Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium

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From the event sponsors: The Dallas Institute's sixth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium will consider one of the most crucial but often neglected aspects of the American Civil Rights Movement: the law. The Rev. King insisted from the beginning that the fundamental challenge of the movement was to make a necessary distinction between just and unjust laws. In his words, "a just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law." This distinction was repeatedly tested in the dangerous struggles of the 1950s and '60s, when activists willingly went to jail in defiance of segregation's unjust laws. But who worked behind the scenes to free them? Who fought the legal battles while protestors filled the streets and the jails? The story of resisting Jim Crow while fighting to institute just laws once and for all is rich, many-layered, and compelling. This year's symposium will feature Jeffrey Toobin, senior analyst for CNN, and Fred Gray, the veteran civil rights attorney that got his start during the Civil Rights Movement.