Monday, May 4, 2020
Over the years I have observed Doug as he advanced from a night clerk in a motel while completing a law degree from Yale, to become a very successful trial lawyer, arguing cases referred by other lawyers. On one visit to Westport, I saw what a wonderful communicator he was. Doug had been tapped to complete the case of an aviation associate who died suddenly. The case involved an airplane accident on the ground. Doug's only aviation experience was as an airborne army officer leading his paratroopers in jumping out of airplanes. Doug's opposing attorney had just presented an "expert witness" who, on the basis of several photographs, pronounced the exact sequence of how the accident happened. Using documents that Doug had, it was clear that this explanation was impossible. Doug immediately grasped what had actually happened, but how could he explain this to the jury? Doug retrieved from his office a plastic ruler like most of us used in grade school, and placing a pencil in the hole in the center of the ruler and spinning the ruler on the pencil like a propeller, Doug was able to simplify the scenario of what really happened. The jurors understood, but the "expert" had no clue what Doug was talking about. Doug prevailed; I was impressed.
The thing I always admired most about Doug was his lifelong and deep-seated commitment to equal rights and social justice. Doug, along with Anne, became committed to these causes from the early days of the civil rights movement in our country. Anyone who knew him could see and feel his genuine conviction of equal rights and equal justice for all. He joined many protests and events during the civil rights movement, including the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. This gathering of a quarter million, at that time the largest demonstration in U.S. history, was the event where Martin Luther King gave his momentous "I have a Dream" speech. It is regarded as the turning point for civil rights. Doug continued to be involved in civil liberties for the rest of his life. He served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco and he was nominated to become a federal judge during the Kennedy administration, but the tragic assassination of President Kennedy stopped his nomination when the new administration took over before his confirmation.
While I was visiting Chapel Hill shortly before Doug's death, I expressed my admiration to Doug for his early lifelong commitment to civil rights. I asked him, having grown up in the same southern hometown only a few years apart, what was it that made his commitment to civil rights so much more intense than mine? He said, without hesitation, it was the army. Any type of racial discrimination there was not tolerated. Every man was judged by his performance only.
Doug not only actively practiced his belief in equal rights, but though his example, he worked to make our country a better place.
