White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Wicker, Tom
Wilentz, Robert
Wilkins, Roy
Williams, Franklin
Williams, Shirley
Williams, Tennessee
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Wilson, Woodrow
Winfrey, Oprah
Wishman, Seymour
Wolfe, Tom, book by
Woods, Jack
World Trade Center terrorist attack (2001)
World War II
Wright, Bruce
Yetzer, Jody
Young Lords
Youth Against War and Fascism (YAWF)
Zeferetti, Leo
John and me (ages 3 and 5) at Albert (Major) and Bessie Warner’s Westchester County summer house on the Long Island Sound.
Loraina and Bill Rutherford at the second marriage ceremony at Albert (Major) and Bessie Warner’s Miami Beach estate.
Bill Rutherford in the Miami Beach dining room.
Loraina and Bill.
Bessie and Albert (Major) Warner.
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Jack Warner, Rea Warner, Ann Page Warner (Jack’s wife), Albert (Major) Warner, Jack Warner Jr. and his new wife Barbara, Bessie Warner, Harry Warner, Martin Rhodes (a Levy in-law), Irma Warner (Jack Warner’s first wife and Jack Jr.’s mother), and Ruth Leeds and Al Leeds (who gave me the nickname “Blackie”).
Spring 1941 at Crail Farm in North Carolina. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: John, my father Arthur, and my mother Ruth. I’m sitting next to my mother.
Sitting with Bill and Loraina at a house we rented on Cobbosseecontee Lake in Maine in the summer of 1948, after I had rheumatic fever.
Cleaning bluegills with Loraina at the Cobbosseecontee house.
Posing for a picture on the set of The West Point Story in 1949. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: John, Bessie, me, James Cagney, and Gordon MacRae. The photograph is autographed to my brother.
An autographed photo of my brother and me with Virginia Mayo on the set of The West Point Story.
Doris Day on the set of The West Point Story.
A plebe at Culver Military Academy in 1950.
My senior photo from Culver.
Commissioned upon graduation from Harvard University as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserves.
The cast from Gore Vidal’s The Best Man at the Morosco Theater meeting President-elect John F. Kennedy. Melvyn Douglas is the second from the left, next to Frank Lovejoy. Kennedy is talking to Lee Tracy and Gore Vidal. I can be seen in the background, second from the right.
My fiancée, Kitty Muldoon, and Jimmy Durante at the Copacabana.
Posing for a snapshot with Patrick, Janine, and Brian.
Tony Maynard walking away from the criminal courthouse with his sister Valerie and me after being freed from prison in 1974. (From New York Post, April 4, 1974. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.)
Tony in a kayak in 2013.
Tony visiting the office in 2014.
The Steel family at Thanksgiving, 2005.
Kitty and me.
Kitty and me with Bob (Robert L.) Carter at the moment Barack Obama became president-elect.
Derrick Bell and me with Bob at his apartment.
Acknowledgments
Without Beau Friedlander, I would still be struggling to write this book. A few years ago, I gave Beau what I thought was a viable 650-page manuscript filled with many family- and work-related stories. Beau crafted a framework and a focus to make these stories come alive, have meaning, and present a lifetime’s journey. Then the two of us worked, sometimes alone and sometimes together, to create the book you see. Beau is a fine editor, writer, and creative thinker. It was a pleasure working with him.
Along the way, many others offered suggestions and encouragement. The suggestions of New York University professor Pamela Newkirk focused me on the need to use my work to explore my feelings on the deepest possible level. University of South Carolina professor Patricia Sullivan encouraged me to discuss in depth my efforts working first for NAACP general counsel Robert L. Carter and then with my partner Richard Bellman and many others to bring civil rights litigation to the North. Marc Raskin and John Cavanagh of the Institute for Policy Studies also read manuscript drafts and urged me on. My wife, Kitty, spent many long hours reviewing and critiquing drafts, and our children, Janine (and her husband Peder Zane), Brian, and Patrick also helped me shape this book.
I would also like to thank my publisher, Thomas Dunne, for taking a chance on an unknown author and this book, and his excellent staff—especially executive editor Laurie Chittenden, whose fine editorial eye was invaluable, and associate editor Melanie Fried. I would also like to thank Sue Llewellyn for her fine line editing, and Diane Fisher, who fashioned the final manuscript out of the drafts and handwritten corrections I handed her as our deadline stared me in the face.
Finally, the story of waging the struggle in the courts for justice in the North as well as in the South is the story of many committed lawyers working toward a common goal. Some of these attorneys are named in this book and others are not. But all should be remembered, as should the organizations that support and guide their efforts. In my work I would like to thank the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Yes, it fired me in 1968 but through my present law firm, Outten & Golden, I am part of a legal team representing the NAACP in New York City, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Lawyers Guild, the New York City chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Latino Justice and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. All will be needed in the future as well as a new generation of civil rights lawyers.
About the Authors
LEWIS M. STEEL worked as a lawyer for the NAACP and is now Senior Counsel to Outten & Golden LLP. He works on a range of class action cases involving sexual and racial discrimination and overtime claims. His precedent-setting decisions include Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U.S. 176, which established that American subsidiaries of foreign corporations must obey American civil rights laws. He lives in New York. You can sign up for email updates here.
BEAU FRIEDLANDER’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Time, Harper’s Magazine, and The Paris Review. He was the founder of Context Books, served as editor in chief at Air America Media, and currently works at The Intercept. He lives in Brooklyn. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Introduction
1. Attica
2. Childhood
3. Culver Military Academy and Harvard
4. Bill Rutherford
5. Kitty Muldoon
6. Starting at the NAACP
7. Getting My Feet Wet
8. Dealing with Fear
9. Robert L. Carter’s Northern Campaign
10. The Cincinnati School Case
11. NAACP Battles
12. Two Different Worlds
13. 1968
14. Bill Rutherford Dies and a New Beginning
15. Tony Maynard
16. Auburn Prison and Life in the Hamptons
17. The Harlem Four
18. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and John Artis
20. The 1970s and 1980s
21. Life Among White Liberals
22. Navigating Racial Lines
23. Black Lives Matter
24. Going Forward
Index
Photographs
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
An Imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
THE BUTLER’S CHILD. Copyright © 2016 by Lewis M. Steel. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Olga Grlic
Cover photograph of William Rutherford and Lewis M. Steel courtesy of the author
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Steel, Lewis M., 1937– author.|Friedlander, Beau, author.
Title: The butler’s child: an autobiography / by Lewis M. Steel with Beau Friedlander
Description: New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015051267 | ISBN 9781250073006 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781466884984 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Steel, Lewis M., 1937– | Civil rights lawyers—New York (State)—New York—Biography. | Labor lawyers—New York (State)—New York—Biography. | Civil rights movement—United States—History—20th century. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Lawyers & Judges. | LAW / Civil Rights.
Classification: LCC KF373.S688 A3 2016 | DDC 340.092—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015051267
e-ISBN 9781466884984
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: June 2016
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