What does Brown versus Board of Education mean?

That's the question that I want readers to really sit with.

Segregation is part of this system of creating an us and them and creating a caste system and maintaining white supremacy.

What we want to do is get rid of a caste system because what we want to move towards is one nation.

Joining us now in opening arguments is my former constitutional law professor Michelle Adams.

Michelle Adams. It's been 22 years. How you doing? I'm doing great. It's great to see you.

Last time I saw you, I think I was 22 or 23, just about to take a final exam.

Well, you know, the time does go by. It does. I would like to say I got anminus in your class. I'm just going to say I would like to say that.

I'm not really sure, actually.

I did not go back and check my record, so there you go. Constitutional law, of course, one of the foundational parts of law school, one of the most important things that you're going to learn while you're in law school, a very different game in 2003, I think that it is in 2025. We'll probably talk about that later. I'm just going to say up front that you were one of my favorite professors and I really got a lot out of that class and things I still use on this show today all the time. I appreciate that very much. It means a lot to me. I really mean, I was reminded why reading the containment, the book we're going to talk about today, because this is an exceptional book. I mean, this is really, it's a great read. And I really appreciate it from what I can tell.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you've been writing this for everybody.

This is not just for lawyers.

This is not a law treatise. That is correct. I can talk more about that. But that was one of the things that I was deeply interested in doing and spent a lot of time trying to make sure that it was completely accessible and yet not dumbed down, right?

I wanted to hold my pros, which is people like you.

Sure. trying to make sure that it was completely accessible and yet not dumbed down. I wanted to hold

my pros, which is people like you, law professors, lawyers, law students, etc. But I also wanted to

invite everyone into my law school classroom. Yeah, absolutely. And also your own life. I mean,

this is such a personal story. As someone from Detroit who grew up in this era, I was just as a kind of a starting point, I guess I'd love to hear and talk more about your family history because not only your father's amazing story as one of the, I mean, can I say one of the first black law graduates or among the first sort of crop of black law graduates of Michigan? Is that right? Yeah, I think one of the early part of the crop. I mean, there were certainly black lawyers before my father, but you start to see decent numbers during his generation.

1957, he graduated, I think. That's right. It's amazing. And we actually, when I was doing the research for the Brown episode, which of course I don't know anywhere near as much about Brown as you do, but that was the thing that really I took away from immediately was the way that the early fight was for graduate schools, medical schools, lawyers. Yeah. And it just makes so much sense to start there. Is it fair to say he was sort of a product of that? I think that's right. I mean, I, you know, obviously there's a whole sweep and scope to what they were trying to do in terms of, you know, first start with the graduate schools and sort of break down Jim Crow there and then go ahead and go to K through 12. But he was certainly a beneficiary from that, that whole process. And he was one of just a couple of black law students in his class. And, you know, it was something that we were tremendously proud of. Is he told you much about that experience going to law school in 1957?

He didn't say that much about it before he passed.

I think it was more the product of what it was more than sort of talking about exactly what his law school experience was like, which was that he had an incredibly rich life

and he was really just part of the fabric of the Detroit legal system.

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