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History & Hope: Lawyer during civil rights movement sees improvement in fight for Black rights

History & Hope: Lawyer during civil rights movement sees improvement in fight for Black rights
TRE: WE ARE BACK AT YOUR HUMBLE BEGINNINGS? LARRY: RIGHT IN MY HOOD. TRE: TALK ABOUT GROWING UP IN THIS AREA. LARRY: MY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IS ONE BLOCK AWAY. TWO BLOCKS AWAY IS FULTON AVENUE WHERE I GREW UP THROUGH MY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YEARS. TRE: WHAT DID THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT LOOK LIKE? WAS THERE AN UPRISING, MASS PROTESTS? LARRY: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT UPRISING BEGAN IN EARNEST ABOUT THE TIME THAT I WENT TO COLLEGE. I DELIGHTED IN COMING BACK TO BALTIMORE TO DEMONSTRATE AND SIT IN IN RESTAURANTS. TRE: AND IN 1967, LARRY S GIBSON EARNED HIS LAW DEGREE FROM COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN NEW YORK, ONE YEAR BEFORE AN AMERICA TRAGEDY CHANGED HIS PLANS. >> DURING THAT YEAR MARTIN LUTHER KING WAS ASSASSINATED. PEOPLE REACT IN MANY WAYS TO THE ASSASSINATION OF MARTIN LUTHER KING. SOME PEOPLE LEFT THE COUNTRY. OTHERS JOINED OTHER ORGANIZATIONS. MY PRINCIPAL ONE WAS "I’M NOT GOING TO WORK FOR THE MAN." WHAT IS THE LARGEST BLACK LAW FIRM IN TOWN? TRE: IN THE WAKE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ONE CASE BROUGHT YOU BACK HERE TO WHERE WE ARE SITTING AT. EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED. LARRY: I GUESS THE POLICE JUST GOT TIRED OF THIS EMBARRASSING DEMONSTRATION. THEY CAME ACROSS THE STREET TOWARD THE DEMONSTRATORS, TOLD THEM TO LEAVE, AND WHEN THEY DIDN’T, THEY ARRESTED THEM. THEY WERE CHARGED WITH, THE LEADERS WERE, WITH INCITING A RIOT. A CAMERA MAN CALLED ME. HE WAS THEN LIVING IN PHILADELPHIA. HE SAID, "MR. GIBSON, I’VE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS TRIAL AND WHAT THE POLICE OFFICERS ARE SAYING HAPPENED IS NOT TRUE. I WAS THERE, BUT ALSO I FILMED IT." TRE: THE FOOTAGE, VINDICATING THE DEMONSTRATORS IN 197 DECADES BEFORE CELL PHONE VIDEO. LARRY: FREDDIE GRAY, AFTER HE HAD BEEN ARRESTED, SHOULD’VE BEEN BROUGHT RIGHT DOWN TO THIS STREET HERE, RIGHT DOWN MOUNT STREET TO THIS STATION, IF HE WAS GOING TO BE ARRESTED AT ALL. TRE: WOULD CAPTURE MULTIPLE ARRESTS REVEALING AN APPARENT INJUSTICE, SPARKING A NATIONWIDE MOVEMENT. KNOWING YOUR HISTORY IN A LOT OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS, WHAT IS GOING THROUGH YOUR HEAD WHEN YOU SEE THE UPRISING? WHEN YOU ARE SEEING THE FILM? WHEN YOU ARE SEEING POLICE OFFICERS, IN MANY OF THE CASES, NOT CONVICTED? LARRY: THINGS ARE CHANGING, AND THEY ARE PROBABLY CHANGING POSITIVELY. THERE WERE MANY DEMONSTRATIONS WHERE THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE WERE NOT AFRICAN-AMERICAN. THERE WERE DEMONSTRATIONS AROUND THE WORLD. AND MORE AND MORE AMERICANS ARE UNDERSTANDING THAT IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO JUST INDIVIDUALLY NO DISCRIMINATE, BUT THAT THE NECESSITY THAT THEY GET INVOLVED IN DEALING AND ADDRESSING THE ISSUES OF THE SYSTEMIC RACIA ISSUES. IMPROVEMENTS ARE OCCURRING. THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER, BUT WE STILL HAVE A WAYS TO
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History & Hope: Lawyer during civil rights movement sees improvement in fight for Black rights
This month, Hearst Television is celebrating Black history by having courageous conversations. The fight for civil rights and justice goes back generations and has looked different each decade. We’re speaking with community leaders, elders – those who have lived through victories and troubled times, to talk about their experiences, and compare them with what we still struggle with today.From Baltimore to the White House, Larry Gibson overcame poverty and segregation to become a lawyer, who, in the wake of the civil rights movement, helped to free a group of falsely accused protesters. It was film that revealed the truth about what happened decades before cellphone video would become the catalyst to today's movement."The civil rights movement uprising began in earnest about the time that I went to college with the city movements. I delighted in coming back to Baltimore to demonstrate the sit-in in restaurants," Gibson said in an interview with Tre Ward, a reporter with sister station WBAL-TV. In 1967, Gibson earned his law degree from Columbia University in New York, one year before an American tragedy changed his plans."During that year, Martin Luther King was assassinated. People reacted many ways to the assassination of Martin Luther King. Some people left the country. Some other people joined various kinds of organizations," Gibson said. "My principle was, 'I'm not going to work for the man! What's the largest Black law firm in town?'"One particular case brought Gibson back to Baltimore, where he grew up."I guess the police just got tired of this embarrassing demonstration. They came across the street toward the demonstrators, said leave and when they didn't, they arrested them. They were charged with, the leaders were, with inciting a riot," Gibson said. "A cameraman called me — he was then living in Philadelphia — he said, 'Mr. Gibson, I've been following this trial and what the police officers are saying happened is not true. I was there, but also, I filmed it.'" The video vindicated the demonstrators in 1970, decades before cellphone video would capture multiple arrests, sparking a nationwide movement. "Freddie Gray, after he had been arrested, should've been brought right down this street here, right down Mount Street to this station, if he was going to be arrested, at all," Gibson said.With his history in civil rights, Gibson shared what he thinks when he sees the recent uprising and police officers, in many of the cases, not convicted."Things are changing, and I think they are probably changing positively. There were many demonstrations where the overwhelming majority of the people were not African Americans. There were demonstrations around the world, inequities, and more and more Americans are understanding that it is not enough to just individually not discriminate, but that the necessity that they get involved in dealing and addressing the issues of the systemic racial issues. Improvements are occurring. Things are getting better, but we still have a ways to go," Gibson said.Gibson also served as associate deputy attorney general under the Carter administration. He's currently a law professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, where he once taught the late Rep. Elijah Cummings.

This month, Hearst Television is celebrating Black history by having courageous conversations. The fight for civil rights and justice goes back generations and has looked different each decade. We’re speaking with community leaders, elders – those who have lived through victories and troubled times, to talk about their experiences, and compare them with what we still struggle with today.

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From Baltimore to the White House, Larry Gibson overcame poverty and segregation to become a lawyer, who, in the wake of the civil rights movement, helped to free a group of falsely accused protesters.

It was film that revealed the truth about what happened decades before cellphone video would become the catalyst to today's movement.

"The civil rights movement uprising began in earnest about the time that I went to college with the city movements. I delighted in coming back to Baltimore to demonstrate the sit-in in restaurants," Gibson said in an interview with Tre Ward, a reporter with sister station WBAL-TV.

In 1967, Gibson earned his law degree from Columbia University in New York, one year before an American tragedy changed his plans.

"During that year, Martin Luther King was assassinated. People reacted many ways to the assassination of Martin Luther King. Some people left the country. Some other people joined various kinds of organizations," Gibson said. "My principle was, 'I'm not going to work for the man! What's the largest Black law firm in town?'"

One particular case brought Gibson back to Baltimore, where he grew up.

"I guess the police just got tired of this embarrassing demonstration. They came across the street toward the demonstrators, said leave and when they didn't, they arrested them. They were charged with, the leaders were, with inciting a riot," Gibson said. "A cameraman called me — he was then living in Philadelphia — he said, 'Mr. Gibson, I've been following this trial and what the police officers are saying happened is not true. I was there, but also, I filmed it.'"

The video vindicated the demonstrators in 1970, decades before cellphone video would capture multiple arrests, sparking a nationwide movement.

"Freddie Gray, after he had been arrested, should've been brought right down this street here, right down Mount Street to this station, if he was going to be arrested, at all," Gibson said.

With his history in civil rights, Gibson shared what he thinks when he sees the recent uprising and police officers, in many of the cases, not convicted.

"Things are changing, and I think they are probably changing positively. There were many demonstrations where the overwhelming majority of the people were not African Americans. There were demonstrations around the world, inequities, and more and more Americans are understanding that it is not enough to just individually not discriminate, but that the necessity that they get involved in dealing and addressing the issues of the systemic racial issues. Improvements are occurring. Things are getting better, but we still have a ways to go," Gibson said.

Gibson also served as associate deputy attorney general under the Carter administration. He's currently a law professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, where he once taught the late Rep. Elijah Cummings.