Continuing Battle
Rosen, Sol
Continuing Battle The Petitioners, the story of the supreme court and the negro, by Loren Miller. Pantheon. 461 pp. $8.95. Legal Restraints on Racial Discrimination in employment, by Michael...
...Legal Restraints on Racial Discrimination in employment, by Michael I. Sovern...
...The author's survey of the scope and operations of state and Federal fair employment laws and commissions is timely and useful in emphasizing how the problem of economic discrimination contributes so greatly to denying Negroes the opportunity to move into the middle class...
...As the age of automation becomes a reality and as thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled jobs are "lost" by our economy each year, the Negro worker suddenly finds himself to be unemployable in an era of prosperity...
...During his twenty-five years as a practicing attorney, Miller appeared before the Supreme Court on numerous occasions, particularly in cases involving claims of discrimination in housing...
...If we add to that problem the many barriers imposed by employers and labor unions against the entry of qualified non-white workers, it is easy to understand why the Negro has been relegated to a ghettoized existence...
...During the past several years Congress and the chief executive have joined in the war against racial injustice so that all Americans can look upon the Constitution as a meaningful document...
...Supreme Court...
...His grand-uncle, a former slave who sought service in a public restaurant, pursuant to the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, was one of the litigants in the infamous Civil Rights Cases decided by the Supreme Court in 1883...
...Twentieth Century Fund...
...Michael I. Sovern's penetrating study of the many barriers that faced the Negro breadwinner as he sought to acquire the basic necessities of life and some of the fruits of our technological society is a timely analysis of the crux of the civil rights problem...
...It is also a study of how the Federal judiciary strove to provide to all citizens the many constitutional rights which had hitherto been denied to them solely because of the color of their skin...
...It is, in addition, a declaration of human rights enunciated by the highest court in the land, which was forced to exercise the requisite leadership in the area of human relations because of the inertia of the national executive and the outright opposition of the national legislature...
...The author, Judge Loren Miller of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, has outstanding credentials to review the 177-year history of the Negro American's struggle to secure his place in the American society...
...The Petitioners is an excellent narration of the long and arduous civil rights battle waged by a small group of dedicated individuals in the form of the many lawsuits and extensive legal battles that were adjudicated by the U.S...
...Commencing with the Brown case, the Warren Court has made every effort to eliminate the last vestiges of racial discrimination in American life...
...The Supreme Court is no longer looked upon as the citadel for the protection of vested property rights which it was once thought to be...
...Miller's approach is to show the complete revolution in judicial thinking during the past four decades regarding the application of the Constitution to the rights of minority groups...
...On the contrary, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction...
...Reviewed by Sol Rosen T egal Restraints on Racial Discrim-¦"-^ ination in Employment, by Michael I. Sovern and The Petitioners, by Loren Miller, are two of the more solid books that discuss, analyze, and comment upon certain aspects of the current civil rights revolution...
...Professor Sovern, who teaches labor law at Columbia, aptly examines the problems that have arisen from these circumstances and reviews the many ways the government has sought to provide a solution...
...270 pp...
Vol. 31 • January 1967 • No. 1
