Happy Birthday #CivilRightsVeteran #SNCC Dennis Roberts! He shared a little on crmvet.org, I spent the summer of 63 as a law student, then 1964-1966 as a young attorney working with C. B. King in All Benny, Georgia. I married Wendy Mann who was there in the summer of 1963. We returned after I graduated law school at U. C. Berkeley where she started the Albany Georgia Nursery School with C. B.s wife, Carol King. It was enormously successful as it provided Head Start with living proof that you could run an interracial school in the deep South. We then moved to NY where I was the first staff employee of the Center for Constitutional Rights (Arthur Kinoy, Bill Kunstler, Morty Stavis) I was there for three years and we returned to Berkeley where I did all the pre-trial work with Michael Tigar in the Chicago 8 and Angela Davis cases. I also represented Dennis Banks for 13 years to a very successsful conclusion. Wendy and I had one child, David Chevene (named after C. B.) and later divorced. I have three children, Alessandra (24), Martine (22) and Wills (15). I think what most makes me want to help others learn our history is the experience I had with David Chevene when he was in college at San Diego State. On a visit I asked him what courses he was studying (a silly question when I had just missed getting killed by several pyramids of beer cans outside his room). After some indecision he finally mentioned a course entitled Afro-American History or something similar. Fine, I said, and what have you learned there. Oh sez he we are learaning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and ...uh, uh, hey, you and mom were in the civil war, werent you. Yes son, we met at Appomatox, she with the blue and I with the grey. So, I feel compelled to share these wonderful stories. Finally, for those who knew him: On Nov. 8 in Albany, Ga the new federal courthouse is being dedicated. It is named the C.B. KING COURTHOUSE. Oh if hed only lived to see that. source: crmvet.org
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 05:07:23 +0000