Snowed In
Morris planned on expanding the business and decided to start another
book series, called Above and Beyond, an aerospace Encyclopedia. But
now such a venture would require a trip to Chicago to find good writers.
In February of 1968, a snowstorm hit Chicago and Morris' plane was forced
to land in Cincinnati Ohio.
Learning that he would have to spend the night at the airport, Morris
went to get some food from the snack stand and reading material from
the newsstand. Clarence Darrow's The Story of My Life caught his eye.
By the end of the night, Morris was finished with the book.
"Before daylight, I finished Darrow's story of his life. It changed
mine forever. I was reading my own thoughts and feelings. Darrow wrote
that as a young boy, "not only could I put myself in the other person's
place, but I could not avoid doing so. My sympathies always went to
the weak, the suffering, and the poor. Realizing their sorrows, I tried
to relieve them in order that I might be relieved." (95)
"I remembered being mocked for writing the letter to the newspaper
after Emmett Till had been thrown in the Tallahatchie River. I remembered
the blank looks on the faces of the Sunday school assembly in Tuscaloosa
and the follow-up demotion contrived by Reverend Williams after I talked
about Autherine Lucy. And I remembered asking the Pike Road Baptist
Church to pray with me after the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing."
(95)
Clarence Darrow had left the corporate world with his position at the
Northwestern Railroad Company. He decided to take on cases that fought
for equality and dignity. He took on many capital cases and in all,
none of the defendants received the death penalty.
