Lucas Powe Jr.

My specialty is the United States Supreme Court.

The president of the United States.

He proposes a plan to add new justices to the court.

What is my proposal?

He was going to point yes-men to the court, and there's a cartoon of that era that shows you a jury box with everyone is filled with an image of FDR voting aye.

This is Dano from Phoenix, Arizona, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR.

It's just chaos in the Little Rock schools, and it's impossible for the students to attend.

The 60s are a time of incredible ferment because African-Americans in the South are starting to demand the rights that the Constitution gave them a century earlier.

And the South is fighting to maintain white supremacy.

Well, it's just not the things we're used to down here.

I mean, I wasn't raised with them.

Something that Kennedy might not have been able to get past, but Johnson is able to get past.

So what you have is a nationalization of criminal procedure forcing a number of states, all the southern states, but a number of northern states to change the way that they do business.