GMA's Robin Roberts with Judge Gordon A. Martin, Jr.

Jamaica Plain on "Count Them One by One

As seen on recent GMA appearance

Very good write-up from the hometown Jamaica Plain Gazette on "Count Them One by One," available on Amazon.com:


By Rebecca Oliveira


At the age of 27, Gordon Martin helped shape American history. In his recently published book, “Count Them One by One, Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote,” the Jamaica Plain resident and Massachusetts native revisits the small city in Mississippi that was the site of a seminal trial that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Martin was part of the Civil Rights Division of Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department and was one the lawyers prosecuting the case against Theron Lynd in Forrest County, Miss. in 1962, when Martin was a recent graduate of New York University School of Law.
“It’s all got to be chronicled,” Martin told the Gazette in a phone interview of his and others’ roles in that case. “I wanted the witnesses to be remembered by the public…I wanted to recognize these brave people from Forrest County.”

Writing the book, which took years, started innocently enough. Martin was taking a seminar at New York University on race and nationality in the late eighties. He was the only non-academic in the class and needed a “project” to discuss. For his homework, he decided he would interview the witnesses he had worked with and befriended during the US v. Theron Lynd case.

In those days, Martin would work in DC during the week and would go to Mississippi on the weekends, finding, interviewing and preparing 32 people who would comprise the witnesses in US’s voting rights case. Sixteen black and 16 white men and women told their stories—who they were, where they’d studied (or not), what they did, when they tried to register to vote and whether their application had been approved.

Lynd, the Registrar of Voters of Forrest County, Miss., was accused of infringing the civil rights of blacks in Forrest County by denying them the right to vote, in violation of the 14th Amendment. At the time, Forrest County had 12 blacks registered to vote, despite the fact blacks constituted 30 percent of the total population.

Eloise Hopson was one of five teachers who testified to whom Lynd did not grant the right to vote. Hopson was asked to copy and interpret a section of the constitution relating to appropriation of lands for and maintenance of levees on her application. She had a master’s degree from Columbia University when she applied.

“The idea that somebody thought that a certified teacher couldn’t interpret that was ridiculous,” Hopson is quoted as saying in the book.

The trial served as a model for other challenges to voter discrimination in the South and was an important influence in shaping the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which sought to safeguard the voting rights of disenfranchised minorities.

The states controlled voting and registration procedures until that time and “the Lynd case demonstrated to Congress, the people and the United States Supreme Court that a radical measure was necessary,” Martin said. Disenfranchising blacks “was the biggest social wrong in our country and I was privileged that I got to deal with it.”

“When you’re doing a job, you don’t think about historical nuances. I just knew how brave my witnesses were,” Martin said.

One of the witnesses in the case, Vernon Dahmer, was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan four years after the trial.

“I was very upset [by the murder.] I wrote a piece for the Sunday Boston Herald. I loved him,” Martin said.

Back in Massachusetts, Martin was First Assistant United States Attorney, then Special Assistant to Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He also served as a Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and became a partner in a law firm.

“My outlook was the same [as going into Mississippi]—very sensitive to social injustice, wherever it occurs. I think that’s the biggest legacy of the Lynd case for me, sensitivity to injustice,” Martin said.

In 1983, Martin was appointed by Gov. Michael Dukakis to the Roxbury District Court, which, at the time, had the most drug, gun and domestic violence cases of any Massachusetts court. The 1988 murder of 12-year-old Darlene Tiffany Moore particularly stuck with Martin. Moore was caught in gang crossfire while sitting on her front stoop.

“It was very upsetting. It really stays with you. There was a shift from motivated violence to random violence. That was depressing.” As a judge, “You just have to be fair to everyone that comes before you,” he added.

Because of this shift, Martin signed up for that fateful seminar at NYU in 1989. His work on the book was “on and off for a generation. I finished it after I retired,” Martin said.

Not that Martin now sits idle in his Cabot Estate home. He is still teaching a course, titled “Civil Rights and Community Courts: Problem Solving at the First Level of Justice,” at New England Law Boston. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law, teaching Civil Rights and Legal Ethics in 2000.

Martin has spent most of his 75 years in and around Boston. He grew up in West Roxbury and lived in Newton for 40 years, where he and his wife Stephanie raised four children, one of whom is currently a practicing attorney. He is a graduate of Roxbury Latin School and Harvard College, where he was president of the Young Democrats.

After the Lynd trial, he returned to the South to investigate hunger in the Mississippi Delta and discrimination on southern air bases.

Martin said he became a lawyer because he had “a strong interest in politics, government and public service. Being a lawyer would be the best way to achieve that,” Martin said.

“Count Them One by One,” titled after a Civil Rights song, was released by the University Press of Mississippi in November. It is available at local bookstores as well as online retailers.

Gordon Martin on Good Morning America

With some technical issues cleared up from prior post, I am posting the Good Morning America (GMA) appearance by Gordon A. Martin once again.  During the holidays, Judge Martin was interviewed by Robin Roberts and they discussed "Count Them One-by-One," Martin's new book about the legal process taken to give black Mississippians the right to vote.


Enjoy:

Count Them One By One: Quotes and Reviews

Count Them One By One: Quotes and Reviews: "Praise for Count Them One by One: “As a young lawyer Judge Gordon Martin, Jr. was one of many quiet heroes, Black and White, who worked tog..."

Count Them One by One Book Tour

Here is the schedule for the book tour which began in Hattiesburg today:

Inside Photo by T. Peter Lyons

The personal account of a community and a lawyer united to battle one of the most recalcitrant bastions of resistance to civil rights

In 1961, Forrest County, Mississippi, became a focal point of the civil rights movement when the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit against its voting registrar Theron Lynd. While 30 percent of the county's residents were black, only twelve African Americans were on its voting rolls. United States v. Lynd was the first trial that resulted in the conviction of a southern registrar for contempt of court. The case served as a model for other challenges to voter discrimination in the South and was an important influence in shaping the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Count Them One by One is a comprehensive account of the groundbreaking case written by one of the Justice Department's trial attorneys. Gordon A. Martin, Jr., then a newly minted lawyer, traveled to Hattiesburg from Washington to help shape the federal case against Lynd. He met with and prepared the government's sixteen courageous black witnesses who had been refused registration, found white witnesses, and was one of the lawyers during the trial.
Decades later, Martin returned to Mississippi to find these brave men and women he had never forgotten. He interviewed the still-living witnesseses, their children, and friends. Martin intertwines these current reflections with vivid commentary about the case itself. The result is an impassioned, cogent fusion of reportage, oral history, and memoir about a trial that fundamentally reshaped liberty and the South.

To Purchase the book, Click HERE.

Count Them One by One

Count Them One by One, Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote, a book by Gordon A. Martin - who happens to be my father-in-law - is now on sale.  The book is a very interesting, first-hand narrative from the former United States Justice Dept. trial attorney who helped challenge voter discrimination in the '60s. 

Read this review from the Social Law Society online site:


In 1961, Forrest County, Mississippi, became a focal point of the civil rights movement when the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit against voting registrar Theron Lynd. While 30 percent of the county’s residents were black, only twelve African Americans were on its voting rolls. United States v. Lynd was the first trial that resulted in the conviction of a southern registrar for contempt of court. The case served as a model for other challenges to voter discrimination in the South and was an important influence in shaping the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Count Them One By One is a comprehensive account of the groundbreaking case written by one of the Justice Department’s trial attorneys. Gordon A. Martin, Jr., then a newly minted lawyer, traveled to Hattiesburg from Washington to help shape the federal case against Lynd. He met with and prepared the government’s sixteen courageous black witnesses who had been refused registration, found white witnesses, and was one of the lawyers during the trial.

Decades later, Martin returned to Mississippi to find these men and women whom he had never forgotten. He interviewed the still-living witnesses, their children, and friends. Martin intertwines these current reflections with vivid commentary about the case itself. The result is an impassioned, cogent fusion of reportage, oral history, and memoir about a trial that fundamentally reshaped the South.—University Press of Mississippi

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A former First Assistant United States Attorney and urban trial judge, Gordon A. Martin, Jr., is adjunct professor of law at New England Law Boston. His work has been published in the Boston Globe, the Herald, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, various law reviews, and other periodicals.

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There will be a book signing (and refreshments) at a November 10th reception at The Social Law Library in Boston as one of many events to celebrate the publishing of this important title.  

Social Law Library
One Pemberton Square, Suite 4100
Boston, MA 02108-1792




Here is the best way to purchase the book -  Click HERE

Look for more information, reviews and first hand anecdotes on the author and the progress of the book in the weeks and months ahead.