Revisiting the Start of the Civil Rights Movement | Guest: Civil Rights Attorney and Professor Brian Landsberg

Legal Tenzer: Casual Conversations on Noteworthy Legal Topics

In this episode...
I speak with McGeorge Law School Professor Emeritus Brian Landsberg. Professor Landsberg shares his experiences as an attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, beginning in the tumultuous 1960s. Our discussion offers an essential and enlightening history lesson for anyone interested in exploring the early roots of the Civil Rights movement. Professor Landsberg shares his unique perspective, gained first hand during the 1960s and 1970s.
About our guest...
Professor Emeritus Brian K. Landsberg began teaching at McGeorge in 1986 and has continued to teach since taking emeritus status. His teaching is grounded in his experience as an attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, beginning in the tumultuous 1960s. His career in the Civil Rights Division began with trial work to vindicate the right of African-Americans in Alabama to vote, notably including the case the recognized the right to march from Selma to Montgomery to protest racial discrimination in voter registration. That work also became the basis for his book Free at Last to Vote: The Alabama Origins of the Voting Rights Act. Professor Landsberg also worked on some of the first cases to desegregate public accommodations and on fair employment and fair housing cases. As Chief of the Education Section, he helped litigate the cases that transformed the schools of the Deep South from the most segregated to the most integrated schools in the nation by the mid-1970's. He then became Chief of the Appellate Section, arguing cases in United States Courts of Appeals throughout the country, as well as working on Supreme Court briefs in seminal civil rights cases.
Professor Landsberg's teaching has covered a wide range of public law and advocacy topics, including Constitutional Law, First Amendment Law, Federal Courts, Federal Anti-discrimination Law, Civil Rights Law, Critical Race Theory, Appellate Advocacy, as well as courses for students in advanced degree programs. He directed, for five years, the McGeorge program, financed by the United States Agency for International Development, to train Chinese law professors in experiential legal education methods such as clinical legal education and trial and appellate advocacy. That project culminated in the publication of several books in Chinese to guide Chinese law professors and students in these subjects.
Professor Landsberg has continued to promote civil rights, as Chair of the Amicus Committee of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national organizations of lawyers founded at the request of President Kennedy to provide legal representation on important issues of race discrimination. He is also Co-Chair of the Sacramento-Davis Chapter of J Street, a national pro-Israel, pro-peace organization.