Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from the Birmingham Jail (1963)
Spokane's Carl Maxey overcame a childhood of deprivation and discrimination to gain acclaim as an admired attorney and a fighter for justice. In Eastern Washington, he worked tirelessly to achieve Dr. King's dream of a more fair and tolerant society. When Maxey died in 1997, he was described as a "Type-A Gandhi" in The New York Times.
"It's a great American story," said Maxey's biographer Jim Kershner, a reporter for Spokane's Spokesman-Review, who recounts Maxey's improbable journey in his acclaimed biography "Carl Maxey: A Fighting Life" (University of Washington Press).
Just a few months before Maxey's death in 1997, Kershner interviewed him at length about discrimination in Spokane, and Maxey began to tell Kershner his life story.
Born in 1924 in Tacoma, Maxey never knew his birth parents. A Spokane couple adopted him but eventually turned him over to a scandal-plagued local orphanage. Maxey was punished with beatings at the orphanage, but gained a reputation for protecting smaller children.
After an investigation, the orphanage adopted "reforms"