Only hours earlier, I had stood in the glorious spray of Victoria Falls, the largest waterfall on the planet. It took my breath away.

But there are natural wonders, and human wonders, and it is not unfair to put Damon Keith on the latter level. In fact, given that Mother Nature didn’t have to deal with all that Judge Keith did in his 96 years, he might even get the edge. Rarely has a man stood for so much good, for so many others, for so long.

He died Sunday morning. For those who knew him, it was a crushing piece of news. Within hours, there were already long tributes to what Judge Keith did as a lawyer, a district judge and a federal judge, his landmark cases on housing and job discrimination that literally changed the nation, the staredowns of a President (Nixon) and an Attorney General (John Ashcroft), both of which Judge Keith won, not because he was better or stronger, but because he was right, and just, and true.

You can review his many decisions on countless online sites. Watch a fine documentary about his memories. You can read a biography about his early life in Detroit, as the son of a $5-a-day autoworker who told him “I never want to see you have to work in a factory like I do”, and his time in World War II, when black soldiers defended their country and their dignity. You can study his special friendship with Thurgood Marshall, who mentored Keith and famously called in a huff after Keith was considering foregoing a federal bench appointment to continue his important district court work in our area.

“Don’t be crazy, Damon … if this job is offered to you, you take it!” Marshall screamed. “You hear me?”

And he hung up.

Judge Keith took the job. And made history. Even as late as three years ago, when he was in his early 90s, he was still fighting what he perceived as injustice, writing a scorching dissent on an Ohio case about restricting early and absentee voting. He accused his colleagues of ignoring African-American voters and those who died in the long battle for voting rights.

The written word on Judge Keith is vast, deep and well-chronicled, befitting a legal icon. But those who knew him personally can tell you something else.

I was lucky.

I was one of them.

Battling hate

So I can tell you the sheer pleasure of going to the Judge’s chambers on the second floor of the Federal Building on Lafayette Street, and getting to sit at his long wooden table for hours. And accompanying him on drives and appearances. And sitting by him amidst swarms of guests at his annual Soul Food Luncheon, as he grasped my shoulder and said “Hey! Have you met my doctor?”

For a man of such legal gravitas, he was as playful as a childhood friend, had a winking sense of humor, and an incredible way of batting back any compliments to the person who was offering them. He was the definition of hail-fellow-well-met, which is all the more remarkable because many people, over the years, hated him.

Not him personally. No one could hate Damon Keith. Even the lawyers who came before him knowing they were going against his track record were still treated with dignity, fairness and respect. Judge Keith insisted on it, because he had felt the other side.

He never forgot having to pick up the scraps from white lawyers, when the color of his skin denied him the chance to argue more weighty cases. He remembered having to work as a janitor at the Detroit News while he studied for his bar exam, and being told by a white newsman who saw him reading a law book in the bathroom, “A black lawyer? Better keep mopping.”

No one was treated badly by Judge Keith, because instead of saying “I will repay hate with hate,” he said, “the hate stops with me.” He almost never used that word, by the way, hate. He saw it as poison.

But others used it on him. When he made controversial decisions on busing to fight the educational imbalance of racism, buses were firebombed and his life was threatened. When he made decisions on housing discrimination in Hamtramck, he was vilified and told to leave things alone, this was the way it always worked, mind your damn business.

He felt hate, but he wouldn’t traffic in it. He’d seen enough of that, as a grandson of slaves, as a witness to both the 1942 and 1967 race riots in Detroit, as a college student who had to switch to the “colored car” on the train down to school in West Virginia, even as a respected federal judge, nearly 70 years old, who came out of a hotel conference on the Constitution’s bicentennial and was told by a white man who drove up to the hotel entrance, “Boy, park my car.”

If that won’t make you hate, nothing will.

Opening doors

But to be with Damon Keith was love, and kindness, and curiosity about how you were doing. He would give you a peck on the cheek, hold your hand while you spoke, he made you feel like he had cleared his entire schedule just to have five minutes of small talk with you, and maybe share a story he had shared 10 times already.

Ask any one of his seemingly countless former law clerks, from the famous names like Jennifer Granholm and Lani Guinier, to the scores of lesser-known but equally devoted lawyers and judges and advocates who called him and wrote him and thanked him every time they made contact, thanked him for being such an inspiration and mentor. Damon Keith gave women and young people of color chances when they weren’t getting chances, he gave guidance when there was no one else offering it. He often said, “You’re walking floors you didn’t scrub and going through doors you didn’t open. You need to scrub floors and open them for those who come after you.”

He ought to know. He literally scrubbed floors. And opened doors. And, perhaps most remarkably, was never bitter.

I used to ask him about his World War II military service, in the segregated Army, where his battalion was 200 black soldiers and four white officers. In the quartermasters corps, he drove a medical truck collecting wounded soldiers. One winter, in France, two of the wounded died en route, and Damon Keith had to stop, dig their graves and bury them in the ground, two fallen white soldiers being buried by a black man who wasn’t allowed to fight alongside them. He thought about that scene many times over the years. It was the kind of thing he spoke to God about.

And he did speak to God. Or at least pray to him. Every day. His desk always had an open Bible on it, and sometimes when we visited he would start by saying, “You know, I was just reading this in Psalms …”

Memory will live on

I don’t know what they’ll do with Judge Keith’s office. It is a landmark. Everyone talks about it. There are countless pictures lining the hallways, of the Judge with virtually every major name you can think of in the second half of the 20th century. Presidents. Entertainers. Sports figures. The New York Times, in their online obituary, used a photo of Judge Keith sitting next to Oprah Winfrey at Rosa Parks’ funeral. Talk about connected.

And, yes, he was dear friends with Rosa Parks, and protected her over the years, and drove her out to the airport to meet Nelson Mandela in 1990. Mandela is a name worth mentioning, because just days ago, I was in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the famed Apartheid Museum, and the injustices you see that were done to black Africans, and the patient but victorious battle waged by Mandela, is not dissimilar to the degradation black Americans suffered over the years in our country, and the patient fight Damon Keith waged to right those wrongs.

Mandela inspired from a prison cell.

Damon Keith did it behind a bench.

All told, he put in nearly 70 years in the legal profession, more than 50 of those as a judge. President Lyndon Johnson appointed him to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District. Jimmy Carter put him on the federal appeals court. In another political world, it is quite likely Damon Keith would have made it to the Supreme Court.

But he didn’t need a Supreme robe to be effective. The Times called him, “a fountainhead of regional rulings with national implications.” He would have liked that. And it’s true. The decisions he handed down right here in Detroit, on workplace discrimination, police forces, housing and education, undeniably changed the path of civil rights in this country.

And the decisions he made on presidential abuses of power protected the rights of us all.

One in a lifetime

And yet I will end this by telling you he never spoke more passionately about any subject than when talking about his wife. Her maiden name was Rachel Boone, a brilliant doctor, and whenever he recalled a conversation between them, it was always, “Now, darling, I want you to be sure …” or “Darling, I’m calling to say good night …”

They were married for more than 50 years, and he acted like a smitten teenager the entire time. He could still remember what meal he was telling her about the last night of her life, and the call he got in chambers with the news of her death. Not once in the many times he talked to me about Rachel did he not tear up, and have to dab his eyes with a tissue.

Damon Keith knew love.

And he gave it, right to the end. He is survived by his three daughters and two granddaughters, of which he was eminently proud. But his extended “family” was much larger than that. He was a like a boulder thrown into still waters: the ripples of his existence went a long ways, and the amount of people who will pay tribute in the coming days may stun you.

Not me. I was lucky enough to call him a friend, and blessed to be able to work with him, eat with him, laugh with him, and take his hand in mine. He used to talk about different jobs I had and exclaim in that high-pitched voice, “Mitch, I don’t know how you do it!” But of course, that’s the sentence meant for him. And it is heartbreaking to think we won’t get to see him do it anymore.

Tomorrow, if I want, I could go see a natural wonder of the world a second time. But the wonder of the world that was Damon Keith has finally left us, to approach a higher bench. We will not see his likes again.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Download “The Sports Reporters” podcast each Monday and Thursday on-demand through Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify and more. Follow him on Twitter @mitchalbom.

Oct 13 – 15:  Wichita, KS – Tallgrass Film Festival  |  Get Tickets

Oct 15:  Louisville, KY – The Louisville Festival of Film  |  Get Tickets

Oct 15:  Royal Oak, MI – The Royal Starr Film Festival  | Get Tickets

Oct 25:  Cambridge, United Kingdom – The Cambridge Film Festival  |  Get Tickets

Nov 3:  Lansing, MI – The East Lansing Film Festival  |  Get Tickets

Nov 4 -6:  Denver, CO -The Denver Film Festival  |  Get Tickets 

Nov 12:  Dallas, TX – The Lone Star Film Festival  |  Get Tickets

Nov 12 & 14:  Cedar City, UT – The Red Rock of Zion Film Festival  |  Get Tickets

Thursday, October 6 – Baltimore, MD at The Charles Theater
5:00pm w/ Q&A Baltimore Int’l Black Film Festival

I tried a music career. I failed. I moved to New York City, studied piano, wrote songs, knocked on the doors of record companies and cobbled together this band or that band, playing in dingy nightclubs, hoping for a break.

In the end, it wasn’t meant to be. My love of music was overwhelming, but my opportunities were not. While working nights as a pianist in a dive bar, I volunteered for a day job at a weekly newspaper.

And my path was changed forever.

Since then, I have rarely written about music. Thousands of columns, assorted magazine pieces, a dozen books, yet I barely touched the subject. I’m not sure why. A therapist might have an idea.

But oddly enough, as I dove deeper into journalism and novels, I made many musical friends. They often wanted to talk about my job, just as I wanted to talk about theirs.

Things evolve. On Nov. 8, at the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit, a number of those friends will join me in a charity event that finally brings together my two worlds.

Thirty some years after they split apart.

An incredible marquee

Rock legend Ted Nugent will be there. As will singer Michael Bolton, jazz great Earl Klugh, young star Sawyer Fredericks (latest winner of “The Voice”), R&B great Kem, Roger McGuinn (founder of the Byrds), guitarist John Pizzarelli, Phredley Brown (Bruno Mars’ musical director and Detroit’s own), rocker Brent James, singer Olivia Millerschin, guitarist Vito Lafata and others. They will play, sing and talk about the unique passion of music.

We also will be joined by Grosse Pointe Woods native J.K. Simmons, the Oscar-winning actor from “Whiplash,” one of the most intense movies about music ever made.

The purpose of the night is to help our needy citizens, and every cent of profit will support the efforts of S.A.Y. Detroit, which I found almost 10 years ago and which this week reopens a long-closed rec center at Lipke Park as an academic and athletic jewel for our kids.

But the evening itself will be draped in music — and storytelling. After a lifetime of avoiding the subject, I’ve finally written a novel that says everything I’ve always wanted to say about my first love. I began with the idea of a magical guitar player who was so gifted he could change people’s lives with his playing.

Nearly 500 pages later, I stopped.

The book is “The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto,” to be released Nov. 10 by Harper, and it follows its hero along a Forest Gump-like journey through 20th-Century music. He’s an orphan, he gets sent to America in the bottom of a boat, he becomes an Elvis-like star, then disappears for decades until he dies on stage, mysteriously.

I got so into the project that I asked real musicians to be a part of the fictional story. They agreed, and voices from Burt Bacharach to Darlene Love to Paul Stanley from Kiss are on the pages, sharing “memories” of Frankie Presto.

Some of those voices — including Pizzarelli’s and McGuinn’s — will be there on Nov. 8, meaning fantasy and reality will have guitars around their necks.

And a few new musical dreams may be kindled.

A celebration for Detroit

You see, the money raised will go in part to the Lipke Park renewal, where S.A.Y. Detroit invited the charity Notes for Notes to build a state-of-the-art recording studio inside the rec center, located in one of Detroit’s most challenged neighborhoods.

It is my hope that studio launches the dreams of future musicians. If I’d had a place like that as a kid, who knows how far I might have gone?

One of the themes of “Frankie Presto” is that “everyone joins a band in this life.” Every family, workplace, school or peer group is a band. So is being a Detroiter. The homegrown talent on the Fox stage Nov. 8 (Nugent, Klugh, Kem, Brown, Simmons and several others) know that. It’s part of why they’re coming.

I hope you’ll join us (see the ticket information below). Everyone who attends will get an autographed book and, even better, will be treated to a unique night of hearing why musicians do what they do. We’ve done these nights before (with Ernie Harwell, Judge Damon Keith, others) and they are always memorable.

It’s funny. In composing, there is a term called “da capo” that tells you to go “back to the beginning.” Nov. 8 will feel a bit like that. Perhaps this life has been more musical than I thought.

Tickets for “An Evening With Mitch Albom & Friends,” 7 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Fox Theatre, are $50, include an autographed book and are available at ticketmaster.com, olympiaentertainment.com, Fox Theatre, Joe Louis Arena, Hockeytown Authentics and 800-745-3000. More info, Page 16C.

The soon-to-be 93-year-old Keith, a prominent federal judge, was the subject of a documentary called “Walk with Me: The Trials of Damon J. Keith” directed by filmmaker Jesse Nesser.

All ticket proceeds from the event benefited S.A.Y. Detroit, founded in 2006 by author Mitch Albom, who served as one of the film’s executive producers…for more about the event and photos, please continue reading on saydetroit.org.

Followed by a talkback with Judge Keith Jesse Nesser and Mitch Albom

All Proceeds Benefit S.A.Y. Detroit

$25, TICKETS ON SALE NOW
www.dso.org | 313-576-5111

From director Jesse Nesser and executive producers Mitch Albom, Cynthia & Edsel Ford, Faye Nelson, and Frank Fountain

Walk With Me tells the story of ten extraordinary years, four unprecedented cases, and one unconventional federal Judge, who forever changed civil rights in the U.S. In the wake of the 1967 Detroit race riots, rookie African American Judge Damon J. Keith caused controversy by rooting out hidden discriminatory practices that had been woven into our housing, school, work, and police institutions. Believing that the law could and should be used to pursue social change and racial equality, Keith shook the nation as he challenged the status quo and faced off against angry crowds, the KKK, and even a sitting U.S. President. Visit www.thedkdoc.com for more info.

Presenting Sponsors: Ford, DTE Energy Foundation

Charity Partner: SAY Detroit

Media Partners: Detroit Free Press, WJR, B.L.A.C, The Detroit News, The Michigan Chronicle, Local 4 Click on Detroit

]]> https://www.mitchalbom.com/jude-damon-keith-docu-premieres-june-in-detroit/feed/ 0 https://www.mitchalbom.com/thief-asks-his-victim-judge-damon-keith-for-forgiveness/ https://www.mitchalbom.com/thief-asks-his-victim-judge-damon-keith-for-forgiveness/#respond Mon, 23 Dec 2013 12:37:35 +0000 http://mitchalbom.com/dev.mitchalbom.com/thief-asks-his-victim-judge-damon-keith-for-forgiveness/

President Barack Obama said, “He no longer belongs to us — he belongs to the ages.”

Singer Paul Simon wrote on Facebook, “His passing should reignite a worldwide effort for peace.”

This is the kind of praise reserved for larger-than-life leaders. Yet even as I shared in the sadness of Mandela’s passing, I kept wondering where the next such leader would come from.

Or if he or she ever would.

When you hear the phrase, “They don’t make them like that anymore,” it usually refers to cars or houses. But it could easily apply to world figures. In fact, you could argue that Mandela is the last of the almost-universally adored figureheads.

Who else is there? Most political powerhouses are hated more than loved. No religious leader commands universal reverence (the pope may be closest, but that is more the position than the man). Even the handful of business tycoons who try to be bigger-than-life altruistic — Bill Gates, Warren Buffett — can’t escape the initial reaction of, “Well, yeah, if I had that kind of money, I’d be altruistic, too.”

From prison to the presidency

So what was it about Mandela that stirred us so? It wasn’t his political legacy. He served only five years as South Africa’s president. And it wasn’t geography. How many of the people mourning him ever have set foot in Mandela’s home country?

I think it begins with suffering. Most universally revered figures have endured something and risen above it, which gives their followers hope. In Mandela’s case, he paid an enormous price for a worldwide platform: He sat in a prison cell for 27 years.

During that time, he became a symbol as much as a person. When he finally was released in 1990, after enormous external pressure, he stepped into the sunlight — as well as into a mold. The mold was part-victim, part-martyr, part-media curiosity and a big part symbol of humanity in the face of injustice.

The last was where Mandela made his mark.

He could have been bitter, angry, cynical or bombastic. Instead, he diffused situations with handshakes and an engaging smile. He spoke eloquently. Even in a tense debate with Frederik Willem de Klerk, then the president of South Africa, Mandela brought down his rival with words, at one point declaring, “Even a discredited, illegitimate, minority regime must observe certain moral standards.”

He wasn’t a politician fighting to pass a tax bill. He was a freed man fighting for his people’s freedom.

His legend grew.

Bridging the great divide

By the way, this doesn’t mean that Mandela lacked critics. He had them, including those who said he was a Marxist and who decried his early embrace of violence for the cause (which he later eschewed).

But even Mother Teresa had critics. And her death, in 1997, may have been the last time an international figure received this sort of worldwide emotional send-off.

That’s pretty lofty company.

So who is the next leader of this status? I can’t think of one. We’re too divided now. Obama was seen, on his election night, as a symbol of high hopes, but that honeymoon didn’t last very long. Today, he is mired in the same political sludge as his predecessors.

What man or woman could unite left and right? Could inspire Christian, Muslim, Jew and Hindu?

I asked Judge Damon Keith — who in 1990 introduced Mandela to a cheering Tiger Stadium crowd — why the man was so singular in adoration.

“It’s something about the suffering and majesty of his 27 years of imprisonment,” Keith said. “The way that he handled that type of injustice for a cause and for his people.”

The world today has no shortage of injustice. But it still seems unlikely that we will soon have any more Mandelas. The Internet and worldwide media have changed the equation. Anyone who gets too big is brought down by some hidden camera, or prying reporter or vicious blogger. It is worth noting that Mandela spent about a third of his adult life out of public view.

Maybe that’s the safest way to do it in modern times.

“God has a way of developing leaders,” Keith suggested.

Maybe so. This is clear: If you uplift people with hope, you will be elevated yourself. Mandela achieved lofty status. But he died as high above our heads as this generation may ever lift anyone again.

While Mitch and Judge Damon J. Keith hosted some of the best and brightest of Detroit on stage at the Fox Theatre on November 11, Mitch’s webmaster–Brenda–shared live highlights on Mitch’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. We’ll be sharing more videos and photos soon from the event (the official, glossy kind), please enjoy the highlights below: