User:ElizabethWZ/sandbox

Kenneth Vern Cockrel, Sr. Kenneth Vern "Ken" Cockrel Sr.(Born November 5, 1928-Died ??? 1988)as an attorney and an activist, served as one of the most powerful voices in Detroit for social justice in the 1960s and 1970s. Describing himself as a Marxist-Leninist, Cockrel was relentless in challenging the racial and economic status quo in Detroit. He defended African Americans in the courtroom, was an activist against police brutality, and served a term as a city council member to help further his cause of helping Detroiters. At the time of his untimely death of a heart attack in 1989, he was contemplating running for the mayor of Detroit.

Born in 1938 in Royal Oak Township, Cockrel's father worked at the Ford Highland Park plant and his mother was the first African-American graduate of Lincoln High School in Ferndale, Michigan. Orphaned at twelve years old, he went to live with relatives in Detroit. He attended Northwestern and Central High Schools but dropped out at age seventeen. He was an airman second class in the United States Air Force. Discharged in 1959, Cockrel enrolled in Wayne State University and achieved a degree in political science in 1964. After graduating, he immediately enrolled in Wayne State's law school and received his law degree in 1967.

Cockrel became a partner in the law firm of Philo, Maki, Cockrel, Robb, Spearman, and Cooper after finishing his law degree. His legal career changed the social and political landscape of Detroit. Through a series of highly publicized cases, Cockrel highlighted the oppressive social structure under which Detroit African Americans lived. In his first such case, Cockrel, defended Alfred Hibbitt, who was accused of shooting two police officers in a 1969 shootout at the New Bethel Baptist Church. Cockrel won an acquittal for Hibbitt by citing the racist activities of the Detroit Police Department. Cockrel burst into the consciousness of all Detroit during the trial when he was charged with contempt for calling the presiding Recorders Court judge a 'lawless, racist, rogue bandit, thief, pirate, honky dog fool." He successfully defended himself against the contempt charge, partly by exposing that the Wayne County Jury Commission systematically insured that juries were overwhelmingly white, male, and middle class. In 1970 Cockrel successfully defended James Johnson who shot and killed a co-worker at a Chrysler auto plant. Cockrel won an acquittal by demonstrating the oppressive working conditions at the plant, which he argued pushed the defendant to a mental breakdown that resulted in the shooting. Cockrel also became the leader of the citizens group that led the protests against the Detroit Police Department's STRESS (Stop the Robberies-Enjoy Safe Streets) unit, which had a long record of police brutality in the African-American community. His successful defense of Hayward Brown, who was accused of shooting a Detroit police officer, hinged on demonstrating that Brown fired in self-defense because the actions of the STRESS unit had created a climate of fear among Detroit's African Americans. Coleman Young disbanded the STRESS unit when he became mayor in 1974.