The Color of Justice

In 1908, Baltimore, Maryland gave birth to a warrior who plotted the dismantling of segregation in the United States. It was a great success.

Thurgood Marshall received his law degree from Howard University in 1933. In 1936, he joined the NAACP, and became it's chief counsel in 1938. He remained in that position until 1961.

In 1953, Mr. Marshall argued certainly the most important case in his career, a case that would change life as we knew it. Up until that time, segregation was the law of the land. And to be sure, it would take more than the talents and passion of one man to affect change.

Earlier, I shared my strong sentiments for Chief Justice Earl Warren, and his unsurpassed brillance in guiding the Court to discard the well-worn principle of "separate but equal."

Yet, it was up to Thurgood Marshall to convince Chief Justice Warren that it was worth the effort, to disregard over a half-century of an accepted way of life.

Mr. Marshall was the man for the job, in large part, because he had lived in the society he so powerfully argued to change.

He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1961 by John Kennedy. Predictably, there were rumblings from some southern senators at the thought of a black man in such a high position of authority. That was the primary reason Mr. Marshall was not confirmed until 1962.

A new era began two years later, when Lyndon Johnson took a leap of faith and nominated Thurgood Marshall for Associate Justice to the United States Supreme Court.

If I recall correctly (and if I don't, I feel substantially certain that I'm pretty darn close), during his speech introducing Mr. Marshall, Lyndon Johnson stated that nominating this man to the High Court was the right thing to do, it was the right time to do it and he was the right person.

It was, by most accounts, a very heartfelt delivery and if you remember anything about Lyndon Baines Johnson, you will remember that once he decided on a course of action, he would resort to whatever was necessary to accomplish that mission.

So, while there was unquestionably much resistance to the Supreme Court's hosting the first black Justice, President Johnson would be my choice to change some minds. He did.

While on the Court, which he was until 1991, Thurgood Marshall consistently supported challenges to discrimination based on race and sex. He supported the rights of criminal defendants and vehemently opposed the death penalty.

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