by Luther J. Battiste, III
National President
The American Board of Trial Advocates
special to The Dreher Report
The American Board of Trial Advocates held its first meeting of 2020 in Charleston, South Carolina, in January. The keynote speaker during the business session was Judge Richard M. Gergel, a distinguished federal judge in Charleston. He was the South Carolina ABOTA Judge of the Year in 2017 and the trial judge in the case of Dylann Roof, the young man convicted of killing nine church members at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston.
Judge Gergel spoke about his recent book, Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waites Waring. The book is about a young African American soldier returning home in uniform from service in the Pacific during World War II. Sgt. Woodard was struck unlawfully with a blackjack by a white South Carolina police chief, gouging his eyes and permanently blinding him. The horrific incident was publicized on the radio airwaves by Orson Welles and others, which resulted in a national public outcry about the inhumane actions of the police chief. It was an inflection point for President Truman and influenced his decision to issue an Executive Order integrating the armed forces. It also inspired Judge J. Waites Waring, a federal judge and native Charlestonian, to become a champion of civil rights in his rulings.
Last week, a 17-year-old girl captured on video a white Minneapolis police officer with his knee pressed on the neck of an African American man, George Floyd, for almost nine minutes. Despite pleas from Mr. Floyd saying, “I can’t breathe,” the officer and three other officers standing by continued until there was no breath left in George Floyd’s body. This horrific event outraged the world and was an affront to the African American community, which was already grappling with the recent deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on African American communities.
Citizens in this country and the world have exercised their First Amendment right to protest the tragic death of George Floyd. These protests have brought together diverse groups of people of goodwill to challenge the treatment that these men and women suffered and the systemic problems with explicit bias, racism and policing in this country.
The United States of America was born from protest. Protesters today are demanding equal justice, which is an American ideal not always practiced. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in marble above the entrance to the United States Supreme Court. These words emphasize the Fourteenth Amendment requirement that “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”
The United States is at another inflection point in its history. The people of this country are telling us that it is time, it is necessary for us to address the history of racial injustice and systemic problems with policing and the legal system. They are telling us that it is time to respect the rule of law. We, at this time, in this country, must find a way to channel protest to policy.

Protestors at the State Capital, Columbia, SC
ABOTA is an organization of members of goodwill. It is an organization that has a respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. ABOTA’s Code of Professionalism states that members should “encourage respect for the law, the courts and the right to trial by jury.” We have a mandate to support change in our criminal justice system and to dismantle the systemic racism that plagues our cities and country and affects how policing is practiced.
We should actively support social justice for all. It should be a bedrock of our ideals, our mission, and our programming. Our members should engage in dialogue that confronts the issues that divide us. We should encourage our government leaders to address the root causes of the problems that result in the misuse of police authority. We should advocate for a legal system which ensures proper charging of offenders and a trial that is fair to the accused and the victims.
I have hope that the tremendous outpouring of peaceful resistance in our streets and the demands for changes in our legal system will serve to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice. We should be a country of equality where every person regardless of race, creed, color, religion or sexual orientation can have an expectation of liberty and justice for all.
I have faith that ABOTA members will not be merely observers but advocates for positive change and will seize this moment with enthusiasm, goodwill and open minds by accepting the responsibility to be leaders in creating a better world.
Finally, President Jimmy Carter provided a telling statement about the recent protests nationwide. “People of power, privilege, and moral conscience must stand up and say ‘no more’ to a racially discriminatory police and justice system, immoral economic disparities between whites and blacks, and government actions that undermine our unified democracy,” the President said. “We are responsible for creating a world of peace and equality for ourselves and future generations.”
Abraham Lincoln knew that the nation could not afford to look away, instilling a sense of duty in all of us, when he said, “Let’s have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do your duty as we understand it.” He later said,“It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.”
(reprinted from the American Board of Trial Advocates newsletter June 5, 2020 with permission by the author)
Luther J. Battiste, III is a founding shareholder of Johnson, Toal & Battiste, P.A. in Columbia, South Carolina. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and Emory University Law School. In 1983, Luther entered the political arena and made history by becoming one of the first two African-Americans elected to Columbia City Council since Reconstruction. He served fifteen years as a member of the Columbia City Council including two terms as Mayor Pro Tempore. In 1998, the City of Columbia dedicated to Luther J. Battiste, III the Monument and Plaza in honor of his dedicated service as a public servant.
… who gave you life: An Encomium for the Vote
(special to The Dreher Report)
To you who disrespect
those who
gave you
Life:
They lived
for us.
They understood
Life to Life.
People of the earth.
They speak to us
from the ground.
They shed their shackles
from a resurrection spirit
The puritanical self-righteous attitudes related to the vote and the disrespect for the generations that gave you birth and life, nurtured you, left you an inheritance of faith, hope, institutions of education, commerce, skills, land, and gave slave names dignity makes this position deserving of Donald Trump and the GOP. Why? Because your ingratitude for the blood spilled over the African diaspora for you to live and to have the rights you enjoy now that you didn’t fight for nor earned matters not to you.
You think the elders are useless.
Go ahead.
Drop the excrement of your disrespect with no regard to the privilege to vote you have that you paid no price for.
Go ahead.
Expect results that you aren’t even willing to fight for because you just give up and refuse to vote.
Our lives are at stake. Don’t you know? You curse the wombs that bore you. You curse the seed that created you when you, as a Black person in this country, decide because Jesus isn’t the nominee you won’t vote. “Oh,” you ask, “what are you talking about?” Here is what I’m saying: You are looking for that perfect candidate. Well, I’ve got news for you: There never will be that candidate.
Know this: People and situations evolve. The evolution may not be at breakneck speed and it may be too slow sometimes. Be not dismayed. Every piece of a pace is a gain. Don’t you know to just live is revolutionary? You gotta keep on pushing as Curtis Mayfield encouraged us in the 1960s.
If your decision is to give up and not fight then here is what I have to say to you: Don’t dishonor those who walked the journey for you to be here now—in this moment–and even left you a blueprint for you on how to thrive by speaking their names.
Remember this: Congressman John Robert Lewis and Rev. Cordy Tindall “C. T.” Vivian died on the same day having witnessed the gutting of voting rights, yet both men died with dignity, bravery, and hope for us and for our country.
Let me tell you. On February 1965, on the steps of the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, Alabama, C. T. Vivian, with several civil rights activists faced segregationist Sheriff Jim Clark who refused to let him enter. C. T. Vivian warned Clark, “You can turn your back on me, but you cannot turn your back upon the idea of justice. […] you can keep the club in your hand, but you cannot beat down justice. We will register to vote, because as citizens of these United States we have the right to do it.” Sheriff Clark hit him in the face with his club. C. T. Vivian kept on speaking; he was arrested. On August 5, 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. C. T. Vivian died July 17, 2020.
Let me tell you. Congressman Lewis never forgot about us, even on his death bed. On July 30, 2020, the New York Times published his final words of wisdom and encouragement. Before you even get to the general content of his words, he speaks to us in the title, “Together, you can redeem the soul of our nation. Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.” Our Statesman died on July 17, 2020.
Yet, some of you decide you’re wiser than either of them for not voting because the perfect candidate is not on the ballot. I’ll state it again: there is, never was, and never will be that candidate!
Let me tell you something: Unbeknownst to you our ancestors are still making ways that you can’t or simply are unwilling to see. Why? Because you enjoy the benefits of the sacrificial bravery of those who came before us but disparage their wisdom and knowledge.
Go ‘head …
… wit yo bad self! Raise your hands. Shrug your shoulders. Claim, “it is what is is!”
I write this in all sincerity: Our ancestral heritage does not tell us to be silent over things that matter; not family, friend, nor foe.
As I close, I’m thinking. Maybe, just maybe, we need to stop using the word “woke” ‘cause it’s past tense. In this present moment, we need to wake up and stay awake. Our ancestors and those on whose shoulders we stand gave us life. Let there be an encomium for the most nonviolent gesture in the land they fought for us to have: the vote.
◊ T. Renée Crutcher is the founder, CEO at Sankofa Ministries & Tellin’ Our Story Publishing, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a graduate of the Candler School of Theology, Emory University.
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Posted by drdreher01 on September 24, 2020
https://thedreherreport.com/2020/09/24/who-gave-you-life-an-encomium-for-the-vote/