Bob Young

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYg98pXiUqU&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop

I aged 14 to 25 you got a lot of

testosterone on board that's not really

the conducive and not a lot of

myelination up here either so that the

worst combination the executive function

is not fully functioning and and the

testosterone is it take a lot more than

that okay my name is Robert Young ro BER

tyo you and J and I am the former Chief

Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court

give me your 60 second spiel on who you

are as far as what you

far too much until recently I was the

Chief Justice of Michigan Supreme Court

I'd been a member of the Supreme Court

for 18 years three years prior to that I

had been on the Michigan Court of

Appeals which is the intermediate court

in our system and before that as general

counsel at triple-a Michigan and before

that about 15 years of practice in a

private law firm you can hear it okay

yeah okay that's

I want you to be natural for you oh okay

yeah all right that's fine all right I'm

the former Chief Justice of the Michigan

Supreme Court I'd been a member of the

court until I retired for 18 years and

before that was three years on the

Michigan Court of Appeals which is the

intermediate court just below the

Supreme Court before that I was the

general counsel for triple-a Michigan

and before that 15 years in private

practice

yeah a lot of the difficulties that

surrounding slavery were there at the

very beginning when the Constitutional

Convention in 1787 was convened to try

and figure out how to put thirteen

individual colonies that function pretty

much like sovereign countries together

in a nation and apart from the

differences in the various colonies one

of the great differences was at the

North Boston all those were mercantile

commercial whereas the South Virginia so

they were agricultural so that was a one

big difference the Articles of

Confederation where the was the document

that was governed during the

Revolutionary War it worked very poorly

because it required unanimity of action

before he could do anything

the Continental Army under Washington

almost was starved to death because they

didn't get funding so the convention was

there to see if they could put together

a national government and the problems

were that each of these 13 colonies

thought of themselves as an autonomous

sovereign nation - there was a question

of slavery that was driven by the

agricultural needs of the south and the

repulsion that that created in the

northern colonies and that proved to be

a an insoluble problem first no one in

that generation of founders thought of a

multiracial society the way the 21st

century thinks and if I might add let me

read to you what Jefferson said on the

question and his notes - on the state of

Virginia if blacks did not intermarry

with whites they would remain black

until the end

of time for was not contemplated that

liberating them would whitewash them if

they did intermarry with whites then

with the white race would become extent

extinct and the American people would

become all of my auto breed again

without the mistake Jefferson let me

show you how one of the founders thought

about okay I mean let me show you how

one of the founders thought about race

at the time this is Jefferson in his

notes on the state of Virginia let me

share with you what Jefferson one of the

founders thought about slavery and how

to deal with the slaves if manumitted

I mean let me share with you what

Jefferson said in notes on the state of

Virginia concerning how the founding

generation thought about the slave

problem let me share with you what

Thomas Jefferson said about the what

they thought of as an insoluble problem

with liberating slaves if blacks did not

intermarry with whites they would remain

black for the end of time for if it was

not contemplated that liberating them

would whitewash them if they did

intermarry with whites then the white

race would become extent extinct

the American people would all be a

mulatto breed that was the problem for

many of the founding generation the the

best solution the abolitionists could

have come up with was to liberate and an

expatriate the former slaves to the West

which was then unsettled the Caribbean

or to take them back to Africa

but there was one additional problem and

that's no one in that founding

generation could figure out how to pay

for them because everybody believed that

slaves were property of their owners and

they had to pay for them in the first

budget of the new nation in 1790 the

entire federal budget was 7 million and

it was estimated that the cost of paying

the owners for their slaves was a

hundred and forty million so this was an

insoluble problem at that point too long

I know okay now the question is how do

they what do they do yeah I can do I'll

train yeah so what it okay ready so what

do they do they papered over the problem

first they in order to reduce the power

the political power of the south the

north insisted that slaves not be

counted one for one but three-fifths a

lot of people think of the three-fifths

as a slight against black people it was

really designed to reduce the political

power of the south in the Congress in

the house the second was the

and a restriction on the right of

Congress to prohibit the importation of

slaves for the next 20 years and the

third was the Fugitive Slave provision

in the Constitution that required that

slaves be captured and returned to their

owners

that was the sectional compromise and

that was what caused tension from that

point on

just Missouri Compromise additional

states

so we had the the fugitive slave acts

that were designed to implement the

constitutional provision requiring the

return of slaves to their owners and

again the the tension between the

southern opposition to slavery and the

South's intention to continue it was

what caused political problems in the

new nation in in in 1820 this all came

to a head because the nation was

expanding states were coming in and the

North was intent on precluding the

spread of slavery and the Missouri

Compromise of 1820 was the compromise

that precluded states coming into the

Union above the southern border of

Missouri from permitting slavery that

was the compromise at that point then

there were a series of slave rebellions

during this entire period the nat turner

rebellion in the 1830s was was perhaps

the most dramatic it prompted in

virginia prompted severe repressive laws

because Turner was educated and they

were they thought that that was probably

one of the reasons why they he was as

successful as he was so they were

oppressive laws out throughout the south

to preclude blacks from learning to read

and so forth that was the that was the

next critical thing and then the Supreme

Court entered the picture in 1842 and

interpreted the Fugitive Slave Act now

this is the act that the Congress had

passed that required slaves caught in

free areas to be returned to their slave

owners it held that state officials

this is widely unpopular in the north it

held that state officials did not have

could not be compelled to enforce the

law so that essentially eviscerate at

least in the north the enforcement of

the Fugitive Slave Act and that in turn

infuriated the South that began to

insist on a stronger Fugitive Slave Act

then came the compromise of of 1850

again the expansion of the the United

States with the addition of territories

and states caused this problem of the

south wanting more slave states to the

north wanting fewer the MS the

compromise of 1850

was a product of the acquisition of of

land from the Mexican War the United

States acquired land around basically

Texas and and West and then there was

the question of well what about these

new territories that were coming in and

this is where the south began to steal a

march and they insisted rather than the

Missouri Compromise that forbade slavery

above the certain point they decided on

local choice so that the territories

coming in could choose whether to be

slave or non slave and that was sort of

the unwinding of the Missouri Compromise

and then the next step was the

kansas-nebraska act again another crisis

precipitated by Nebraska wanting to come

in as a non slave state the southerners

were not willing to act on that unless

they were permitted to have permitted to

have a slave state and the compromise

they're essentially eviscerated the

Missouri Compromise entirely it was now

local choice for any territory or

state coming into the union after that

then kind of next in time and in

importance was the Dred Scott case this

is one of the most notoriously bad

decisions of the United States Supreme

Court and briefly it involved a Dred

Scott whose original owner had in said

he was going to to free him he died his

wife thence inherited Scott and his

family and there's a very complicated

history but he sought to purchase

himself as the his owner's wife refused

it ended up in court in Missouri it was

recognized that whereas it in his case

he'd been taken to a free state that

automatically led to being freed they

reverse their president and said no

that's no longer the law so he lost the

Missouri he then went to federal court

and ultimately ended up in the Supreme

Court which which held surprisingly that

black folks never were and never could

be citizens so they couldn't avail

themselves of any of the privileges of

being in federal court or of the

Constitution they were essentially

outside the Constitution and for good

measure the court also held that the

Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional

because Congress had no authority to

affect the rights of slave owners so

that was the double whammy of Dred Scott

and I said one of the worst decisions

that the Supreme Court gave

then we have the Civil War the Dred

Scott was considered one of the many

precipitating factors for the Civil War

but the reality was the economic

interest of the two regions north and

south are very different slavery had

become even more important after the

cotton gin before the cotton gin the

price of cotton and silk were about the

same because cotton was so hard to to

cultivate and and manufacture after the

cotton gin that that process was made

much easier and so when everybody

thought would happen that the slavery

would die the cotton gin made slavery a

much more viable institution so the the

the economic systems of north and south

are growing apart

slavery was was one of the leading but

not only cause of some of this division

civil war occurred and afterward the

victorious north through the military

controlled the entirety of the

secessionist states the Confederate

states were militarily ruled the federal

military imposed new governments they

took the old government out and the

legislature elected new ones that was

the first time blacks have been elected

in in the legislatures in the south

obviously and took a whole lot of years

and later before that happened again and

the and grant when he was president used

the military actively to suppress

organizations like the Ku Klux Klan that

had begun to terrorize to intimidate and

and place blacks back into the position

of servitude they had been in and during

slavery at the end of Reconstruction

when the military withdrew the

Democratic Party which began to

represent the southern interests

reemerged they reelected the

legislators that favored the southern

cause and immediately began creating

what we called the Jim Crow laws that

made it impossible for blacks as a

matter of law to vote to participate in

the civil society and to resub de gate

them in effect now this is this is after

the enactment or the ratification of the

Civil War amendments the 13th 14th

amendment Thirteenth eliminated slavery

14th assured equal protection under the

law to former slaves and the 15th

protected voting rights so these these

Jim Crow laws were a direct attempt to

negate the constitutional benefits that

blacks gained under the Civil War

amendments and that proceeded for a very

long time until Plessy vs. Ferguson

where the Supreme Court for the first

time in 1896 decided what the 14th

amendment meant to black folks mr.

Ferguson bought a first-class ticket in

Louisiana but Louisiana law made it a

crime to permit him to sit in the

first-class seat so he was placed in the

baggage compartment he complained he was

arrested and tried criminally for

violating the law he appealed that

appeal eventually went to the Supreme

Court which held that the 14th amendment

whatever else it did did not require a

state to Accord black people the same

rights as white people they would not

enforce his first-class ticket the same

way that a white person who had bought

it would have had it enforced and that's

that proceeded until Brown

probably everybody in the audience has

heard about Brown versus Board of

Education and it was brown plus he

established the separate but equal

doctrine Brown struck that down and

that's sort of a quick history of

Constitution and slavery okay

everybody brows on straight

all right so as one of the first a great

northwestern short show what it takes to

gain access to be accepted our family

was one of the first ones to move to

Northwest Detroit in 1960 we were the

only family on the Block when we moved

in there there's only one sort of

disconcerting episode that I remember

the neighbor sort of a squirt part of

the ghetto we came from but pretty much

it was a very easy transition it was a

people were genial and friendly and

didn't have much recollection of having

difficulty it was right next to Wooding

ham it was on whittingham next to near u

of D high school and I only have pretty

much happy memories from there but there

are challenges when you are the racial

wedge being the only or one a few does

present some issues about different

experiences different expectations some

sometimes very ugly ones and you just

have to you have to solder through those

yeah well I was not until I went to

private school to Detroit Country Day I

was the first black graduate from

Country Day I was from Detroit most of

the kids that went to Country Day at the

time we're in the Birmingham and

Bloomfield and there it was a lonely

time because they were there was

essentially no socialising other than

formal school events it was an isolating

point not as many as you might think

they weren't you know in your face kind

of ugly racial it was just pretty

obvious that there was you know I was

not of them and at least socially there

I had a few really good friends who came

over to my house and I went over them

but but especially when I got into high

school you know that's when teenagers

begin to have a social life independent

and and it was that was the time when it

was painfully obvious that I was not

part of that at world

[Laughter]

of course of course sure that they never

had any experience but I hadn't had a

lot of experience either with white

people I grew up in a pretty much until

lay a little later in an all-black world

I thought based on television that all

white folks lived slept in twin beds it

wasn't till I went over to somebody one

of my friends house and so their parents

slept in the same bed just like by but

in the movies and on TV all white people

slept into it married couples slept in

twin bed so there are a lot of

opportunities given the way our culture

shapes our vision of the other to have a

very skewed understanding and it's only

two you start interacting with people in

a more intimate way that you learn that

people are kind of like one another I'm

probably more like than not you have

different traditions different tastes

but pretty much we're we're a lot alike

that's fine probably oh yeah that's

right

Thurgood Marshall probably his greatest

contribution to our history was his role

in Brown versus Board of Education

after Plessy and at the turn of the mid

century from from the about the 40s and

50s on talented lawyers like Marshall

working with the N double AC Defense

Fund began to look for target cases to

chip away at the the separate but equal

holding of Plessy and that was because

they were in the south they were locked

out of any political process they

couldn't go to the legislature and say

get rid of the poll tax as the precluded

blacks from voting or or anything else

so they found a more hospitable forum in

the federal court so they started taking

cases to see if they could get that case

and eventually that led to the Supreme

Court decision in Brown and I think that

was a a monumental task of trying to

find the right case to test and then

overturn the separate but equal doctrine

we say I believe Thurgood Marshall's

greatest contribution to

african-americans freedom was oh okay

okay let me try that

I think Thurgood Marshall's greatest

contribution was was brown versus board

of education he was essential in framing

the that test case to challenge and

overturn the Plessy separate-but-equal

doctrine and he and many others had

worked a long time to frame the case

that eventually got to be the Plessy

versus I'm sorry that did overturn the

Plessy doctrine of separate but equal

okay he and many others work to find the

perfect case the test case to bring it

to the Supreme Court again to overturn

the plessis separate but equal doctrine

and it was a monumental task

they had no alternatives in the

political process in the South you

couldn't go to legislature so the

federal courts became the tactic to to

overturn the Jim Crow laws

you don't have to cut it as former chief

justice of mr. one of the things that

that has been important to me in my

judicial career is respecting the

constitutional assignments that are made

we we have a division of labor between

the executive the legislative and their

judicial the legislature makes the

statutes the executive enforces them and

the judicial branch interprets them and

I think that is the important function

of the judiciary it's not to make policy

but it's to interpret the statutes that

other two branches have made and I it's

important for black folks to be involved

in the political process to get the

statutes that they want the policies

they want enacted but it's not the the

judicial branch is obligation or even

authority to make laws in the way the

legislature is that's an important

distinction

civil rights

I was actually a teenager I was around

when Martin Luther King was alive oh

yeah I was a teenager no no no 67 and

what but yeah but yeah same impact

voting whether in in the civil rights

era or today has the same impact if you

don't participate as a voter you have no

voice and and it's a betrayal of all who

came before us to fight for that very

right I mean we got that right in the

Civil War amendments in the Fifteenth

Amendment but it was deprived of it of

us and in the south until the mid last

century and for for when I hear black

folks say it doesn't make any difference

I just it just causes me such pain to

know that all those who came before us

fought so hard for us to be able to

participate in the process and to make a

difference it's that's a it's an

unimaginable position for me

personal question did one now father use

for this one because and we discuss that

more later but all right beside

segregation in schools lunch counters

and many other facets of life I growing

up during the the beginning of the civil

rights era and through it what what

strikes me is how many ways in which

black people were negated in one way or

another

more more viciously and openly in the

south but in the North where I lived in

Detroit there were places where we

couldn't go it wasn't they didn't have a

law saying it but you knew you couldn't

go so that there were and at least were

some of them were tiny indignities when

my parents were taking me to a whi camp

in 1963 and ice go to Michigan there was

no place for them to stay overnight so

there are large and small indignities

that you suffered as a black person and

you were always aware of it

not away serve as trustee in church and

the people I have had a blessed life

I've had an opportunity to do a lot of

important things and I've always spent

my family's tradition that you always

help those who are in need of help and

so almost all of my activities outside

of work have been devoted to children's

charities and and civic institutions to

to help the community it's it's a

natural part of how I function how the

expectations that were given to me by my

parents and it's - to whom much is given

much is owed having I'm old now so I

have a broader perspective on things I

was around and conscious as a teenager

in the pre Civil Rights period watched

the civil rights period through that

today when we were negroes we understood

where we were we knew we had to fight -

as they used to tell me as a kid you

have to work twice as hard to get half

as far but that was a that was a in

hansung philosophy it was one devoted to

self-improvement and work and hard work

I when I work with women and minorities

other in our society one of the things

that has come clear to me is we are very

fearful of

coming into contact with the ugly part

of whatever discrimination there is and

my observation as many of us function

with a ceiling that we impose on

ourselves and so my thought to two young

black men and women is fill the

available space because you'll find

there's far more space than you think

there is and if you function as though

there's more space you live a bigger

life okay I don't think the Fugit on the

part of the Constitution that created

the obligation to return slaves the

fugitive slave acts both in the

beginning of the nation and the one

enacted in nineteen eighteen fifty were

designed to enforce that constitutional

obligation to return slaves to their

owner that the earlier one was

eviscerated by the Supreme Court when it

said it it that the Congress could not

force state officials to enforce the

statute so in the north they stopped

enforcing it that led to the 1850

version which was much more stringent

and which was it it it imposed criminal

penalties on state officials who refused

to assist the Bounty Hunter's dragged

blacks back to their owners led to a lot

of free blacks being enslaved there was

a whole movie about a true story about a

person who was enslaved for 12 years who

was a freeman 12 years of slave was the

name

it lacks any rights the white man was

bound to respect under Dred Scott no

under Dred Scott there were no rights

that blacks had at all not not not that

they there was any of that White's had

to respect they were essentially a race

from the Constitution by that decision

that's why the Civil War amendments were

necessary two to one free the slaves

ensure they had equal protection of the

law and the right to vote well oddly

enough in the in the at the formation of

the nation slavery even in the South was

not often justified on moral grounds but

on pragmatic grounds the the moral

justification for slavery became much

more important in the 19th century than

it had been in the 18th and it's the

same as always

God didn't didn't intend for slaves to

be considered human beings

just strange well I think the course of

my life has given me reason to be

optimistic

we've gone from my mother just passed

away she was 92 years old within the

course of her life

we went from and she grew up in the

south as did my father grew up in the

most coarse ugly Jim Crow world where

hanging literally lynching a box was not

an uncommon thing to a point where you

know my father became a physician he

eventually opened his own clinic he was

one of the first black physicians to do

so even if he had to have a Jewish

colleague buy and get the mortgage for

him because he couldn't get a mortgage

from the bank but by force of will by by

having a vision and the energy to do it

we've done amazing things I'm just

worried about whether we can sustain the

the commitment that we've shown

everywhere else I'm worried that in from

a period of slavery to not to virtually

now we've had nothing but increased

educational literacy we're seeing a

decline of literacy now how can that be

those are the things that I'm very

optimistic I mean how is it that a

people who were enslaved have managed to

to not just survive but to prosper now

we need to make sure that we continue to

prosper that's why I tell people to fill

the available space don't shrink down

don't expect something and if you've

encounter it take it on

all right see swagger doesn't such as I

did well the question is how in the pre

Brown era you could achieve rights under

the law under the the Jim Crow laws and

the reality is you couldn't in the south

and so that's why resort to the federal

courts was was had by people like

Thurgood Marshall and others in in that

movement that was a that was a challenge

just to get the the laws consistent with

the Constitution the Constitution now

after the Fourteenth Amendment required

that black people and everybody be given

equal treatment in the law does Jim Crow

laws clearly did not the separate but

equal doctrine was a first it was not

there was no equality it was in fact

designed to prevent equality

so once the laws got aligned with the

Equality requirement of the 14th

amendment then then you're free to use

the political process to vote to support

your candidates to get the policies you

want

you you said you wanted a release I

release you and whatever manner you need

to use the images and statements I've

made a really no compensation now my son

told me that I get no compensation now

I'm happy to do this for the public good

whatever that is I'm Robert Young former

chief justice the Michigan Supreme Court

and I'm going to set with NGP I'm Robert

Young former Chief Justice of the

Michigan Supreme Court and I'm on the

set of NGP what I say oh okay okay all

right

I'm Bob Young I'm the former Chief

Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court

I'm on the set with NGP I'm Robert Young

I'm the former Chief Justice of the

Michigan Supreme Court and I'm on the

set with NGP

I think I like because you got the boat

I'm your former judge you dig to find

everything like that so in GP is how we

branded multi okay okay I'm Robert young

I'm the former Chief Justice of Michigan

Supreme Court and I'm on the set with

NGP getting down to the nitty gritty

you