By 1975, his work ethic and his intensity led him to win the national debate competition and be elected senior class president. While Northern Boulevard may have been in his immediate line of sight, he was all the time looking beyond the horizon to the Ivy League, a successful career, and a life outside of the projects.

Paul Barrett, the author (right), and Larry Mungin, the subject (left) were roommates at Harvard.

Larry’s mother Helen, a proud women who raised three children alone after her husband walked out, taught her three children race was not an issue or an obstacle to success and acceptance in America. So Mungin never stopped working hard, and after attending Harvard, serving in the Navy, and graduating from Harvard Law School, he was ready to earn a comfortable living at a corporate law firm.

Mungin had made it. He was living the American dream and he wasn’t looking back. Little did he know that only a few years later he would become embroiled in a civil rights lawsuit, and his crusade would become the subject of a book.

The recently published The Good Black: A True Story of Race in America, written by Wall Street Journal Deputy Legal Editor Paul Barrett, uses Mungin’s story to describe the experiences of many black professionals who are not barred at the door because of their credentials, but cannot rise to the top because of the color of their skin.

Mungin says he never wanted nor could he have imagined becoming the subject of such a work, but that the circumstances unwittingly thrust him into the fray.

Starting Out

Six years out of law school, Mungin joined the Washington office of the Chicago based firm Katen, Muchin and Zavis, and was earning $100,000 a year. He was told that with hard work, he would have a shot at becoming a partner.

A book which tells of Larry Mungin’s legal battle was recently published by Dutton.

Slowly it became clear he had joined the wrong firm. He was getting little contact with clients, doing work normally relegated for less experienced lawyers, and having difficulty getting any kind of work evaluation for his prospects at becoming partner. As the only African American in the 50 lawyer Washington office, he could not help but think race had something to do with his troubles.

In 1994 when Mungin filed suit against the firm on a number of grievances including race discrimination, it caught the attention of the corporate legal world and came as a shock to everyone who knew him. After all, this "hard working guy" had never once "cried racism."

"I just couldn’t believe it. I had typecast Larry as the guy who would never get wrapped up in a racial conflict," said Barrett, who before writing the book was Mungin’s roommate at Harvard. "He was on a very material corporate law career track and when he filed this suit he challenged all that. It wasn’t until he filed the suit that I thought race could have been the cause of his unhappiness."

Barrett said that while he never thought the case would go to trial, he decided in the unlikely event it did, and that Mungin won, he would write his friend’s story.

Mungin’s claim was confirmed by a mostly black jury in Washington D.C. when he was awarded $2.5 million in compensation and punitive damages, but the decision was later reversed on appeal by a three judge panel and Mungin never collected a dime of the money.

The book does not simply recount the trial, it describes Mungin’s life growing up, his relationship with his family, and his struggle to leave and still maintain a connection to the Woodside Housing projects.

‘Queens Boy’

Mungin spent his formative years in the Woodside Housing Project. His older sister and her family still have an apartment in the building adjacent to where they grew up. Tribune Photo By Bryan Schwartzman

Larry or "Dwayne" as his family referred to him, was born in 1957, the middle of three children spent the first nine years of his life in Bedford Stuyvesant. In 1966, when his mother got a job as a secretary with the New York City Housing Authority, one of the perks was a modest apartment in their Woodside Housing Development.

"When I grew up there, Queens was very different than it is today," said Mungin, who usually stays with his brother Kenneth in Elmhurst when returning for visits. "It was still considered mostly suburban. Now there are more gangs in the projects. But I’m living proof that you can make it."

Barrett says like all people, Mungin has some interesting contradictions. On the one hand, he was moving away from Queens what it represented to him, and on the other hand he remained an affectionate brother and uncle, identifying himself as a "Queens boy."

"I think after the legal fight and having to defend his first 35 years of life in court, he really reconsidered his identity," said Barrett. "While he had moved around geographically and been pretty much a loner, he discovered aspects of home and family he never knew he had, both with his father’s relatives in the Sea Islands and back in Queens."

Debra Tharington, Larry’s older sister who still lives in the same housing project with her husband Ron, said that while she thought for the most part the book was accurate, some things were misrepresented and others were just plain hard to read in print.

"The stuff about my mother was hard because no one really knew she drank, and many people she knew still live in the neighborhood," Tharington said. "I don’t think she was clinically depressed, she had her good days and bad, but she always fixed dinner and always went to work."

"Like Hillary Clinton says, it takes a village to raise a child, and parents here really help each other... Larry may have helped out, but we paid our own bills, we sent our kids to basketball camp," Tharington said.

Consequences

Mungin may have felt like a "token" at the all white law office doing work below his experience, but he was still making a six figure salary. When he decided to sue he effectively ended his career in the corporate world, and now with little money saved from his lucrative years and a considerably smaller income from his private work in Alexandria, Virginia, many wonder if the whole crusade was really worth it.

"I did what I thought I had to do," Mungin said. "It was not just about money. It was not just about race. It was a human rights case."

"If he had a wife and children it would have been different," Tharington said. "But this only affected him and he was prepared to make a lifestyle change to stand up for what he believed in." Tharington said.

And so "Uncle Dwayne’s" lifestyle has changed. He no longer vacations in Europe or works for a high powered law firm. He maintains close ties with his father’s relatives in the predominantly black sea-islands of South Carolina, where he hopes to make his home.

Re-evaluation

Mungin tried to live a life where race was not an issue, but after suing his law firm and being the subject of a book his name will always be linked with race. His mother’s philosophy of integration through achievement has been tested, but to what extent has this experience changed his perception of race relations?

"I would certainly avoid being the only black in the office, but my feelings have not changed. People are people," he said. "My mother was half-white; both my brother and sister are in mixed marriages. Integration is part of my life."