The Shelby County Criminal Justice Center bears his name.
That alone tells you history lives here.
But long before his name was etched into stone, Walter L. Bailey Jr. was etching his mark into American law, American protest and American conscience.
Bailey is an attorney by trade, but his life’s work includes well beyond the courtroom. He is a civil-rights pioneer, a legal trailblazer, and a public servant who served more than four decades as a Shelby County Commissioner. He worked cases that helped desegregate public schools. He represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike. And he was the lead counsel in Tennessee v. Garner, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that changed the national standard governing police use of deadly force.
At 85, Bailey’s voice still carries the cadence of the movement. But his words move beyond historical recollections, signaling warnings and calls to action. And they are deeply personal.
“The parallels between then and now are striking,” said Bailey during a wide-ranging conversation with the Tri-State-Defender. “There is a determined effort to dismantle rights and freedoms minorities fought their whole lives to secure. And the effort now, in many ways, is even more pronounced than during the Civil Rights Movement.
Bailey spoke at length about the violent resistance Black Americans and their allies faced simply for trying to register to vote in the Deep South. He invoked the names of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner — the three civil-rights workers murdered in Mississippi during Freedom Summer.
“They were white and Black, and they gave their lives fighting for morality and justice,” Bailey said. “Evil does not depend on skin color. It depends on character.”
Those killings, and countless others, were not isolated tragedies. They became catalysts for federal action. They helped usher in the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“People died so others could vote,” Bailey said quietly. “That should never be forgotten.”
Bailey’s memories of marching alongside Dr. King are more than seemingly romanticized nostalgia. They are blueprints for confronting a present that echoes the past.
He views modern protests — from the George Floyd demonstrations to protests happening now against ICE occupation in Minneapolis — as spiritual descendants of the movement.
“You have to get to the point where you say, ‘We are not going to stand for this,’” he said. “You have to be willing to be seen. You cannot peep through the blinds and talk about how bad things are.”
He warns that silence is complicity.
Bailey did not hesitate when discussing current policy debates from policing to attacks on DEI or access to Black historical material in public spaces. He believes core civil-rights principles are at risk, particularly around immigration enforcement, due process, free speech and Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure.
He sees troubling parallels in modern law enforcement practices and warns that constitutional guardrails are being weakened in the name of authority.
“You are not supposed to stop citizens on suspicion alone,” Bailey said. “Probable cause matters. Warrants matter. Due process matters.”
Bailey contextualized diversity, equity and inclusion not as a modern invention, but a logical extension of civil-rights era efforts to level an intentionally uneven playing field.
Drawing from his 44 years as a county commissioner, he explained how minority contractors could never compete with generational wealth unless policies created access. “You can’t pretend it’s a fair contest when history made it unfair,” he said.
“There is a determined effort to dismantle rights and freedoms minorities fought their whole lives to secure. And the effort now, in many ways, is even more pronounced than during the Civil Rights Movement.”
Walter L. Bailey Jr.
Commenting about the removal or revision of Black history from national institutions and museums, Bailey was direct:
“It is a disgrace. It signals whose stories are valued and whose are not.”
To Bailey, revising history goes way beyond neutrality. It is erasure.
Bailey’s tenure on the national board of the ACLU shaped his belief that civil liberties must apply even to speech we dislike.
He recounted defending a man prosecuted for selling adult magazines and a Vietnam veteran silenced for distributing anti-war literature.
“I couldn’t pick and choose which rights I believed in,” Bailey said. “If his rights were violated, I had to defend him.”
Bailey’s most nationally consequential work came through Tennessee v. Garner.
At the time, police across America could legally shoot fleeing felony suspects. Bailey took case after case involving unarmed Black men shot while running away. He lost twice. He did not stop.
The third time, the Supreme Court agreed to hear his case. He won — and that decision changed the legal standard nationwide.
“Suppose I had given up,” Bailey said. “Where were all the scholars? Where were all the professors? I had that movement in me. I was radicalized in pursuit of justice.”
Bailey insists no single organization can carry the fight.
He points to how the NAACP, SCLC, unions, churches, and lawyers united during King’s era.
“You have to join organizations. Attend meetings. Protest peacefully. Contribute financially. You cannot be afraid of being called a troublemaker.”
He believes grassroots action is essential in PTAs, civic meetings, campuses, and neighborhoods.
When asked what he wants future leaders to know, Bailey widened the lens beyond race:
“This is for people who harbor morality and decency,” he said. “You must use your skills. You must be willing to stand out.”
The greatest danger, he said, is comfort.
“You go to work, go home, watch TV and say how bad things are. Unless you get that itching to say, ‘We are not going to stand for this,’ nothing changes.”
