Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J. L. Chestnut, Jr - Book Reveiw

Black In Selma: The Uncommon Life of J. L. Chestnut, Jr. by J. L. Chestnut and Julia Cass, is further subtitled: "Politics And Power in a Small American Town". Who is J. L. Chestnut? His grandmother named her son, J. L.'s father, after a banker she admired, not realizing the initials probably stood for a name. Chestnut likens it to people speaking of J. P. Morgan as simply J.P. and that is how "junior", born on December 16, 1970 was named. When Julia Cass, a white author approached Chestnut, Junior about a book, he said he did not "see his life as a book." Becoming the first African/American lawyer in Selma, having grown up under Jim Crow segregation law, was quite a feat; a book worthy biography.

There were five black lawyers in the entire state of Alabama in June 1958 when Chestnut and three of his classmates from Howard University started practicing law. Judges called lawyers Mr. So & So, but J. L. was J. L. in Selma and Dallas County. White people in the Selma did not use titles of respect, such as Mr., Mrs. or Miss when speaking to blacks, but blacks had to use those titles when speaking to whites. Ironically the first judge that called J. L. "Mister" was George Wallace.

Chestnut said a Birmingham attorney called his black clients "these people" and Wallace would "get red in the face" every time he said it. He told the lawyer, "Please refer to Mr. Hall's and Mr. Chestnut's clients as the plaintiffs or don't refer to them at all." Chestnut says Wallace "awarded our clients more money than we asked for" and that he was "for the little man." Ha! That was unless the little man was black and wanted to attend the same college with white students!

At this time in U.S. history in Selma as in other southern states, Negroes were not allowed to share space with whites and when Chestnut began his law practice, he stayed behind the courtroom rail on the black side of the room. He would wait upon the judge to call his case before entering the court area. When he saw black Attorney Peter Hall join the white lawyers in front of the railing and Hall was not berated for violating segregation rules, he decided to do likewise. He said:

"And nothing happened the day I did it, which reinforced Peter's lesson that aggressive acts almost always leave the opposition trying to figure out what to do."

Black in Selma takes readers on a journey through Chestnut's life as a child, to his teen years when his main aspirations were to become a jazz musician and get out of Selma, moving to Harlem, then reluctantly becoming an attorney and returning to Selma to practice law. The journey continues through the turbulent '60s, desegregation of schools and public areas, participation in voter registration drives, working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and entering the political arena.

It is hard for me to imagine living in Selma, because at the same time Chestnut thought the possibility of there ever being a black deputy or elected official in his town was "fantasyland", the man living around the corner from where I grew up was "Mr. Carmen", not a "black policeman" and his son was likewise, Mr. Carmen, a high school teacher, not a black teacher. In Selma, blacks were not allowed to enter the library, whereas in my hometown, that would have been considered an absurd rule.

Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J. L. Chestnut, Jr. was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux of New York and Harper Collins in Toronto, Canada in 1990. The 419 page story is divided into five parts covering time periods from 1930 until 1990. Each part starts with an Introduction by Julia Cass who gives an historic view of Selma and U.S. politics during those time periods. The chapters following her introductions are Chestnut's words, culled from over a year of taped interviews.

There are a lot of black and white photographs sprinkled throughout the chapters of "Black in Selma". I like this format better than special glossy sections inserted somewhere within the story. There is a printing or editing error on page 361 of the copy of the book I checked out of the library. A paragraph ends with "...that folk would leave divided." There is white space indicating a new paragraph and the next sentence begins with a lower case T, "told him frankly...".

Would I recommend this book? Sure, to anyone who wants to know exactly what it took to make the election of Barack Obama possible. J. L. Chestnut ends his narrative speaking about "The Possibility of Miracles" and it being common in America to "hear what can't be done". He is but one of the many who lived a life of service for a cause larger than themselves and made this historic 2009 inauguration a future Chestnut never could have imagined growing up black in Selma, Alabama.