'The Bridge to Darrow' to mark 75 years since Darrow's death
CHICAGO—On the 75th anniversary of Clarence Darrow's death, this year's annual Darrow commemoration on Wed., March 13, seeks to build a bridge between Darrow's ideals and the social injustices of our own time. This year's program is titled "The Bridge to Darrow" with speakers Tom Geoghegan, Juan Perea and Anita Weinberg.
The day begins with a brief ceremony at the Darrow Bridge in Jackson Park at 10 a.m., where Darrow's ashes were scattered after his death and where, as a bet, he once agreed his spirit would return if it turned out communication was possible from the afterworld. For the past 56 years, through the annual commemoration ceremony and lecture, his spirit has returned—usually to remind us that his work is not yet done. This year's speakers will focus on the labor movement and on class and race issues—exploring where Darrow stood and where we are today.
After the ritual outdoor wreath-tossing ceremony, guests will move inside to the Museum of Science and Industry's New Columbia Room for a lecture and discussion.
Geoghegan is a partner at the law firm of Despres, Schwartz and Geoghegan. He has filed suits in a wide variety of public interest, labor and employment law cases, and successfully represented countless individuals who were discriminated against in the workplace due to their race, sex, disability, age or sexual orientation, and he has sued employers for violating sexual harassment laws and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Geoghegan is the author of a number of books including Which Side Are You On, an eloquent plea for the relevance of organized labor in America.
Perea is a professor of law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and is visiting at John Marshall Law School as the Distinguished Lee Chair in Constitutional Law. His teaching and writing focuses on race and race relations, constitutional law and employment law.
Weinberg—daughter of Darrow biographers Arthur and Lila Weinberg, and director of the ChildLaw Policy Institute at Loyola University Chicago School of Law—will set the stage with a brief look at the range of Darrow's ideals as they relate to current events. This winter the University of Chicago Press reissued Arthur Weinberg's bestselling book, Attorney for the Damned, on the 55th anniversary of its publication. The book is a compilation of Darrow's summations to juries in which he eloquently challenged society's injustices.
Darrow, who died March 13, 1938, is remembered for his crusading role as "attorney for the damned" in such controversial cases as the Scopes Monkey Trial, the Leopold and Loeb murder case, and the pardoning of the Haymarket anarchists.
Darrow's death was memorialized throughout the world. The Darrow Bridge, where his ashes (and later those of his wife Ruby and son Paul) were scattered, was dedicated to his memory by the Chicago Park District in 1957.
For more details see www.darrowbridge.org .
