Professor Emeritus William B. Gould IV shared some of his favorite jazz pieces, stories about his father, the reason he became a lawyer, his latest book…and books yet to be written…  on KZSU’s Lunchtime Special.

Download the MP3 or get the podcast and playlist. Here are some highlights:

“I’m still hoping to accomplish a few things in front of me…more books…dealing with labor… My biggest accomplishment was representing black and Mexican American workers in the 1970s…”

“I had the idea when I was going to law school that there were three basic things I wanted to do. I wanted to go into court and represent people to try to change the status quo for people in employment relations, for people who had been discriminated against like my father had been discriminated against. I wanted to be involved in public policy. I wanted to be involved in the political process. Well, I’ve been involved more at the periphery there. And I wanted also to write. I wasn’t so much thinking about teaching at that point. I wanted to write a lot of things. Well, I haven’t yet received a Pulitzer or anything like that, so I’m still working on these things and I hope to really accomplish something before I depart from this earth.”

“Thurgood Marshall was a great inspiration to me. I had the chance to meet him a couple of times when I was in my teens. He was… I would say, more than anything, it was Brown vs. Board of Education–which was decided when I was a senior in high school–that influenced me to go to the law. I saw…through what he did before the Supreme Court in that case… the way in which the law could work for the betterment of our people throughout the country and throughout the world.”