Derrick Albert Bell Jr. (November 6, 1930 – October 5, 2011)
[ was an American lawyer, professor, and ]civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
activist. Bell worked for first the U.S. Justice Department
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States ...
, then the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Altho ...
, where he supervised over 300 school desegregation cases in Mississippi.
After a decade as a civil rights lawyer, Bell moved into academia where he spent the second half of his life. He started teaching at USC Law School
The USC Gould School of Law, located in Los Angeles, California, is the law school of the University of Southern California. The oldest law school in the Southwestern United States, USC Law traces its beginnings to 1896 and became affiliated with ...
, then moved to Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class ...
where he became the first tenured African-American professor of law in 1971. From 1991 until his death in 2011, Bell was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law
New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1835, it is the oldest law school in New York City and the oldest surviving law school in New ...
, and a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law
The University of Oregon School of Law is a public law school in the U.S. state of Oregon. Housed in the Knight Law Center, it is Oregon's only state funded law school. The school, founded in 1884, is located on the University of Oregon campus in ...
.
Bell developed important scholarship, writing many articles and multiple books, using his practical legal experience and his academic research to examine racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
, particularly in the legal system. Bell questioned civil rights advocacy approaches, partially stemming from frustrations in his own experiences as a lawyer. Bell is often credited as one of the originators of critical race theory
Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...
.
Early life
Born to a working-class family in the Hill District
The Hill District is a grouping of historically African American neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Beginning in the years leading up to World War I, "the Hill" was the cultural center of black life in the city and a major cent ...
of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
in 1930, Bell was the eldest of four children by Derrick A. Bell Sr. and Ada Elizabeth Bell. Bell was offered a scholarship to Lincoln University, however, could not attend due to the lack of financial aid. Bell would go on to receive a B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
from Duquesne University
Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit ( or ; Duquesne University or Duquesne) is a private Catholic research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne first opened as the Pittsbu ...
making him the first of his family to go to college. In 1952, he would go on to enlist becoming a member of the Duquesne Reserve Officers' Training Corps
The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces.
Overview
While ROTC graduate officers serve in all ...
and later served as an Air Force
An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...
officer for two years (stationed in Korea for one of those years). In 1957, he received a LL.B.
Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...
from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law
The University of Pittsburgh School of Law (Pitt Law) was founded in 1895. It became a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools in 1900. Its primary home facility is the Barco Law Building. The school offers four degrees: Master ...
where he was the only Black graduate of his class. In 1960, Bell married Jewel Hairston who was also a Civil Rights activist and educator and they would go on to have three sons: Derrick, Douglas, and Carter. They were married until Jewel's death in 1990 and then he later remarried Janet Dewart.
Law career
After graduation and a recommendation from then United States associate attorney general
The associate attorney general of the United States is the third-highest-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice. The associate attorney general advises and assists the attorney general and the deputy attorney general in policies re ...
William P. Rogers
William Pierce Rogers (June 23, 1913 – January 2, 2001) was an American diplomat and attorney. He served as United States Attorney General under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and United States Secretary of State under President Richard Nixo ...
, Bell took a position with the newly formed Department of Justice in the Honor Graduate Recruitment Program. Due to his interests in racial issues, he transferred to the Civil Rights Division. He was one of the few Black lawyers working for the Justice Department at the time. Bell was the first academic in law that created a casebook that explored and examined the law’s impact and relationship on race and racism. Along with this he examined how race and racism shaped law-making, during a time when connecting these ideas was not considered legitimate.[Onwuachi-Willig, A. I. (2013). On Derrick Bell as Pioneer and Teacher: Teaching Us How to Have the Nerve. Seattle University Law Review, 36(3), xlii–xlviii]
NAACP and school desegregation cases
In 1959, the Justice Department asked him to resign his membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
(NAACP) because it was thought that his objectivity, and that of the department, might be compromised or called into question. Rather than give up his NAACP membership and compromise his principles, Bell left the Justice Department.
Bell returned to Pittsburgh and joined the local chapter of the NAACP. Soon afterward in 1960, Bell was recruited by Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...
, the head of the NAACP'S legal arm and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Altho ...
(LDF). Bell would join the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Pittsburgh, crafting legal strategies at the forefront of the battle to undo racist laws and segregation in schools. At the LDF, he worked alongside other prominent civil-rights attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall, Robert L. Carter, and Constance Baker Motley
Constance Baker Motley (September 14, 1921 – September 28, 2005) was an American jurist and politician, who served as a Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
A key strategist of the civil rights mov ...
. Bell was assigned to Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
where during his trips to the state, he had to be very cautious. For example, once while in Jackson, he was arrested for using a white-only phone booth. After returning to NY, "Marshall mordantly joked that, if he got himself killed in Mississippi, the L.D.F. would use his funeral as a fund-raiser." When Bell was in Mississippi, he provided legal support to Mississippi schools, colleges, voting rights activists, and Freedom Riders. He also supported James Meredith's attempt to attend the Ole Miss Law School in 1962.
While working at the LDF, Bell supervised more than 300 school desegregation cases and spearheaded the fight of James Meredith
James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississ ...
to secure admission to the University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment.
...
, over the protests of Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Ross Barnett
Ross Robert Barnett (January 22, 1898November 6, 1987) was the Governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a Southern Democrat who supported racial segregation.
Early life
Background and learning
Born in Standing Pine in Leake Count ...
. Afterward, he said of this period,"I learned a lot about evasiveness, and how racists could use a system to forestall equality...I also learned a lot riding those dusty roads and walking into those sullen hostile courts in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...
. It just seems that unless something's pushed unless you litigate, nothing happens."
Later in life, Bell questioned the approach of integration they took in these school cases. Throughout the South, often the winning rulings and the following desegregation caused white flight
White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...
, and ultimately keeping the schools segregated. Later, as an academic, these practical results led him to conclude that "racism is so deeply rooted in the makeup of American society that it has been able to reassert itself after each successive wave of reform aimed at eliminating it."
Academic career
Bell spent the second half of his career working in academia until his passing in 2011. Throughout this period of time, he worked at multiple prestigious law schools while simultaneously developing his theories about race, writing multiple books which are now considered the foundation of the field of critical race theory
Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...
. Bell spent a lot of his time creating more inclusive faculty within institutions such as USC, Harvard, and NYU.
Bell was known to be respectful of all beliefs and his class was described by his students to be the "least indoctrinated class" in their Law school. Bell would give his students the most freedom to reach their own conclusions and to build their own arguments that could be reasonable, despite their political beliefs.
USC Law School
Bell's first law faculty position began in 1967 at the USC Gould School of Law
The USC Gould School of Law, located in Los Angeles, California, is the law school of the University of Southern California. The oldest law school in the Southwestern United States, USC Law traces its beginnings to 1896 and became affiliated w ...
of the University of Southern California. There, he succeeded Martin Levine as executive director of the new Western Center on Law and Poverty. Among his notable cases was a class action suit against the Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...
on behalf of the city's black residents. During Bell's directorship, the Western Center's work was recognized in 1971 with a trophy bestowed by the Community Relations Conference of Southern California.
Harvard Law School
In 1969, Black Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class ...
students helped to get Bell hired. They had protested for a minority faculty member and Derek Bok
Derek Curtis Bok (born March 22, 1930) is an American lawyer and educator, and the former president of Harvard University.
Life and career
Bok was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Following his parents' divorce, he, his mother, brother and siste ...
hired Bell to teach as a lecturer. Bok promised that Bell would be "the first but not the last" of his Black hires. In 1971, Bell became Harvard Law's first Black tenured professor. During his time at Harvard, Bell established a new course in civil rights law, published a celebrated case book, ''Race, Racism and American Law'', and produced a steady stream of law review articles.
University of Oregon School of Law
In 1980, Bell started a five-year tenure as the Dean of the University of Oregon School of Law. There, he also taught a course on Race, Racism and the Law using his textbook of the same name. Later, Bell's tenure was interrupted by his resignation following a protest, due to the University's refusal to hire an Asian American candidate he had chosen for a faculty position.
NYU School of Law
Bell's visiting professorship at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
began in 1991. After his two-year leave of absence, his position at Harvard ended and he remained at NYU where he continued to write and lecture on issues of race and civil rights.
Protests over faculty diversity
During the summer of 1981, under the auspices of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bell conducted a multi-week seminar in Race Relations Law for 14 lawyers and judges from across Oregon.The University of Oregon School of Law was not the only place Bell fought to create a more diverse and inclusive faculty.
Returning to Harvard in 1986, after a year-long stint at Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, Bell staged a five-day sit-in in his office. The goal was to protest the school's failure to grant tenure to two professors on staff, both of whose work promoted critical race theory.[ The sit-in was widely supported by students, but divided the faculty, as Harvard administrators claimed the professors were denied tenure for substandard scholarship and teaching.][
In 1990, Harvard Law School had 60 tenured professors. Three of them were black men and five were women. With that said, none of these women were African-American. Displeased with this dearth of diversity among the faculty, Bell decided to protest with an unpaid leave of absence.] Students supported the move which critics found "counterproductive," while Harvard administrators cited a lack of qualified candidates, defending that they had taken great strides in the previous decade to bring in black faculty members.[He details the story of this protest in his book ''Confronting Authority.''
Bell's protest at Harvard stirred angry criticism and received a lot of backlash. Opposing Harvard Law faculty called him "a media manipulator who unfairly attacked the school," noting that other people had accused him of "depriv ngstudents of an education while he makes money on the lecture circuit."
Following his leave of absence at Harvard, Bell accepted a visiting professorship at ]NYU Law
New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1835, it is the oldest law school in New York City and the oldest surviving law school in New ...
in 1991. After two years, Harvard had still not hired any minority women, and Bell requested an extension of his leave, which the school refused, thereby ending his tenure. It was not until later in 1998, Harvard Law hired civil rights attorney and U.S. assistant attorney general nominee Lani Guinier
Carol Lani Guinier (; April 19, 1950 – January 7, 2022) was an American educator, legal scholar, and civil rights theorist. She was the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured p ...
, who became the law school's first black female tenured professor.[
In March 2012, five months after his death, Bell became the target of conservative media, including ]Breitbart
''Breitbart News Network'' (known commonly as ''Breitbart News'', ''Breitbart'', or ''Breitbart.com'') is an American far-rightMultiple sources:
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* syndicated news, opinion, and commentary website founded in mid-2007 b ...
and Sean Hannity
Sean Patrick Hannity (born December 30, 1961) is an American talk show host, conservative political commentator, and author. He is the host of ''The Sean Hannity Show'', a nationally syndicated talk radio show, and has also hosted a commentar ...
, in an exposé of President Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
. The controversy focused on a 1990 video of Obama praising Bell at a protest by Harvard Law School students over the perceived lack of diversity in the school's faculty. Bell's widow stated that Bell and Obama had "very little contact" after Obama's law school graduation. She said that as far as she remembered, "He never had contact with the president as president." An examination of Senior Lecturer Obama's syllabus for his course on race and law at the University of Chicago revealed significant differences between Obama's perspective and that of Derrick Bell, even as Obama drew on major writings of critical race theory.
Critical race theory
Bell is arguably the most influential source of thought critical of traditional civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
discourse. Bell's critique represented a challenge to the dominant liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
and conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
position on civil rights, race
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
and the law. He employed three major arguments in his analyses of racial patterns in American law: constitutional contradiction, the interest convergence principle, and the price of racial remedies. His book ''Race, Racism and American Law'', now in its sixth edition, has been continually in print since 1973 and is considered foundational in the field of critical race theory
Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...
.
The 1954 Brown V. Board of Education case ignited Bell's interest in studying racial issues within the education system. This was due to the Supreme Courts decision and its evident lack of progress for black students. During the 70s, Bell studied and wrote about the effects of desegregation noting that this decision was not due to a moral shift in nature, but rather because of the "convergence" of efforts in dismantling Jim Crow laws and racial segregation. Additionally, it had to do with the concern of the white elite that the United States would lose the battle to communism, and tarnish their reputation and global influence. The injustices initially set by segregation were not undone but, instead created new issues for black students at predominantly white institutions. Consequently, Bell comes to the conclusion that American educational systems should focus on improving the quality of education for black students, as oppose to, national integration. His early work on education contributed to his creation of critical race theory, alongside Kimberlé Crenshaw
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (born May 5, 1959) is an American civil rights advocate and a leading scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender iss ...
, Alan Freeman, Cheryl Harris, Patricia J. Williams, Charles R. Lawrence, Mari Matsuda
Mari J. Matsuda (born 1956) is an American lawyer, activist, and law professorKo, Lisa, "Opinions: the Myth of the Interchangeable Asian," ''The New York Times,'' October 14, 2018 at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of H ...
, and Richard Delgado
Richard Delgado (born October 6, 1939) is an American legal scholar considered to be one the founders of critical race theory, along with Derrick Bell. Delgado is currently a Distinguished Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law ...
.
In the 1970s, Bell and these other legal scholars began using the phrase "critical race theory" (CRT) as a takeoff on critical legal studies
Critical legal studies (CLS) is a school of critical theory that developed in the United States during the 1970s.Alan Hunt, "The Theory of Critical Legal Studies," Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1986): 1-45, esp. 1, 5. Se DOI, 10.1 ...
, a branch of legal scholarship that challenges the validity of concepts such as rationality, objective truth, and judicial neutrality. Critical legal theory was itself a takeoff on critical theory, a philosophical framework with roots in Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
thought. Bell continued writing about critical race theory after accepting a teaching position at Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. He worked alongside lawyers, activists, and legal scholars across the country. Much of his legal scholarship was influenced by his experience both as a black man and as a civil rights attorney. Writing in a narrative style, Bell contributed to the intellectual discussions on race. According to Bell, his purpose in writing was to examine the racial issues within the context of their economic and social, and political dimensions from a legal standpoint. In addition to this, Bell's critical race theory was eventually branched off into more theories, describing the hardships of other groups, such as AsianCrit (Asian), FemCrit (Women), LatCrit (Latino), TribalCrit (American Indian), and WhiteCrit (White). His theories were based on the following propositions:
''1) racism is ordinary, not aberrational.''
''2) white-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material, for the dominant group.''
''3) ("social construction" thesis) race and races are products of social thought and relations.''
''4) dominant society racializes different minority groups at different times, in response to shifting needs such as the labor market.''
''5) "intersectionality
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...
and anti-essentialism
Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle sim ...
" thesis. No person has a single, easily stated, unitary identity. Everyone has potentially conflicting, overlapping identities, loyalties, and allegiances. For example, a person who has parents with different religious views, political views, ethnicity, etc.''
''6) ("voice-of-color" thesis) because of different histories and experiences to those of white counterparts, matters that the white people are unlikely to know must be communicated to them by the racialized minorities.''
CRT has also led to the study of microaggression
Microaggression is a term used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized group ...
s, paradigmatic kinship, the historical origins and shifting paradigmatic vision of CRT, and how in-depth legal studies show law serves the interests of the powerful groups in society. Microaggressions are subtle insults (verbal, nonverbal, and/or visual) directed toward people of color, often automatically or unconsciously.
For instance, in ''The Constitutional Contradiction,'' Bell argued that the framers of the Constitution chose the rewards of property over justice. With regard to the interest convergence, he maintains that "whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest." Finally, in ''The Price of Racial Remedies,'' Bell argues that whites will not support civil rights policies that may threaten white social status. Similar themes can be found in another well-known piece entitled, "Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory?" from 1995.
His 2002 book, ''Ethical Ambition'', encourages a life of ethical behavior, including "a good job well done, giving credit to others, standing up for what you believe in, voluntarily returning lost valuables, choosing what feels right over what might feel good right now".
Legal Doctrine
Along with Bell's contributions to critical race theory, in his early articles, he exhibited multiple analyses' of legal doctrine
A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, Procedural law, procedural steps, or Test (law), test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. A doctrine comes about w ...
. He discussed the legal doctrine through his outsider narrative scholarship. He would conclude that the rule of law "sought to convey an objectivity that may exist in theory but is impossible in the real world". In his narrative stories, he would create hypothetical legal doctrines that put forth the idea that racism is a permanent neutral principle. In doing so, he called “the nation to repent”, rather than having policymakers listen to him or change policies. His deconstructionist legal doctrine would include an “interest-convergence thesis” which assumed that the U.S. legal system would adapt legal doctrines meant to remedy black injustices only when the doctrine would further benefit the interests of whites. In his doctrine, he also critiqued ''Brown V. Board'' and titled it the “Revisionist Brown Option” which was his alternative answer that ''Brown'' should have said in the court case. His doctrine also consisted of the concept “racial fortuitous corollary” and “racial preference licensing act”.
Literary Works
Bell also wrote science fiction short stories, including "The Space Traders "The Space Traders" is a science fiction short story by Derrick Bell. It was originally published in 1992 in the year of the Columbus Quincentenary, and republished in the year of its setting in the 2000 edition of ''Dark Matter (series), Dark Matte ...
", a story in which white Americans trade black Americans to space aliens
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...
in order to pay off the national debt and receive advanced technology such as environmental decontaminants and alternatives to fossil fuels. His story maintained that whites act to protect their own white self-interest. Bell explained " t'sbetter orisk the unknown in space than face the certainty of racial discrimination here at home." The story was adapted for television in 1994 by director Reginald Hudlin
Reginald Alan Hudlin (born December 15, 1961) is an American film screenwriter, director, producer, and comic-book writer. Along with his older brother Warrington Hudlin, he is known as one of the Hudlin Brothers. From 2005 to 2008, Hudlin was P ...
and writer Trey Ellis
Trey Ellis (born 1962) is an American novelist, screenwriter, professor, playwright, and essayist.
He was born in Washington D.C. and graduated from Hopkins School and Phillips Academy, Andover, where he studied under Alexander Theroux before at ...
. It aired on HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
as the leading segment of a three-part anthology entitled, ''Cosmic Slop'', which focused on Black science fiction. In 1970, Bell published "Race, Racism, and American Law" which would pioneer the unifying civil-rights themes that became prominent throughout American history. It contained the idea that racial progress would be achieved only when it aligned with white people's interests. Along with this, in 1992, Bell published a collection of short stories named "Faces at the Bottom of the Well", which highlighted a radical vision of the persistence of racism in American society.
Death
On October 5, 2011, Bell died at the age of 80 from carcinoid
A carcinoid (also carcinoid tumor) is a slow-growing type of neuroendocrine tumor originating in the cells of the neuroendocrine system. In some cases, metastasis may occur. Carcinoid tumors of the midgut (jejunum, ileum, appendix, and cecum) ...
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. " At the time, the Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
reported: "The dean at NYU, Richard Revesz
Richard L. Revesz (born May 9, 1958) is an American lawyer and academic. He is the director of the American Law Institute and the Lawrence King Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. He served as the Dean of the New York Univer ...
, said, 'For more than 20 years, the law school community has been profoundly shaped by Derrick's unwavering passion for civil rights and community justice, and his leadership as a scholar, teacher, and activist.'" He loved his students in a compassionate and encouraging way – he even taught the week before his death.
Bell has been memorialized at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law
The University of Pittsburgh School of Law (Pitt Law) was founded in 1895. It became a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools in 1900. Its primary home facility is the Barco Law Building. The school offers four degrees: Master ...
with the Derrick A. Bell Constitutional Law Commons which was opened on March 20, 2013, in the school's Barco Law Library. Bell was also honored with the renaming of the school's community law clinic that provides legal assistance to local low-income residents to the Derrick Bell Community Legal Clinic. Two fellowship positions within the school are also named for Bell. There continues to be lectures regarding Bell's teachings and concepts at NYU Law School, and Harvard Law School. They discuss Bell's teachings of racism in America and explore the future of race relations and racial justice in the United States. Many have connected his teachings to the police brutality and Black Lives Matters movements in 2020 and 2021.[The Derrick Bell Lecture on race in American Society celebrates 25 years. The Derrick Bell Lecture on Race in American Society celebrates 25 years , NYU School of Law. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.law.nyu.edu/news/derrick-bell-lecture-25-anniversary-jasmine-gonzales-rose]
Selected bibliography
* ''Race, Racism and American Law'' (1973, Little Brown & Co.; 6th ed., 2008)
* ''And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice'' (1987)
* ''Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism'' (1992)
* ''Confronting Authority: Reflections of an Ardent Protestor'' (Beacon Press, 1994)
* ''Gospel Choirs: Psalms of Survival in an Alien Land Called Home'' (1996)
* ''Constitutional Conflicts'' (Anderson Press, 1997)
* ''Afrolantica Legacies'' (Third World Press, 1998)
* ''Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth'' (Bloomsbury, 2002)
* ''Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform'' (Oxford University Press, 2004)
References
External links
Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Papers
New York University Archives
Derrick Bell's oral history video excerpts
at The National Visionary Leadership Project
"The HistoryMakers Biography"
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Derrick
20th-century American lawyers
African-American lawyers
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American legal scholars
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Critical race theory
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1930 births
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