Quest for Justice

Louis A. Bedford Jr. and the
Struggle for Equal Rights in Texas
(SMU Press, 2009)

Lecture and Book Signing with Darwin Payne

Thursday, February 18, 2010
6:00 pm reception followed by 6:30 lecture and book signing

In the Texana Room, DeGolyer Library
(6404 Hilltop Ln. & McFarlin Blvd)

"A wonderful story, carefully told and well documented, not only about Louis A. Bedford Jr. and his many accomplishments in jurisprudence and public affairs, but also a study of how a local community struggled with race relations before the Supreme Court's opinion in Brown v. Board of Education. All people engaged in local public affairs during the twenty-first century should use this book as a learning tool." - Charles V. Willie, professor emeritus, Harvard University, Graduate School of Education

"Among the strengths of Quest for Justice are its intimacy as a memoir of a prominent African American lawyer who observed and participated in many transformative legal and political challenges of the twentieth century, its remarkable portrait of black Dallas through five decades, and the author's impressive knowledge of the city's African American legal fraternity." - Michael L. Gillette, executive director of Humanities Texas

"Payne's study is most valuable because it provides little-known (to most white Texans anyway) information and insights about the black middle class in general and the black legal community in Texas in particular. The rich detail about black life in Texas is impressive and makes a real contribution to Texas history." - Charles Martin, Texas historian of the civil rights movement and professor at the University of Texas-El Paso

"A must read for every lawyer and every person who believes in the importance of the struggle for equal rights under the law." - Al Ellis, former president of the Dallas Bar Association