Thurgood Marshall and his impact on the American civil rights movement - Term Paper Example

?Thurgood Marshall and His Contribution to the American Civil Rights Movement Taunya Banks described Thurgood Marshall as to have represented the civil rights protest movement but “reluctantly.”1 Marshall recognized the limitations of using the law but he felt comfortable using litigation as a tool for social change rather than confining protesting on the streets.2 He is recognized for making contributions to race and gender equality as well as the rights of an accused.3 He was born on 2 July 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland and attended the Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School and Booker T. Washington Junior High.4 Thurgood Marshall’s parents were mulattoes who could trade their ancestry to a nineteenth-century Congo slave who have caused much trouble for his master that he was set free.5 The former slave was Thurgood’s Marshall’s great grandfather.6 Thurgood Marshall’s father was a waiter and amateur writer while his mother was a schoolteacher.7 During his elementary years, Thurgood Marshall “was best remembered” to be on the front row so teachers could see him closely. 8 He was also described as to have “enjoyed teaching the girls while he was in school”.9 According to Thurgood Marshall, himself, he was born Throughgood Marshall but after growing tired of spelling his long first name, he shorted his name to Thurgood when he was in second grade.10 Thurgood Marshall had revealed that although they had lived on a respectable street but behind them were “back alleys where the roughnecks and the tough kids hung out.”11 Further, Thurgood Marshall had revealed that every dinnertime, his mother had to go to the front door to call her brother but had to use the backdoor to call him for dinner.12 In 1921 to 1925, Marshall attended the Colored High and Training School that became the Frederick Douglass High School in 1923.13 The Colored High and Training School was known as an all-black school with no school library, no cafeteria, and no gym when Thurgood Marshall was enrolled.14 The school was “so overcrowded that half-day sessions were held to accommodate all students”. 15 Students in the school were divided based on performance and Marshall had belonged to the best students of the school.16 Nevertheless, Marshall was known as a prankster and his “antics” usually sent him to punishment.17 The main form of punishment then was to put the punished in the school basement to memorize the US Constitution.18 From the experience, Marshall recounted later, that came to know the US Constitution by heart.19 Marshall was a figure on the high school campus because of his participation and success in his school’s debate team.20 Marshall married Vivian Burey in 1923.21 In 1924, he graduated from high school at the top three of his class after maintaining a grade of B average. 22 In 1930, Marshall graduated cum laude from the Lincoln University in Lincoln, Pennsylvania.23 Lincoln University was known as the “Black Princeton” because it was founded and ran “by the same Presbyterians who ran Princeton University”. 24 In Lincoln University, despite graduating at the top of his class, many thought he never studied.25 One friend even described him as someone who was the least likely to succeed.26 In Lincoln University, Thurgood Marshall was known as a great pinochle player, fan of cowboy movies, and connoisseur of comic books. 27 On his second year in the university, Marshall joined the Alpha Phi Alpha, a fraternity described as “elite” and composed of “mostly light-skinned boys”.28 Thurgood Marshall was known to have “enjoyed” hazing the younger students and “did so in such an aggressive manner that he got kicked out school, along with 25 other sophomores”.29 However, Marshall and the rest of his companions were readmitted after they wrote and sign a confession of admission to the University.30 Marshall initially intended to attend the University of Maryland Law School but found out that only two black students had graduated from the law school in Maryland. 31 Further, he also found out that no black student was admitted to the University since the 1890s.32 This made Marshall determined to get admitted or, at least, find a way to get even at the school which he did several years after.33 Marshall worked as a waiter to raise tuition money for law school but not for the University of Maryland but for the Howard University.34 To be able to finally enter law school at the Howard University, Thurgood Marshall’s mother had to pawn her wedding and engagement rings.35 To support his financial requirements at the Howard University Law School, he worked as student assistant at the law school library thereby allowing him develop a deep friendship, student-mentor relation and partnership with Charles Hamilton Houston who was the Dean of the Howard University Law School.36 Initially, the Howard University Law School did not have a good reputation for producing good lawyers.37 However, school reforms were launched during Houston’s terms as Dean of the Law School.38 Houston’s goal was to transform the Houston University Law School acquire accreditation as a law school and become a “West Point of Negro leadership”.39 Houston’s key reform was the transformation of Howard University Law School as a fulltime law university that offered daytime courses only.40 Houston was to become Marshall’s mentor, good friend, and legal partner in litigation pursued by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).41 In Howard University Law School, Marshall transformed himself as a good student such that in 1933, Marshall graduated at the head of his class of six male students in Howard University Law School.42 Sometime 1933, in the midst of the US great depression, Marshall began his legal practice in Baltimore.43 In 1934, Marshall started to work in the Baltimore for the National Association Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 44 During that time, unemployment rate was roughly 20%, making it difficult for clients to pay legal fees.45 Thus, Marshall had little work and had the time to tour the south for factfinding trips for the NAACP.46 In 1935, Marshall with the collaboration of Houston, won what was regarded as the “first major civil rights case”, the Murray v Pearson, thereby desegregating the University of Maryland Law School, the law school that Marshall “could not attend on the grounds of race”.47 The victorious lawsuit of 1935, Murray v Pearson, allowed Donald Murray, an African-American to enter the University of Maryland Law School.48 Marshall became the assistant special counsel for the NAACP in New York in 1936.49 Unfortunately, in New York, Marshall’s reputation as “a party-going, drinking man grew.”50 He had a reputation for enjoying the company of women and had a reputation of “sleeping with women all around the country.” 51 Marshall’s social life had a strain in his relationship with Vivian.52 Nevertheless, from 1940 to 1961, Marshall served as the Legal Director for the NAACP. In 1940, Marshall won the first of his Supreme Court victories in Chambers v. Florida.53 In 1950, Marshall won two graduate school integration cases in the Supreme Court, the Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents.54 In 1951, he investigated the charges of racism in the US armed forces in Korea and Japan and reported that “rigid segregation” was the general practice in the US armed forces.55 In 1954, Marshall won the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education and ended the legal segregation of schools in America.56 In 1955, Vivian Burey Marshall died in February and Marshall married Cecilia A. Suyat in December.57 Months before the marriage with Cecilia, Vivian’s death caused Thurgood Marshall to go into a deep depression.58 In 1961, Marshall was appointed to the US Court of Appeals.59 In the US Court of Appeals, Marshall made 112 rulings, all of which was upheld by the US Supreme Court.60 In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Marshall as US Solicitor General.61 As US Solicitor General under President Johnson, Marshall won 14 of the 19 cases he argued for the US government between 1965-1967.62 In 1967, Marshall became the first African American appointed to the US Supreme Court and served from 1967 until his retirement in 1991.63 In 1993, at 84, Marshall died in Bethesda, Maryland.64 The US State Department counted that Marshall won 29 out of 32 cases he argued in the US Supreme Court.65 In a Yale University Journal, Ben Heineman, Jr., recognized Thurgood Marshall's contribution to the civil rights movements and as among “the lawyers with vision and an ability to effect change”.66 Yet, despite his consistent advocacy for black rights, Thurgood Marshall has been recognized as pragmatic.67 Christopher Endy, for instance, pointed out for instance that one of Thurgood Marshall’s advocacies in Kenya “was to argue for the defense of white property rights.”68 Mary Dudziaki defended Thurman’s position as an important position to keep both whites and blacks towards a peaceful transition in Kenya towards the rule of law or “constitutional politics”.69 Summing-up the life of Thurgood Marshall, Hemingway and colleagues pointed out that Thurgood Marshall took on many roles as a servant of law and worked “as an advocate, a social activist, a legal scholar, and a Supreme Court Justice.” 70 They pointed out that although his duties changed, his professional commitment as a servant of law has remained constant.71 In addition, Marshall has been a good writer.72 Connie Cartledge produced a 149-page registry of his works in the Library of Congress.73 However, it was adherence to principles that was most important in Marshall’s writings.74 His writings in the Supreme Court were not only distinct dissent but also well-reasoned opinions.75 Some questioned his intellect but those who did so had preconception, as Marshall was “a leading defender of rights while serving on a conservative bench.”76 A man who has 149 pages of register of papers in the Library of Congress cannot be dumb. Note that the 149 pages of register only refer to the register alone and do not refer to the number of pages of his papers. Hemingway and colleagues pointed out that through his writings, Thurgood Marshall brought success to many causes: desegregation, equality, and rights of criminal defendants.77 These are the most important legacies of Thurgood Marshall. At some points, his personal life MAY have been a mess. However, to bring his causes to public attention, he had to live a very accessible social life and a life that is able to link with the other members of the community (and this MAY have caused his life to be vulnerable to several loves). His not so good personal life MAY have been the price to pay for advancing his causes, the causes of black and white peoples alike as the struggle for the equality of races is the struggle of all races and is everybody’s cause regardless of skin color. Bibliography Banks, Taunya Lovell, “Thurgood Marshall, The Race Man, and Gender Equality in the Courts,” Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, 18, Fall (2010), 1-29. Cartledge, Connie, “Thurgold Marshall: A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress.” Washington: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, 2001. Dudziaki, Mary, “Working Toward Democracy: Thurgood Marshall and the Constitution of Kenya.” Duke Law Journal, 56. no. 3 (2006), 721-780. Endy, Christopher, “Introduction.” H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews, Vol. IX No. 31 (2010), 2-5. Heineman, Jr., Ben, “Lawyers as Leaders.” The Yale Law Journal Pocket Part, 116 (2007), 266-271. Hemingway, Anna, Starla Williams, Jennifer Lear, and Ann Fruth, “Thurgood Marshall: The Writer.” Williamette Law Review, 47 (2011), 211-258. Pena, Isela, Thurgood Marshall: A Teacher’s Guide. History Department, University of Texas: Center for History Teaching and Learning, June 2009. US Department of State, “Thurgood Marshall: A Timeline.” In Justice for All: The Legacy of Thurgood Marshall, edited by the US Department of State, Bureau of International Information Program, 19. Washington, 2007. Read More