Open Letter to Cecile Keith Brown—Daughter of the Late, Great Civil Rights Icon and Appellate Judge Damon J. Keith (1922-2019)

*N.B.: Selected Readings & Notes— Ellis Washington, 1918-2018—100 Years of UnNatural Law Jurisprudence of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, 9  Faulkner Law Review 1 (2017), pp. 171-226; Ellis Washington, Symposium—An Analysis of Dante’s Inferno and Lessons Learned at Lillibridge Elementary School (Detroit, MI))(Sept. 22, 2024); Ellis Washington, An American Judicial Judas: 1994-2024—30th Anniversary of Exposing Chief Judge Richard A. Posner’s Legacy = Betrayed President Reagan, Betrayed the Judiciary, Betrayed America—Part III (Dec. 31, 2024); Essay—[12] Confessions to 9 Strangers and a Preacher in Ellis Washington, Beyond the Veil: Essays in the Dialectical Style of Socrates (2000, 2004). Ellis Washington, On Machiavelli and ‘the Ends Justify the Means’ to Liberal Fascism, RenewAmerica.com (Sept. 28, 2014).

*

*N.B.: This essay is based in part on ideas from Great Books of the Western World, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor-in-Chief (University of Chicago, 1952), Vol. 2, Chap. 3 – Aristocracy; Vol. 3, Chap. 51 – Man, Chap. 98 – War and Peace; Vol. 23 – Machiavelli and Hobbes. A later, extended version of this essay is published in Ellis Washington, The Progressive Revolution—2014-15 Writings—History of Liberal Fascism through the Ages (2017), pp. 76-79. Homework—Transcribe and critically study the statement in this video on how today’s youth are enslaved in Socialism and Communism without realizing it beg. @35:25. Listen to and critically study video of why Tartarian civilization was hidden from humanity beginning in the 1870s and WHY?!?  *N.B.: See YouTube videos on how textbooks are purposely designed to deconstruct and destroy real problem solving and critical thinking in the minds of students “forcing them in line” (e.g., Gleichschaltung) into a Cultural Marxist Weltanschauung (Worldview).

* 

Homework – Listen to video examining the History of Socialism and transcribe video narrative  [beg. @35:25] regarding how today’s youth are imprisoned in the mental slave chains of Socialism and Communism, Marxism, Progressivism, Liberalism, and now, the LGBT-Q Agenda and Wokism without realizing it. Listen to video of why Tartarian civilization was hidden from humanity beginning in the 1870s and WHY?!?; Video– In 1913 the Carnegies Brought Every Library in America – then Replaced the Old Books, by The Reversed Century.

Suggested Listening Music—The Well Tempered Clavier (Book I ) by J.S. Bach (1723); Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op. 15, by Robert Schumann (1838); Beethoven, ‘Moonlight’ Piano Sonata #14 in C# Minor; Brahms, Double Concerto for Violin and Cello (1887); 3 Sonatas after Petrarch, S. 270, from Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) by Franz Liszt (1842-46);  Dante Symphony by Franz Liszt (1856); Faust Symphony by Franz Liszt (1857); Hungarian March from The Damnation of Faust, by Hector Berlioz (1846-47). 

“The truth is often not that very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.”     

        — Dr. Thomas Sowell

“A house made with memory is stronger than a house made with walls.”

            — Anonymous Sicilian Proverb

About the Author—Professor Ellis Washington, J.D.—I went to Harvard Law School for 1 year (1988-89) with future POTUS Barack Hussein Obama, (b. 08/04/1961 – d. 09/29/2019),  who was a secret descendant of the Rothschild Banking Cartel Family and a blood grandson of the  German NAZI dictator, Adolf HITLER! – who was also a Rothschild – but I took the opposite path in Life—New World Order, Communism, Treason, Pedophilia and Satanic Ritual Abuse vs. Christianity, Conservatism, Protecting the Children & America First Nationalism. I repeatedly refused to take the “Satan OATH” which is why I’ve been blacklisted since 1989 – for over 37 years—for my entire legal and academic career, yet I Fight on! Why? To avenge Harvard University’s original 1692 motto—Veritas pro Christo et Ecclesia {= Truth for Christ and the Church}.  How do We the People escape the 150-year Rothschild Chattel Slavery systems  (e.g., Birth certificates [= Birth Bond Fraud], Death certificates, Social Security numbers bought, sold and trading people’s identities like barnyard animals on Wall Street) and  Rothschild Debt Slavery systems (e.g., IRS, Income Taxes, Death Taxes, Fiat or Counterfeit currency not based on Gold or Silver, but based on NOTHING! Cui bono?– Who benefits? Why are all national currencies of the world promiscuously printed at will by the Rothschild Central Bankers? Is it to fund perpetual False Flag Wars like—America- Israel vs. Iran, America vs. New World Order,  America vs. Venezuela, Israel vs. Gaza, Syria, Iran,  Yemen & Lebanon, Russia vs. Ukraine, Taiwan vs. China, Rwanda vs. The Congo, Cambodia vs. Thailand,  Armenia vs. Azerbaijan, Civil war in France, in Yemen, in Laos, in Indonesia, and existential battles all over the world,  while keeping the entire world enslaved inside an existential – Birth-School-Labor-Taxes-Debts-Retirement-Death cycle of the Rothschild Khazarian Mafia Matrix (1871-2021[26])? Further answers can be learned by reading, studying and sharing the Truth of my Critical Thinking blog that on 1 March 2026) surpassed 27 million views! See, EllisWashington Report.com,  Facebook,  Twitter/X—#JesusIsGod (Isaiah 9:6)  #DCActof1871

 

Books by Professor Ellis Washington, J.D. 

  

   1999                            2013                              2002 

    2008                              2017                              2018 

    2013                               2015                              2000 

     2015                               2004                               2023 

 

“Democracies die behind closed doors.” 

“We are walking on floors we did not scrub.” 

“Treat everyone with dignity.” 

–      Judge Damon J. Keith (1922-2019), Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge (Detroit, MI) and Civil Rights Icon

“Those that don’t got it, can’t show it. Those that got it, can’t hide it.

“If you’re silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

       – Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)

[Morpheus to Neo:] “Everything they told you was a [Big] Lie.”

     – The Matrix Movie, Part I (1999)—Construct Scene

 

“There are always more slaves than masters.”

        – Friedrich Nietzsche

“There are two ways to be deceived. One is to believe a lie; the other is to be unwilling to believe the truth.”    — Søren Kierkegaard

 

Prologue—Reassessing the Life and Legacy of Judge Damon J. Keith (1922-2019) by Following the Tolstoy Trail rather than the Road of Bitterness and Blame

 

*See generally, Gandharv Walia, Quote of the day by Leo Tolstoy, EconomicTimes.India Times.com (May 29, 2026).

 

Quote of the day by Leo Tolstoy: ‘If you make it a habit not to blame others, you will…’ Life lessons on inner peace, love, success and spirituality by Russian author remembered as one of the world’s greatest novelists.

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Synopsis

Quote of the day by Leo Tolstoy speaks about responsibility, love, peace and personal growth. The quote explains how avoiding blame can change human relationships and daily life. Leo Tolstoy, known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, often wrote about morality, spirituality and human behavior. His words continue to guide readers who seek meaning, kindness, discipline and emotional balance in modern life.

Quote of the day by Leo Tolstoy: ‘If you make it a habit not to blame others, you will…’ Life lessons on inner peace, love, success and spirituality by Russian author remembered as one of the world’s greatest novelists.

 

The message focuses on self-control and personal responsibility. Tolstoy suggests that blaming others creates anger, resentment and distance between people. He believed that when a person stops blaming others, they begin to understand themselves and others more clearly.

The quote also connects love with responsibility. Tolstoy explains that love does not grow through arguments or judgment. Instead, love grows when people learn patience, understanding, and acceptance. The quote encourages …

Meaning behind the Leo Tolstoy quote

The meaning of the quote is connected to emotional maturity and self-awareness. Tolstoy believed people spend too much time searching for faults in others. According to him, this habit prevents personal growth. The first part of the quote talks about “not blaming others.” This does not mean ignoring mistakes or accepting unfair treatment. Instead, it means understanding situations calmly and taking responsibility for one’s own reactions.

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The second part discusses “the ability to love.” Tolstoy believed love is not only emotion. He viewed love as a practice connected with patience, kindness and compassion. When people stop reacting with blame, they become more open to understanding others. The final part of the quote mentions “the growth of goodness.” Tolstoy believed goodness develops slowly through actions and habits. He argued that daily choices shape character and influence society.

*

The quote remains relevant because social media, politics and modern communication often encourage criticism and division. Tolstoy’s words offer a different approach focused on reflection and understanding.

*

Life lessons from the quote

 

Learn responsibility instead of blame

One lesson from the quote is the importance of responsibility. Tolstoy believed people should examine their own actions before criticizing others. This habit can reduce anger and improve communication.

*

Build stronger relationships

Blame often damages trust between people. Tolstoy’s quote encourages understanding and patience. Families and friendships can become healthier when people avoid constant criticism.

 

Focus on emotional balance

The quote also teaches emotional control. Reacting with blame can increase stress and conflict. Calm thinking can help people handle problems more effectively.

Practice kindness in daily life

Tolstoy often connected morality with everyday actions. Small acts of kindness and understanding can improve personal and social life over time.

Accept human imperfection

The quote reminds readers that every person makes mistakes. Accepting this reality can help people become less judgmental and more compassionate. . .

{Analysis} In my humble opinion, since the early 1800s God has benefitted humanity (particularly Christian Western Civilization) by sending us certain Russian literary writers—Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn—geniuses who write with a fierce, unique, independent Zeitgeist, and with a singular moral clarity, prophetic unction and a clarion calling—a profound psychological depth that I believe is designed to keep humanity within God’s holy will and from collectively falling into the abyss of Collectivism and Nietzschean Nihilism. In my recent essay on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, I wrote this passage about the magisterial legacy these great Russian writers have given to humanity for centuries— 

Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)               Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) 

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-81)                Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)               Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) 

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) is a monumental, three-volume literary investigation (1973–1975) documenting the Soviet forced-labor camp system from 1918 to 1956. Although I didn’t learn of this great Russian writer in my high school or college literature classes, my first awareness of Solzhenitsyn was essentially autodidactic, seemingly by chance made during that fateful summer of 1978 just after that epiphany junior year at Cass Technical High and our trip to Capitol Hill (see group photo below). 

 

I distinctly remember reading a story about Solzhenitsyn’s iconic and prophetic speech, a commencement address at Harvard University, titled—A World Spilt Apart (June 8, 1978). Like great Russian writers of past ages who defined and shaped previous generations as far back as the early 19th century—Pushkin (1799-1837), Nikolai Gogol (1809-52), Dostoevsky (1821-81), Tolstoy (1828-1910), Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), thus I now consider Solzhenitsyn to be our Pushkin, our Gogol, our Dostoevsky, our Tolstoy, our Chekhov of this generation – our Global Literary Champion of the 20th and 21st century! 

 

 

Finding Little Epiphanies while trying to Reconnect with the Daughter of a Legendary Civil Rights Leader and Appellate Judge Damon J. Keith (1922-2019)

 

“There are two ways to be deceived. One is to believe a lie; the other is to be unwilling to believe the truth.”    — Søren Kierkegaard

“We are walking on floors we did not scrub.” 

“Treat everyone with dignity.” 

–      Judge Damon J. Keith (1922-2019), Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge and Civil Rights Icon

*N.B.: This original letter sent in early July 2026 has been modified and edited somewhat to include information, events and details that I didn’t fully understand at the time I originally wrote my Open Letter to Cecile Keith.

 

Facebook Post: 7 July 2026

Dear Cecile Keith Brown:

You are the daughter of the late Appellate Court Judge Damon Keith (1922-2019). And you were the Orchestra Manager for the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra in the early 1980s. I played French Horn in that orchestra for 2 years (1983-85) and later when I studied law at the University of Michigan and later Harvard Law School, my readings caused me to eventually learn about your father, Judge Damon Keith from a distance going back perhaps to the late 1990s just before publishing my first book, The Devil is in the Details: Essays on Law, Race, Politics and Religion (Vantage Press, 1999).

 

1996-2026–Why  Professor Ellis Washington was Blackballed by his own People 30 Years Ago?            *N.B.: {Background Narrative} University of Michigan Professor, Dr. Cloyzelle “Cal” Jones (1930-2000), was a legendary Civil Rights Leader, Intellectual, Polymath, Confidant to Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young and Mayor Dennis Archer, and tenured  Professor of Law, Sociology and Psychology at the University of Michigan (Dearborn). Dr. Jones also wrote the Foreword to my first book, pictured above—The Devil is in the Details: Essays on Law, Race, Politics and Religion (Vantage Press, 1999), pp. ix-xix . He was one of the first friends my mother made when after graduating from West Helena High School at aged 16 she migrated with her elder sister (Mattie) from West Helena, Arkansas to Detroit, Michigan circa 1950-51. After I was born 10 years later, Dr. Jones accepted becoming my Godfather. Although regrettably I didn’t spend much time with him growing up so that he could be my intellectual mentor and guide my education and my life choices in a more structured manner, however, later Dr. Jones did try to help promote and secure my early academic career.    Shortly after this book was published in March 1999 Dr. Jones convened a meeting at his home on the corner of Oak Dr. & Curtis Ave. in the Historic University [of Detroit] District neighborhood. In attendance at this meeting were about 12-15 elite Black academics, judges, politicians, writers and intellectuals from Detroit. After they reviewed my book the consensus was 100% unanimous. Dr. Jones told me, “Everyone there understood that the findings of your book are irrefutable and narrated with precision and a keen intellectual mind.” I was so elated I couldn’t contain myself, but then the other shoe dropped so the speak. Dr. Jones continued his narrative from these 15 Black Progressive Leaders from Detroit—“If it were not for the fact that you are a Conservative and a Republican you would doubtlessly have a very long and distinguished academic career.”    Ironically, I believe that Judge Damon Keith was at that meeting regarding Dr. Jones attempt to promote my academic career which explains why he didn’t help my academic career when I later frequently called on him for help for over 25 years that I was a member of the same church he attended—Hartford Memorial Baptist Church (1985-2012), Pastor Emeritus Dr. Charles G. Adams (1936-2023)(Pastor: 1969-2019).   Cecile, that was a bitter pill to swallow, and I would be lying if I was to tell you at aged 64 that pain still hurts, but I took it like a Man and tried for nearly 30 years to prove Dr. Jones wrong. Within a year of that meeting Dr. Jones died in Oct. 2020. In 2026 I finally have come to the realization that I’ve failed in my objective to become a law professor for the Deep State is too deep, the political monopoly of the Marxist Academy too entrenched by the Democrat Party too infiltrated, and those willing to stand on Principle and help all those who are gifted despite their politics to achieve the American Dream are too few, too disinterested, and too cowardly to reach back (even my own people) and give a helping hand to someone like me.    And so Cecile, for over 40 years I’ve walked this long road essentially alone except for a few intellectual mentors who encourage me to keep thinking and to keep writing along the way primary of which were—Justice Clarence Thomas (b. 1948 – )(SCOTUS since 1991)and his friend the late, great Libertarian Economist at George Mason University – Dr. Walter E. Williams (1936-2020), and later my most faithful and important Friend and Protegee was my only begotten Son, Stone A. Washington (b. 1997 – ), a former Research Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and currently Senior Economist in the Small Business Administration of President Donald J. Trump, a truly magisterial human being to whom without his steadfast love, solicitude and encouragement I would have died of a broken heart many years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*N.B.: The Eternal Importance of Mentoring through the Generations—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, my son, Stone, and Dr. Walter Williams (Professor Emeritus of Economics, George Mason University), all having lunch together at The Hard Times Café in Fairfax Virginia (December 13, 2016). One of the greatest things I ever did for my son in this life was to introduce him to these two Strong, Magisterial Men. See generally, Ellis Washington, Lacrymosa for a Libertarian Legend—RIP Dr. Walter E. Williams (1936-2020), EllisWashingtonReport.com (Dec. 8, 2020); Stone Washington, Eulogy to Dr. Walter Williams—Friend, Mentor & Intellectual Giant, Socrates Corner (Feb. 10, 2021).

In 2004, I sent your father, Judge Damon Keith, several of my law review articles particularly 2 articles critiquing the 50th Anniversary of that landmark desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Judge Keith quickly and respectfully replied to my inquiry thanking me for dropping off my articles at his chambers and accepting my articles as gifts from a protegee to a mentor which I’ve always considered your father to be to me, despite the fact that for decades Judge Keith has kept me at arm’s length. I didn’t hold that against him for I understood that my intellectual worldview of Conservatism and steadfast, unapologetic adherence to political ideas of the Republican Party made Judge Keith’s open association with me prohibitive. And if my theory about Judge Keith is true, then that is a regrettable view to have in America, in the twenty-first century.

*

A VOICE CRYING OUT IN THE WILDERNESS: A WORD ABOUT BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

Ellis Washington, J.D.^[1]

“Much of what you say cannot be rebutted.  Nevertheless, I 

              find your words a bit too harsh . . . ”

Professor Lawrence C. Mann,                                                                        Director of the Damon J. Keith Law                                                              Collection of African American Legal                                                            History, Wayne State Law School

 

Dear Ms. Kimberly Hayes Taylor:

This letter is in regard to your article Judge Damon Keith, governor host fund-raiser on Saturday.^[2][3]  I just heard about this event listening to NPR today and planned on attending because I have always wanted to meet Judge Keith.  However, after further reflection, I decided not to attend this event on principle.^[4]

                                                                                  87

What is the principle you might ask?  Brown v. Board of Education, arguably one of the most famous cases of the twentieth century, is the reason.  Ms. Taylor, let me be clear, as a law scholar, writer, and lecturer, I have studied this opinion in great detail and even more importantly, I have studied the constitutional law and legal history behind this decision and have come to the following conclusions about this most noted case:  

1.      There is not a single judicial precedent in the entire Brown opinion.

                                                                                             

of my Brown monographs into their collected papers or archives include the following:  the collected papers of all nine of the present Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Richard A. Posner (Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals), Mary Sue Coleman (President, University of Michigan),  Dean Evan Caminker (University of Michigan Law School), Dean Donald Polden (Santa Clara Law School), Dr. David Meltz (former Dean Emeritus, John Marshall Law School), Professor Richard D’Agostino (John Marshall Law School), Professor Anthony D’Amato (Northwestern University Law School), Professor Lino Graglia (University of Texas School of Law), Professor Lawrence C. Mann (Director, Damon J. Keith Law Collection of African American Legal History (Wayne State Law School), Dr. Marvin Zalman (Wayne State University), William Mock, Jr. (John Marshall Law School), John P. Rooney (Thomas Cooley Law School), Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Princeton, University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Oberlin College, Widener Law School, Professor Kris Franklin (New York Law School, syllabus materials), Professor Elvia Arriola (Northern Illinois University School of Law, syllabus materials), in addition to

See above,  Ellis Washington, A Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness: A Word about Brown v. Board of Education, 39 Val. U. L. Rev. 87 (2004).

*N.B.: See excerpts from my second law review article (above) sent to Judge Damon Keith critiquing Brown on the 50th anniversary of this landmark racial desegregation case excerpted above, in Ellis Washington,   “Brown v. Board of Education: Right Result, Wrong Reasoning,” Mercer Law Review: Vol. 56: No. 2, Article 6 (2005). If I can find the handwritten letter I received by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accepting both of my Brown articles into her personal Brown v. Board of Education archive, I will post a facsimile of that letter here at a later date. 

On this point, regarding my first Brown article cited above, I theorize that a protegee of his, Professor Lawrence C. Mann, was immediately and unceremoniously removed from his position at Wayne State Law school by your father, Judge Damon Keith when my Valparaiso Law Review article was published with this somewhat complimentary statement that I reproduced as a head quote for that law review article criticizing the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)—a landmark civil rights case very much tied to the Black American and Cultural Marxist mythology of “freeing” Black Americans from the vestiges of Jim Crow discrimination as well as the defining legacy of Judge Keith’s intellectual mentor, Justice Thurgood Marshall (SCOTUS: 1967-91).

*

Thus, my academic critique against Brown v. Board of Education (shared by other notable Blacks like Poet and Writer Zora Neale Hurston, and Race Theorists and the first tenured professor at Harvard Law School, Derrick Bell) could not be allowed any moral or academic consideration. To this list of Black intellectuals holding an anti-Brown v. Board of Education worldview I also add other academics like—Economists Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter Williams (1936-2000) and Justice Clarence Thomas (who replaced Thurgood Marshall on SCOTUS in Oct. 1991) as technically being against the so-called constitutional assumptions undergirding Brown v. Board of Education—

Cecile, speaking of Zora, I recently wrote an extended biographical essay on that legendary poet, writer, intellectual, anthropologist, and “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance” Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). On July 11, 2026 I made this post about Zora on my Facebook page—

Essay Revision ALERT. . . DID YOU KNOW — Intellectual, Writer, Poet, Anthropologist & ‘Queen of the Harlem Renaissance’—ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891-1960) was blackballed by her own people because she was a REPUBLICAN and fought virtually ALONE for over 50 years against Communist infiltration into the so-called “Harlem ‘Gay’ Renaissance”, the Feminist Movement, and later into the Civil Rights Movement

See generally, my comprehensive critique of so-called “Activist Jurisprudence” primarily by the Left led by Chief Judge Richard A. Posner, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (Chicago, Ill,  retired in Sept. 2017), in Ellis Washington, 1918-2018—100 YEARS OF UNNATURAL LAW OF JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 9 Faulkner Law Review, No. 1 [Fall 2017], pp. 171-226.

Cecile, by reading this essay to this point thus far are you beginning to deduce that all that is visible in this corrupt and Machiavellian world is not necessarily true? At least not in the way Society and Culture has delineated “Truth” to U.S. since time immemorial. I call it “The Matrix”. It’s an alternative Reality or perverted History we’ve been taught. That means that all of the so-called ‘important people’ or ‘famous people’ or ‘celebrated people’ are not in those positions, in those construct “Institutions” primarily because they are talented or that they deserve those positions in society, but because hidden powers collectively called the “Deep State” put them there. Why? To foment the coming of a New Age; to establish a Cultural Marxist, Anti-Christian Society in America and throughout the World ubiquitously referred to as the “New World Order” or “One World Government.”

Below are 2 recent essays I wrote that cover the times and events when you managed the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra back in the day (circa early 1980s).

{Original Facebook Message, July 19, 2026} 

Thanks  James Carter for your July 17th posting of a beautiful tribute in Honour of the memory of Billie Holiday (aka “Lady Day”) & John Coltrane–2 of my favorite Jazz Greats. Did you know I wrote an essay on Lady Day (“Lynching Me: Strange Fruit”) published in my book, “Beyond the Veil: Essays in the Dialectical Style of Socrates” (2000, 2004 [Revised Edition]), pp. 170-71, https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/beyond-the-veil-9780761827283/ and a Memorial essay on my protegee from back in the day, Detroit Jazz Bassist, MSU Director of Jazz–Prof. Rodney Whitaker on the 95th Birthday of Coltrane (Sept. 23, 2021).

Also read and share the Truth with the Youth my 2 recent essays on the “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance”– Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), https://www.elliswashingtonreport.com/zora-neale-hurston-1891-1960-the-iconoclast-black-harlem-renaissance-writer-and-anthropologist-who-was-also-a-republican-and-why-she-is-still-important-today/ and my latest essay on Oscar Wilde vs. Duchess Meghan Markle and the Cult of Celebrity.

 

*N.B.: Iconic pictures through the years of Judge Keith including his wedding picture of Judge Damon J. Keith and beloved wife, Rachel Boone Keith (1924-2007)  displayed at his funeral service in the rotunda at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (Detroit, MI)(circa 2019).

*

Letter from Ellis Washington to Judge Terrance Keith (a Wayne County Probate Judge and Nephew of Judge Damon J. Keith)

From: elliswash1@aol.com <elliswash1@aol.com>
Sent:  Dec. 21, 2024

To: TAKStaff@WCPC__

Dear Judge Terrance Keith:

About a year ago wrote to one of your relatives, Cecile Keith Brown,

whom I knew from the early 1980s and her work as a manager of the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra and regarding my discovery and sadness of the death of your uncle(?) Judge Damon Keith in April 2019 (which I didn’t discover until Nov. 2023!) Sporadically I had some short but memorable contact with Judge Damon Keith for about 30 years. We attended Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit together under the late Dr. Charles G. Adams for about 25 years [1987-2012].

*N.B.: See, I Remember Rodney Whitaker (on John Coltrane’s 95th Birthday(2021), for an essay I wrote about another musician friend of mine (RODNEY WHITKER) who played in the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra back in the day, who is now a legendary Jazz Bassist, recording artist, writer, and Distinguished Professor of Jazz Studies and Department Head at Michigan State University.

Also, I’m in the process of writing a series of 3 essays on another judge that I knew for over 30 years, former Chief Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals who retired from the bench after 36 years in Sept. 2017. The link to Part I of my Judge Richard Posner essay series can be found here.

Judge Keith, thank you for your good work on my daughter Eden’s estate case a few years ago and for helping my sister and I close my mother’s estate hopefully by 2025.

I hope you enjoy my recounting of some of the memories I had with Judge Damon Keith and reading my essays on Judge Posner and other essays, law review articles, and books of mine cited.

Have a Blessed Advent and Holiday Season, and please give Cecile Keith Brown my warmest regards.

Peace,

Prof. Ellis Washington, J.D.

Critical Thinking Blog: www.EllisWashingtonReport.com

Letter from Ellis Washington to Detroit Free Press Editor & Writer, Nicole Avery Nichols

From: elliswash1@aol.com <elliswash1@aol.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2023 4:21 PM
To: nvavery@freepress.com
Cc: ‘Ellis Washington’ <elliswash1@aol.com>; jghill@freepress.com; jschaefer@freepress.com; jmbarmore@freepress.com; mlelrick@freepress.com; elawler@freepress.com; STalley@freepress.com; asahouri@gannett.com; malbom@freepress.com; hfathman@gannett.com; nkaffer@freepress.com; kdozier@freepress.com; bmanzullo@freepress.com; btodd@freepress.com; ‘Stone Washington’ <stonebone20@att.net>;  rodney.whitaker7@gmail.com; news@bankolethompson.com; press@trumporg.com

 

Subject: Law Review Article Gift In Memory of the HON. JUDGE DAMON KEITH [1922-2019] (fwd. to daughter Cecil Keith Brown)

Dear Editor Nicole Avery Nichols: 

My name is Ellis Washington. I am a blacklisted (and thus) retired professor of law, history, philosophy, and politics and was a protegee of sorts to the HON. JUDGE DAMON J. KEITH whom I sadly learned today from reading a news article by one of your writers had died 4 ½ years ago in April 2019. 

On the 101th Anniversary of his birth in 1922, Please forward this email below to deceased Judge Damon J. Keith’s eldest daughter, Cecile Keith Brown with my sincere condolences regarding the passing away of Judge Damon Keith who despite the fact we were opposites in judicial philosophy and politics, was a [distant, de facto] mentor of mine for about 30 years and to whom I sent many of my law review articles and books to over the years. 

If you have an email address for Cecile, please send it to me because I want to send her some other materials regarding my contacts with Judge Keith that I have had over the decades.

[Original Facebook message]

Hello Cecile: My sincerest condolences over your loss. I left a longer message on your Facebook page today. This law review article is given to you in Memory of your dear father, the HON. Judge Damon Keith, whom I just discovered today had died 4 1/2 years ago! Please send me your email and I will give you some other information regarding our relationship over the decades. His nephew and your cousin [?](Judge Terrance Keith) his presently handling a probate matter for my family. 

Law Review Article Gift – 

THE DECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN LAW AND THE APOTHEOSIS OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, (also see attached PDF file)

Peace & Veritas (Truth), 

Professor Ellis Washington, J.D. 

(elliswash1@aol.com)

Critical Thinking Blog: www.EllisWashingtonReport.com

 

Selected law review articles and essays regarding Detroit and/or the HON. JUDGE DAMON J. KEITH—

1.     Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015) and the Myth of the American Dream (d. 19 Feb. 2015). Eulogy Essay written literally 2 days before his tragic death (on 02/17/2015). Prof. LaBrew in my opinion is perhaps the greatest Historian in American History that nobody knows about . . . born in DETROIT! Listen to the short video biopic of Prof. LaBrew by student D’Andrea Lee and read excerpts from his voluminous output of 50 books and over 1,000+ articles, journals, monographs, essays, pamphlets, including a 4-Vol. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Black Contributions in Classical Music in America and throughout the World (1750 B.C. – 1950s [edited by Ellis Washington, J.D.])… 

QUESTION???—Why does the News & Free Press always write about Motown, Rappers, Violence, Communist Mayor Coleman A. Young, the Detroit Pistons and Detroit Lionsad nauseum? Yet Detroit is much more than sports, entertainment, violence and corrupt Democrat Party Slavemasters, (I mean “politicians”). WHY hasn’t the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press, the Michigan Chronicle, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Black Music Collections @MSU, @UMich etc. . . done an expose on this Intellectual Giant Musicologist of Black Classical Music and Aesthetic Historywhoseoeuvreis without rival in the entire WORLD?!?

As his faithful friend, student and protegee of Professor Arthur R. LaBrew for 30 years (1985-2015), when Prof. LaBrew died, I spent 5 years writing, making inquiries, and literally begging those groups cited above and many, many other Detroit people, academics, artistic leaders and cultural and historical institutions to accept Prof. LaBrew’s one-of-a-kind research, books and articles into their archives, lest this treasure trove of priceless Black History is forever lost to Humanity! Results? Silence . . . NOTHING! This forced me to send his materials to colleagues I had at The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (New York) and to the Library and Archives at THE COLUMBIA COLLEGE SCHOOL OF MUSIC CHICAGO. . . SHAME ON YOU DETROIT FOR IGNORING ONE OF THE GREATEST PEOPLE BORN IN THIS CITY!    

2.I Remember Rodney Whitaker (on John Coltrane’s 95th Birthday)(biopic essay celebrating my then young protegee, Jazz Bassist Icon from Detroit and presently founder and Director of Jazz Studies @MSU.,Professor Rodney Whitaker). As youths Rodney and I were in the Detroit Civic Youth Orchestra under the then Orchestra Administrator, Cecil Keith Brown (1983-85)  

3.     33 Years waiting to be interviewed by my Detroit (2015)(Detroit News Journalist BANKOLE THOMPSONconvened a group of Black Detroit Conservatives to discuss Donald Trump’s election chances in 2015. Out of the 8-10 people there I (and my dear son, STONE WASHINGTON, my photographer) were the only ones to believe that Trump would become POTUS which he achieved on 8 Nov. 2016). Ellis Washington, 

4.     Ellis Washington, 1918-2018—100 YEARS OF UNNATURAL LAW OF JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (2018)

5.     Ellis Washington, Justice Clarence Thomas. . . and the road not taken (2020)(*N.B.: My friend and intellectual mentor since 1991 when he ascended to SCOTUS)

6.     Ellis Washington, Judge Richard Posner on Law and Literature—Part 2 (2016)

7.     Ellis Washington, Reply to Judge Richard A. Posner on the Inseparability of Law and Morality (1999)

8.     Ellis Washington, Social Darwinism in Nazi Family and Inheritance Law (2011)

9.     Ellis Washington, A Voice Crying out in the Wilderness: A Word about Brown v. Board of Education (2004)(with opening quote praising my work by Prof. Lawrence C. Mann [Dir. of the Damon J. Keith Law Collection of African American Legal History, Wayne State Law School)(QUESTION?–Did Prof. Mann get fired soon after for the “sin” of praising the work of a conservative intellectual in print…? I’m not certain, perhaps some journalist there can find out for me in the name of real JUSTICE)

10.  Ellis Washington, Brown v. Board of Education: Right Result, Wrong Reasoning (2005)(second of a 2-part article series commemorating the 50^th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education [1954] which I hand delivered to Jg. DAMON KEITH’s Chambers personally and received a nice acceptance letter from Jg. Keith)(both articles accepted into the Chamber’s Library of SCOTUS and into the Brown v. Board of Education Collection of Justice RUTH BADER GINSBURG)

11.  Ellis Washington, Essay Letter to Megan Brown – The First Black Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Law Review(2018)

12.  Ellis Washington, *Birth of a Conservative Intellectual—Part I (Jan. 1983)

13.  Ellis Washington, *Birth of a Conservative Intellectual—Part II (Feb. 1983)

*N.B.: These 2 essays are my 1st published works written 40 years ago in early 1983 during my senior year at DePauw University (reprinted in 2011). 

 

Letter from Ellis Washington to Former Professor of Law, Lawrence C. Mann

*

Facebook Messenger, Dec. 16, 2023—

Dear Lawrence C. Mann: 

Our paths crossed about 20 years ago when you wrote a somewhat nice message regarding my law review article criticizing Brown v. Board of Education (2004). Were you dismissed from Wayne State Law for this? I’m curious. In any event I recount some of those and many other events here:  Latest Essay from the EllisWashington Report.com. Please give the Truth to our Youth.

See generally, Ellis Washington, 8 Open Letters—Reply to President David Meyer on the Apotheosis of President Donald J. Trump (Dec. 3, 2023);

#DCActof1871
#JesusIsGod (Isaiah 9:6)

Epilogue—Unintended Lessons I Learned from Judge Damon Keith—In Memory of Musicologist & Historian Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015)

 

July 17, 2026, 09:40 am—I just finished my morning walk. Usually on Fridays I go for a walk in my Huntcliff neighborhood just outside Atlanta. Since I haven’t been for a walk in a while I really needed to get my blood circulating again, clear my head, and recover from my minor surgery I had 2 days ago. As I got out of the car and walked down a cul-de-sac about 50 yards I came upon a lady walking a chocolate labrador dog. She looked up at me, recognition immediately flicking in her eyes, and boldly declared to me in a subtle, quiet, but unmistakable Eastern European accent these 5 simple words. . . “Thank You for being here.”

   

As I passed by this lady it took me about a minute to realize that she knew me. I mean really KNEW me in a profound way. Her prescient words made me feel that my Life mattered. My existence mattered. My writings of 43 Years (1983-2026) on every aspect of History, Philosophy, Law, Politics, Economics, Science, Medicine, Psychology, Aesthetics, Globalism… LIFE mattered. *N.B.: See, Ellis Washington, Birth of a Conservative Intellectual, Part I, RenewAmerica.com (Jan. 1983), Part II, (Feb. 1983). 

Finally, dear children, students of all grades, learn all you can from school but understand that your most important education comes from what you learn on your own. These infinite number of epiphany experiences will shape your hearts and minds molding them into a strong edifice or tower that no false system of Mankind will never be able to knock down. Why because it’s built on VERITAS = Truth.

 

Cecile, the 3 paragraphs above are taken directly from my previous essay before his one I’ve written about you and your father, Judge Damon Keith titled – In Honour of Old School Librarian (with Beehive Hairdos)(July 29, 2026). This retrospective essay is essentially biographical and narrates various scenes from my childhood coming of age in the “hood” of Detroit’s East Village during the 1967 Detroit Riot where about 2 years before that societal upheaval I first began to learn to read at home by my single mother who read to me ever night. Just before the 1967 Detroit Riot I took a giant leap forward in my reading comprehension when during the summer of 1965-66 my mother would take us 4-5 blocks from our home in East Village @2655 Montclair, Detroit, Mich to the Charles Irish Walker Branch of the Public Library at 10720 Mack Ave. at the corner of Montclair St.  

 

I remember going up those huge stairs to that Temple of Knowledge and understood from my mother that this is a very important place where I was required to be on my best behavior. My mother was working 2 jobs, raising 2 small boys (me and my little brother, Mario age 2 in 1966 while being pregnant with my little sister [Sonya]. And on top of all that she was going to college at Wayne State studying to get her teacher’s certificate in Business Administration. 

 

The reason why I dedicated my last essay “In Honour of Old School Librarians…” was because it was at this precise critical time in my life that the librarians at this branched witnessed our entourage come there first thing in the morning every Sat. like clock work and  apparently deduced that my mother needed a little help keeping my brother and I occupied while she studied for a few hours that morning. So, without being told these librarians would have a book for me to read, then 2, then 4, then, 8, then 10. After awhile there would be a stack of books waiting for me to read every time we came to that library courtesy of these Old School Librarians (with the Beehive Hairdos). 

 

That little, anonymous act of kindness by those librarians remained with me like it happened yesterday even though it occurred 60 years ago beginning in 1965. I wish that I could have had a similar relationship with Judge Damon J. Keith and as my 8-part essay and poem series on another Appellate Judge from Chicago (Richard A. Posner) but for whatever reason (or for no logical reason at all) that solicitude from those 2 legendary judges did not fall on me. Yes, I must admit, if Judge Keith and Judge Posner didn’t essentially ignore me but treated me as those Old School Librarians did to me as a child of 4-5-6 years old in the ghettos of east Detroit just before the 1967 Detroit Riot. Yes, I believe that my life, my objective to become a law academic and a national, sought-after lecture on Constitutional Law, Legal History, Legal Philosophy and Law and Literature would have been an American Dream come true for me

 

However, just like I painfully discovered from hear a video containing an ancient Italian aphorism—

 

“A house made of memory is stronger than a house made of walls.”

      

        – Anonymous Sicilian Proverb

 

After stubbornly believing all my life in the American Dream, about 11 years ago I recently had to concede at the death of my greatest intellectual mentor, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew – a legendary Historian and Musicologist who worked assiduously on unearthing Black Aesthetics in Classical Music from 1250 B.C.-1950s and even put his findings as a massive 4 Vol. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Black Classical Music and Musicians, Afro-American Music Review (Detroit, MI)(1969, 2015) of which I have posted a small excerpt on my critical thinking blog, EllisWashingtonReport.com. 

 

*Professor Arthur R. Labrew, 2013 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow

To the Detroit Opera House: For far too long Detroit has ignored one of its greatest home-born treasures, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (b. 1930 – Feb. 19, 2015), historian extraordinaire, concert pianist, professor, my history and languages teacher and intellectual mentor who so elevated my cognitive worldview that in only a year under his tutelage Professor Labrew got me a full scholarship to Harvard’s Graduate School in 1988 (the year Barack Obama came to Harvard). I consider Professor LaBrew (Founder & Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Music Research Center) – (B.A. Piano Performance, 1948, Oberlin Conservatory; M.M., Musicology, 1952, Manhattan School of Music) to be the greatest living historian in Michigan and one of the greatest music historians in America and perhaps even the world.

Since 1950 when he first entered graduate school in musicology at the Manhattan School under the eminent Medieval/Renaissance scholar, Gustave Reese, in 1952 Labrew would publish of his two-volume master’s dissertation on the little known Renaissance composer Metre Jan (which for the level of intellectual detail and historical innovation, he should have been given his PhD), nevertheless, Professor Labrew has contributed 65 years of outstanding, groundbreaking and essential historical research and intellectual writings on a variety of subject matter and intellectual disciplines which in my opinion is second to none.

For example, his latest works include a 5 volume International Dictionary of Black Music and Musicians from Antiquity (1500 B.C.-1950s) and a working manuscript on the great 18th/19th century Black violin prodigy, composer and friend of Ludwig van Beethoven, George Polgren Bridgetower (1778-1860), to whom Beethoven originally composed for and dedicated to his immortal Violin Sonata No. 9 (now called the “Kreutzer Sonata”). Professor Labrew has written that historically Beethoven’s greatest violin sonata must be called by its rightful and original title, “The Bridgetower Sonata” – in honor of the great, unsung Black violin virtuoso who when he died in 1860 had a string quartet of instruments including not one, but two Stradivarius violins, a viola and cello among his personal effects. (*N.B.: See LaBrew’s manuscript on Bridgetower for more on this subject).

If you listen to the link I’ve included of this masterpiece of the ‘Bridgetower’ Sonata above, pay particular attention to the development section at section: 8:36-9:38, it’s pure genius and is demonstrable of the excellent technique Bridgetower had to possess to impress Beethoven, a legendary curmudgeon! An excerpt of Professor LaBrew’s International Dictionary and can also be found here under “Professor Arthur Labrew” at my website. Since Professor LaBrew was a 2013 Kresge Literary Artist Fellow, a working website of some of his other magnificent historical aesthetic works can be found at this link. See, Ellis Washington, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew and the Myth of the American Dream, RenewAmerica.com (Feb. 17, 2015).

Selected Writings by Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015):

·       LA MALIBRAN NOIRE

·       GEORGE AUGUSTUS POLGREEN BRIDGETOWER

·       BLACK AND WHITE SCHOLARSHIP COMPARED

·       A PHILADELPHIA SUCCESS STORY

 

*N.B.: See generally, Ellis Washington, Essay on Zora Neale Hurston: “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance” (1891-1960)(June 16, 2026).

 

A singular genius, an indefatigable Man of Letters that published between 45-50 books only to have his legacy (because he didn’t have a PhD) consistently ignored, disrespected and plagiarized by so-called “scholars” – many of them his own people like Harvard University’s Dr. Eileen Southern (1920-2002), her protegee, Dr. Geneva Handy Southall (1925-2004), and their accomplice in crime, Dr. Robert A. Harris, Director of Choirs, Northwestern University (1977-2012), (who once inexplicably yelled at Professor LaBrew in the street shortly after Eileen died—“Dr. Southern was right!” and many, many others. 

 

The fact that Professor LaBrew, despite his iconic and pathbreaking oeuvre  was never been offered a professorship or obtained tenure at any U.S. college or university for 65 years that he labored in vain (1950-2015), that the so-called American Dream  is not only mythology the American Dream for Professor LaBrew, for Ellis Washington and for tens and hundreds of thousands of real scholars unfairly blackballed because of their Republican politics, their Christian religion, their Libertarian or Independent worldview, that American Dream is an American Nightmare! *N.B.: See generally, Ellis Washington, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew and the Myth of the American Dream, RenewAmerica.com (Feb. 17, 2015).

See generally, my comprehensive critique of so-called “Activist Jurisprudence” primarily by the Left led by Chief Judge Richard A. Posner and the ‘father of activist jurisprudence’, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes). Richard Posner was a Lecture of Law at the University of Chicago Law School (1969-2022) and served on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (Chicago, 1981-Sept. 2017), in Ellis Washington, 1918-2018—100 YEARS OF UNNATURAL LAW OF JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 9 Faulkner Law Review, No. 1 [Fall 2017], pp. 171-226.

 

 

Tags: Arthur R. LaBrew, Brown v. Board of Education, civil-rights, featured, Institutionalized Racism, judges, law review, Richard A. Posner, segregation, U.S. Supreme Court

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