A Slave’s Great-Grandson Who Used Law to Lead the Rights Revolution
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In his last several years on the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall could only watch as the ideological ground shifted inexorably away, leaving him isolated on most of the issues that imbue people with passion. Still, friends and scholars say, he seemed determined to cling to his seat even if his vote had increasingly little effect on the outcome of death penalty, abortion and civil rights cases. He was intent to serve both as a strong opposition voice and to outlast the Republican hold on the White House that has been responsible for the ideological sea change on the Court. He also knew that as a sitting Justice, he remained a live symbol, not only as the Court’s first black Justice but also as an architect of much of the nation’s civil rights history. But, friends say, with the retirement last year of his colleague and friend, Justice William J. Brennan Jr., some last bit of resolve evaporated over the last term. Early Legal Fight for Rights The career in which Thurgood Marshall used the law to lead an American revolution in civil rights on and off the bench began slowly in the small Southern towns of the Old Confederacy. It was there, with growing skill and unquestioned courage, that he represented black defendants against segregation-steeped officials. He eventually became a Federal judge, Solicitor General of the United States and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the position from which he announced his retirement today. But his reputation as the most influential civil rights lawyer of the century was cemented in his 23 years as chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In that role, he won a string of legal victories, the most famous being Brown v. Board of Education, which he argued before the Supreme Court. In that case. the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1954 that the doctrine of “separate but equal” was unconstitutional and could not be used to keep schools segregated by race. It was among the first of a cascade of landmark opinions from the Court breaking the barriers of legal racial discrimination. More : query.nytimes.com |