy lives abundant with opportunity and overflowing with promise? Jones-DeWeever says that after a harsh look at our practices and an honest assessment of our outcomes, the answer, sadly, is no.

Junius Williams - Moments of the Movement

Junius Williams is heralded today as noted attorney, musician, and educator who has advocated for poor and working class African Americans in Newark, N.J., for more than 40 years. Williams earned his reputation as a tireless organizer and activist after decades on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. He worked with and raised money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was jailed in Montgomery, Ala., after participating in the historic march from Selma, and helped publicize the incidents of police brutality that gripped Newark during the 1967 rebellion. But before all that, Williams was a young boy growing up in a middle-class family in Richmond, Va. And it was then—despite his parents’ fears—that he took his first steps toward becoming a full participant in the Freedom Movement. Here, Williams describes what happened when he and his brother sat in the front of the bus for the first time, and the pride that the community’s elders felt as the youth took steps that they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, take.