(Introducing Bryan Case, candidate for the Travis County 167th District Court. We invite all candidates to post diaries and introduce themselves to our readers! - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
Formation of a Passion for Justice (Part 1 on Why I am running for 167th District Court)
My commitment to fairness and equal treatment for all our people is rooted in my family's values of legal and social justice. It was during my Junior High days in the piney woods of Rusk, Texas that I first remember taking a strong stand for principle-- when I first personally encountered the ugliness of racism and bigotry of which I had not been aware existed in the small, East Texas town. Seeing racism from afar does not prepare one for the personal and emotional close-up experience. My own budding awareness of right and wrong in the 7th grade led me to slap an "LBJ for the USA" sticker on my school notebook. It had never crossed my mind that this would prompt some of my friends to throw racial slurs my way. Too ridiculous to warrant reply, I thought.
After weeks of laughing at them, one morning waiting for the bell to ring near the end of recess three friends and I were together. One started it, then the next, and the next; the laughing taunt, then the taunt followed by a quick jump and retreat, with me turning toward each in turn. This incident ended with quick dispersal of the taunters upon the hardest blow a skinny sixth-grader could land on a kid's shoulder/chest. It is to this day the only time I have slugged someone with all my strength out of anger. Later, in the 8th grade with the first black kid in our classroom, these same 100 students nominated and elected me class president, and thereafter through the 12th grade. Seems as though my class wanted someone with principle, willing to risk exclusion and friendship in order to get us through the coming tumultuous years. Several Democratic Clubs have heard this little story, thinking it quite quaint, I imagine, but never really understanding its significance.
Now, the rest of it. My father was a pastor in the small community of St. Amant, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in the summer of 1955 when I was 3½ years old. Dad's family had all grown up about four miles from the small community of Caseyville, in western Lincoln County, Mississippi, 100 miles south of St. Amant.
(More below the jump.)
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