BLACK HISTORY MONTH

PBS special spotlights federal Judge Damon Keith

Mekeisha Madden Toby / Detroit News Television Writer

A s a U.S. District Court judge, Damon J. Keith desegregated Pontiac schools and prevented then-President Nixon from engaging in warrantless wiretap surveillance.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed the Detroit native to a judgeship in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Keith's decision in Baker v. City of Detroit improved the city's municipal affirmative action practices.

Keith's ability to fairly and gracefully transform history is captured in the Ford Motor Co.-commissioned documentary "Judge Damon Keith: Equal Justice Under the Law," which will air Sunday night on WTVS-TV (Channel 56).

"I don't think I've done that much to have a documentary," says Keith, 84, humbly in an interview Wednesday in his downtown Detroit chambers. "God has been good to me, and I hope I've made the appropriate contributions as a lawyer, a judge and as a citizen."

Archival photos and rare historical footage boast Keith's accomplishments -- his countless awards and the schools and law collections named in his honor -- as do interviews with some of America's most influential social and political luminaries. The latter includes comedian and actor Bill Cosby, the late businessman and philanthropist Max M. Fisher, the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin and former Detroit Tiger Willie Horton. Keith acted as Horton's lawyer and guardian when the Tigers recruited the legendary left fielder out of high school.

"I'm humbled through God (that) he put a person like that in my life," Horton says.

Keith was born to Perry and Annie Keith on July 4, 1922, and is the youngest of six children. A 1939 graduate of Northwestern High School, Keith attended historically black West Virginia State College.

Upon graduation in 1943, Keith served in the Army for three years. He later obtained law degrees from Howard and Wayne State universities in 1949 and 1956, respectively. The recent widower has three daughters.

As a jurist, Keith is known for many landmark decisions; the most famous is United States v. Sinclair, also known as "The Keith Decision."

As a district judge in 1971, Keith ruled that Nixon and then-Attorney General John Mitchell could not engage in warrantless wiretaps because it violated the Fourth Amendment rights of three people suspected of domestic terrorism.

Educator and social activist Dorothy Height, who has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, speaks of Keith, a fellow NAACP Spingarn Medal recipient, the way many regard Keith's mentor, one-time U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the late Thurgood Marshall.

"When you think of the work that Judge Damon Keith has done, it is not for African Americans, it is for Americans," says Height, 94, in the film. "He's really helped to make this a better country."

Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whom Keith swore into office both terms, once worked as a law clerk in his office. "My life would be entirely different if I hadn't met Judge Keith," Granholm says in the documentary, her face brightening with reverence.

"I can only hope that when I grow up, I'll be a quarter of the person Judge Keith is."

You can reach Mekeisha Madden Toby at (313) 222-2501 or mmad den@detnews.com.