Mosk on Mosk and civil rights in California

Within the last few months, the following occurred: Police shootings raised the issue of de facto segregated residential areas; the president awarded Charles Sifford, the first black golfer to be allowed to play in the Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) tournaments, the Presidential Medal of Freedom; and a major motion picture was released concerning a march of Rev. Martin Luther King, for voting rights. These events obviously have in common the issue of race in America. But there is one other common element: My father, Justice Stanley Mosk, over a half-century ago was a trailblazer in the struggle in all three areas - housing, sports and Dr. King's marches.

First, in 1947, Superior Court Judge Stanley Mosk heard the case of Wright v. Drye. Frank Drye, a black World War I and World War II veteran with a Purple Heart and Silver Star, moved with his family to Los Angeles and bought a house near Hancock Park. The deed contained a racial restrictive covenant. After they moved in, neighbors, including the pastor of the nearby Presbyterian church, sued to enforce the covenant and evict the Drye family. Drye demurred.

At that time, both California and U.S. Supreme Court authority authorized enforcement of the covenant, but a young Judge Mosk sustained the demurrer without leave to amend. He ignored the precedent without discussion, and concluded that enforcement of the covenant was unconstitutional. He said, "Our nation has just fought the Nazi race superiority doctrine. One of these defendants was in that war and is a Purple Heart veteran. This court would indeed be callous if it were to permit him to be ousted from his own home by using 'race' as a measure of his worth as a citizen and neighbor .... This court feels there is no more reprehensible un-American activity than to attempt to deprive persons of their own houses on a 'master race' theory."

This occurred a year before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Shelley v. Kraemer, holding the enforcement of racial restrictive covenants unconstitutional. A few years ago, Frank Drye's son, a respected Los Angeles educator, successfully urged that a new elementary school be named after Stanley Mosk.

Second, in 1959, Attorney General Mosk was introduced to a black golfer, Charles Sifford, who said he was not allowed to play in tournaments sponsored by the PGA or become a member of the PGA because of a Caucasian-only clause in its constitution. The attorney general threatened the PGA with a lawsuit, and when the PGA said it would hold its tournaments in other states, he notified the attorneys general of other states. Finally, the PGA capitulated and repealed its Caucasian-only clause. Sifford wrote in his autobiography that "Stanley accomplished something no hot putter or public image could ever do. He threatened the PGA, and as the fifties drew to a close, some mighty thick walls began to come tumbling down, with me at the epicenter of what would be golf's biggest earthquake." A few years later, Sifford won the Los Angeles Open.

Third, in what was related to me by a reliable source, one day early in 1964, Attorney General Robert Kennedy called Attorney General Mosk and said that "Martin [Luther King] is headed out there in hopes of raising money to keep the Movement going. He's broke and desperate. I'm hoping you can tap some of your circle and raise some funds." Mosk called an industrialist friend, who held a dinner for Dr. King. A six-figure sum was raised, and that helped keep Dr. King's marches to be held.

My father was in the forefront of the civil rights movement. He established a Civil Rights division in the state Department of Justice; fought for Latino voting rights in the Imperial Valley; ruled that schools could consider race in efforts to desegregate schools; worked to end discrimination in housing, lending and public accommodations; sought to educate law enforcement on minority issues; supported the extension of the jurisdiction of the California Fair Employment Practices Commission; and hired minorities and women into the state Department of Justice.

After a long and sordid history of racial discrimination in the state, California emerged as a leader in state and judicial action to combat it. And Stanley Mosk was an important figure in that battle.

Richard M. Mosk is an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal.