On the seventy-eighth anniversary of famed attorney Clarence Darrow’s death, this year’s annual Darrow symposium on Friday, March 13 explored contemporary activism on the issues of undocumented laborers and immigration. Darrow’s attitude is summarized by a quote from a 1929 debate on “Is Immigration Beneficial?” in which he said, “I am a foreigner; my people didn’t get here until about 1710. They got here, and now I am asked to close the doors to the people who came over on a later ship.”
As always, the commemoration kicked off with a brief ceremony and flower-tossing near the Darrow Bridge in Jackson Park at 10 a.m., where Darrow’s ashes were scattered after his death and where, as a bet, he once agreed his spirit would return if it turned out communication was possible from the afterworld.
We then moved into the Museum of Science and Industry’s Rosenwald Room for our symposium, which looked at immigration issues through the work of two passionate and outspoken advocates for the undocumented: Tania Unzueta Carrasco, an immigrant queer community organizer and writer who is known nationally for using direct action and civil disobedience to fight against deportations and harsh immigration enforcement practices and policy.
We also heard from Catholic Sister JoAnn Persch, co-founder with Sister Patricia Murphy of the Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants, which works in detention centers, a deportation center, the immigration court and the Post-Detention Accompaniment program.
The program also included a brief talk by high school junior Marissa Howe, winner of the Clarence Darrow History Award (which is sponsored by the Clarence Darrow Commemorative Committee) at the 2014 Chicago Metro History Fair.
Darrow, who died March 13, 1938, is remembered for his crusading role as “attorney for the damned” in such controversial cases as the Scopes Monkey Trial, the Leopold and Loeb murder case, and the pardoning of the Haymarket anarchists.