Answering the Call: From a Child of the NAACP to the Federal Bench and Beyond

This special excerpted edition of Answering the Call, the forthcoming memoirs of Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, was created to honor the 100th Anniversary of the NAACP. Judge Jones, former General Counsel of NAACP, provides context and analysis of major events in the civil rights movement. These accounts from the front lines of the judicial battlefront include a behind-the-scenes look at the Kerner Commission, President Johnson’s famous “Riot Commission;” an extensive section on the historic fight for justice in the military; and little-known facts about the pardon of the last of the “Scottsboro boys.” From Jones’s experience as deputy counsel for landmark school desegregation cases in the north to his reflections on the election of President Obama, the retired U.S. Court of Appeals judge sheds new light on the chain of events that brought the country to the moment of electing its first African American president.