Word: bells
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...accounts, Jimmy Carter knew there would be some hot reaction to his nomination of an old Georgia chum and political confidant, former Federal Judge Griffin Bell, as Attorney General. The transition team at the Justice Department had sent a memo to Plains warning of a storm of protests. They were right-and the storm went beyond black leaders' upset about Bell's mixed record on civil rights during his 14 years on the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Editorial outrage ran the political gamut. The New York Times's James Reston blasted the nomination...
...Bell, a Georgia country boy who made good, received his judgeship after helping to run John Kennedy's campaign in Georgia in 1960. By most reckonings, Bell's record in civil rights cases was generally good, at least in Deep South terms. But parts of that record have long rankled rights leaders...
...Bell has opposed court decisions calling for busing to achieve school desegregation...
...Bell did not help his cause-or Carter's-with his fumbling response to newsmen's questions after his nomination. He insisted that when he endorsed Carswell, he was not aware that Carswell had once made a strongly pro-segregationist speech. Yet the speech was widely reported at the time, as he later conceded. He also waffled when questioned about his membership in two Atlanta clubs-the Capital City Club and the Piedmont Driving Club-that have not admitted blacks or Jews as members. Bell announced that he would quit the clubs only after Carter had made...
...Bell's record contains several pluses. His rulings have been pro-civil rights in employment practices and voting cases. In the 1960s, Bell was a pioneer in urging that Southern courts call more blacks for jury duty ("If you don't get any Negroes on the jury panel, the system is wrong...