“No Equal Justice”

The book — which has already garnered a number of awards — begins by tracing the Crockett family history from slavery to Crockett’s admission into the University of Michigan Law School. He became one of the most senior Black lawyers in President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal administration and later played a central role fighting discrimination in the United Auto Workers union. In 1948, in a team of five attorneys, he was the only Black lawyer defending the constitutional rights of the leaders of the U.S. Communist Party in Dennis v. United States, the longest and most dramatic political trial in American history. At the close of the case, Crockett and his defense colleagues were summarily sentenced to prison for zealously representing their clients. He headed the National Lawyers Guild office in Jackson, Mississippi, during 1964’s Freedom Summer.

In 1966, Crockett was elected to Detroit’s Recorder’s Court, the court hearing all criminal cases in the city. For the first time, Detroit had a courtroom where Black litigants knew they would be treated fairly. In 1969, the New Bethel Church Incident became Crockett’s most famous case. He held court proceedings in the police station itself, freeing members of a Black nationalist group who had been illegally arrested. In 1980, he was elected to the United States Congress, where he spent a decade fighting President Ronald Reagan’s agenda, as well as working to end apartheid in South Africa and championing the cause to free Nelson Mandela.