Transcripts For CSPAN3 Thurgood Marshall As A Civil Rights Lawyer 20240712

Discussion entitled, historically speaking, Thurgood Marshall, a life in American History, an evening with spencer crew and paul finkle man. Before we begin, let me also welcome our audience whos streaming the discussion through the museums you stream channel. Our twitter handle this evening is historicallyspeaking. We are also thrilled that this program will be broadcast via cspan book tv and will be aired at a later date. Through dr. Crews compelling new biography introduces us to the constant battles of equality faced by africanamericans through a study of Thurgood Marshalls extraordinary courage and his believe in the power of the law to change society. Thurgood marshall, a life in American History, follows his career from his youth in baltimore, maryland, to his days as a Supreme Court justice. Thurgood marshalls inspiring story illustrates how pervasive is racism in American Society and reveals the difficulty of the struggles of africanamericans to make progress against it. Through the lens of marshalls life we learn the importance of perseverance and resilience, hence, marshalls narrative is one that finds its place among the many stories of the historic figures that you find in our galleries. Now a word about tonights speakers. Spencer crew is currently serving as the interim director of the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture where he also curated one of the museums 11 1 inaugl exhibitions defending freedom, defining freedom, the era of segregation, 1876 to 1968 which focuses on the civil rights struggles of this period and demonstrates how africanamericans not only survive the challenges city set before them but crafted an Important Role for themselves before the nation. Crew has worked in public history institutions for more than 25 years. Among them he served as president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom center for six years and worked at the smithsonian National Museum of American History for 20 years, nine of those years he served as that museums director. At each of those institutions he has sought to make history accessible to the public through innovative and inclusive exhibitions and public programs. His most important exhibition was the groundbreaking field to factory africanamerican migration, 1915 to 1940, which generated a National Discussion about migration, race, and historical exhibitions, and i might add for those of us that were coming into the field 30 or so years ago, we actually found a place for ourselves in museums across the country. The impact of this exhibition is so important and not to be forgotten in that aspect. He also curated the american presidency, a glorious burden which remains one of the smithsonians most popular exhibitions. The National Underground Railroad Freedom center has attracted worldwide attention because of its the quality of its exhibitions and focus on race, interracial cooperation and issues of contemporary slavery. Crew has published extensively in the areas of africanamerican and public history as well. Among his publications are black lie in secondary cities, a comparable compare southern 1860 to 1920 which he wrote in 1993. He coauthored the american presidency, a glorious burden in 2002 and unchained memories, readings from the slave narratives also written in the same year. Crew is an ak dem member of the academic and cultural communities for boards that work to generate enthusiasm for history among the general public. He is the past chair of the National Council for history, education and serves on board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation as well as the nominating board of the organization of american historia historians. Interview dr. Crew is dr. Paul finkleman, president of the gratt college. Dr. Fingleman has held a number of endowed chairs as a tenured professor or as a visitor including the ariel f. Salos chair of human rights law at the university of saskatchewan, american legal history at Duke Law School and the president William Mckinley distinguished professor at albany law school. In 2017 he held the fulbright chair in human rights and social justice for the University Ottawa school of law and was also the john e. Mary visiting professor at the university of Pittsburgh School of law. He is the author of more than 200 scholarly articles and the author or editor of more than 50 books. His most recent book was published by Harvard University press in 2018. Please join me in a warm welcome for dr. Spencer crew and dr. Paul finkleman. [ applause ] good evening, paul. Good evening, spencer. Nice to be visiting you. Weve been friends for a long time so im a little nervous. Its great to be here at this amazing building with this amazing collection that is here to educate allamericans on parts of our past that most americans dont know enough about. Its an important place. I feel very fortunate to be here, and i think what were trying to do is talk about American History, as we say through an africanamerican lens, and to understand how intertwined those are and the history is and the history of this country. The more we do that, the better informed we think the public will be. I agree. I did my ph. D. With the great africanamerican scholar john hope franklin, and my sense is that American History is the history of afro euro, native americans and then later asianamericans and other americans. That is, while we have a museum for africanAmerican History, this is really a museum of america and so those of you who have not gone through the museum, are just here to hear us babble in public should come back and see the whole museum because its really spectacular. It will take more than one day. Schedule this for several days, we keep coming back. Well be glad to have you. I should add that john hope frank was very instrumental in the museum. His words to us from the very beginning was to make sure we tell the truth. Tell the truthful story. Sometimes its painful, sometimes it has great highs to it but that truth is the core of what we try to do and make sure people understand when they come here to visit with us. So lets start with the truth about Thurgood Marshall. He passed a little bit more than a quarter of a century ago. There are probably significant numbers of people in the United States who know nothing about him other than that he was on the Supreme Court and so i think the first place to start is who was he . Give us the you know, the short and dirty quick story. Who is this man that we are here to talk about today . I think as you said, the remembrance that most people have of marshall is that he was on the Supreme Court. The first africanamerican on the Supreme Court. That is an important benchmark in his life, but i think its actually a benchmark on the tail end of his real fame. I think the importance of marshall really stems from his work prior to that prefs probably the leading civil rights voice in this country throughout the 30s, 40s, 50s and i think who marshall was was an architect of the change of the legal structure of this nation to make it more in balance with the words and the ideas for the principles of the declaration of independence. He says the rules are the rules, but you make the rules work the right way they can really begin to make a more balanced and a better way of living for allamericans, not just for a few. So that i think who marshall is is a person who believed in equality, a person who believed in protecting the rights of the poor, protecting the rights of those people of color, protecting the rights of those who are being mistreated by the nation because they dont have wealth, because they dont have the kind of influence they need. His work in that area really changes the nature of this nation and really prepares it for all the things were able to experience today. So how did he get there . Where does he come from . How come he has such a weird first name . Well, marshall grows up not too far from here in baltimore, maryland. And his family has lived there for quite a long time. Actually, his first name when he first was named was Thoroughgood Marshall named after his grandfather, and he decided in sixth grade, he didnt like that name. It was too hard to pronounce. He started to call himself thurgood but its much better than thoroughgood. What was important is getting that name from his grandparents is also the history they passed down with him, that his grandparents on both sides were very active in the community in baltimore, africanamerican community. And were agitators for change, were agitators for fair treatment. I think they passed that down to him. And it sort of spurred his work in that area, along with his mother and father. They demanded that at the dinner table when they had conversations, they demanded that their two children, thurgood and his brother, if they are going to have an idea, first of all, they have had to have read the papers and know the information, secondly, they had to put together a very cogent rationale as to what they were talking about. Marshall claims he was learning to be a lawyer before he knew he was going to be a lawyer because of the way his father and mother made them think about the world in which they lived in and how to talk about it in a clear way. I think that that idea of how to navigate the world from his ancestors, from his grandparents and parents on both sides, were critical to creating this man who becomes the lawyer for the naacp. My college is in greater philadelphia. Marshall has a connection . He does. He goes to lincoln university. Which is, again, greater philadelphia. Okay. Its close. Got to have a hometown plug here. Sort of Like University of maryland is greater washington, d. C. I guess thats sort of true. But the connection to philadelphia is that with lincoln, he has a group of friends and they sort of enjoyed playing cards. They enjoyed each Others Company and they enjoyed going into philadelphia on the weekends to see the town and to go to the churches where they thought the prettiest girls were there. And on one of his ventures into philadelphia he meets the woman who becomes his wife, vivian. And he claims he didnt meet her until several years later. She claimed that she actually met him at an event at a party. He was talking to everybody else, he Department Notice her but she noticed him. She decided that he was someone she wanted to get to know better. So that connects him to philadelphia. Okay. Thats good. Thats important. You know . As w. C. Fields said, id rather be in philadelphia. Thats right. So he wants to go to law school. Hes a citizen of maryland. Does he go to the university of marry lapped law school . He wants to go to the university of Maryland Law School but they had stopped accepting africanamerican students there in the late 19th century. So when he decides to apply, he understands it might be difficult but decides to apply anyway. He gets the standard letter back. We dont allow africanamericans to go to the school here. There are other wonderful schools in the area. You might want to try them. We might provide you money to go somewhere else in the state. He decides that he cant afford to do that. He doesnt want to not go to maryland and he winds up going to Howard University instead. Whats interesting is when he first goes to Howard University, its reputation isnt very strong. In fact, it was only a night school law school, which meant that it was set up so that for individuals that had to work during the day, could go to lieu school at night but the standards were not very high and the demands were not very high. He reluctantly decided to go to howard because he could go there at night and work during the day. What happens when he gets there, they also brought on board a new sort of dean of law school, Charles Hamilton houston. And houston has decided that hes hired to buffers and to build up the law school at Howard University. He decides that what he needs to do is to change the way that it operates. The biggest change he makes is to change it from a night school to a day school. You could imagine the howel tha went up when he decided to do that. Even though it was a night school that wasnt as highly regarded, it provided a pathway for a number of individuals in watching tochb, d. C. , who worked during the day, went to law school at night and became lawyers. In fact, his father got his law degree that way. In deciding to change from a night school to a day school, fulltime law school, he was going against what had been in the path of his father to his law profession. But his belief was he needed to make howard a much stronger place. It had to be a place that became a pleer plaremiere place to edu africanamerican lawyers. His vision was he wanted to create lawyers who would look at the society, look at the laws and become what we call social engineers whose tags being it was to change the nature of the laws, the nature of the environment in which africanamericans had to live and to make it a better place, more equitable place to live. Marshall was not happy about the choice. You think its not going well but it turns out to be one of the best choices that you make. So Charles Hamilton houston is famous for having said to all of his students that if a lawyer is not a social engineer, he is a parasite. Absolutely. So we know what a parasite is. Whats a social engineer . A social engineer is in his mind a lawyer who dedicates his career to changing society, to reengineering the society at that time. That the laws were there in terms of the constitution and other pieces of the law that existed but they needed to be forced to be applied in an equitable way. The lawyers he trained at howard had the task of taking the law degree, not using it to make a living for themselves but using it as a tool to begin to change the nature of that society. To look at the laws, to use them to have them apply equally but to make sure that in the long run Society Changes in a way that africanamericans and others who find themselves on the short side of the law are able to actually use and be citizens in the full definition of that word. For him social engineer was reengineering the society to be more equitable. Lets for a moment go back to the early 1930s when Young Thurgood marshall is in law school and there are many people here who probably understand what the conditions in the United States were like for africanamericans in the 1930s, but there are also people who only know it as a kind of a vague history because they havent gone through the museum y yet. What is the world Thurgood Marshall is going into . Because thats the center piece of what his life will be like, is to completely dismantle that world and turn it upside down. So what is the world to understand what he does, we have to understand what he is up against. Well, as i said, marshall is raised in baltimore, maryland. To give you a sense of it, there was a study done around that time in which they looked at segregation throughout the nation and decided that the most segregated town in the country was baltimore. First of all, you get a sense of how strong the laws were to segregate the races in baltimore. He grows up in a segregated society, one in which africanamericans were not allowed to go to many of the downtown stores, they werent allowed to get jobs in those stores, that they could only get housing certain parts of the city. One of the first restricted covenants which are laws set in place to prevent certain groups from living in certain parts of the city, one of the earliest ones was created in baltimore. So that you really are in a place where africanamericans are pushed towards the bottom part of the society. I think this is emblematic of what its like throughout the south and in parts of the north for treatment of africanamericans. The opportunities to get jobs are limited. The opportunities to go to schools are limited. The schools were segregated and separate but equal meant separate but unequal in terms of what were provided for africanamericans in terms of schools, in terms of facilities, in terms of places they can go to visit where they had to sit in theaters. So that its a world in which the structure is set up to prevent africanamericans from experiencing their full rights of citizenship. I think thats the world hes into and thats the world hes looking to change as a social engineer. So you have a world where literally africanamericans are segregated from when theyre born at an all Black Hospital and theyre buried in an all Black Cemetery and everything in between is segregated. Right. Its by law in 17 states, its by custom in other states. The customs vary from state to state. The laws are very harsh. Right. Some of the states, one reads the laws and you get the impression that state legislators spend weeks trying to find something new to segregate so that the at one point the Florida Legislature says that at the end of the school year the books from black schools must go to one warehouse and the books from white schools must go to the other. I dont know, maybe they thought the books would date over the summer if they were in the same warehouse. Some places when you went to court, they had a black bible you could swear on and a white bible you could swear on. Those minuscule differences. And there were places where the tax rolls, there was a book for black taxpayers and white. So its almost a constant contest, what else can we seg grey garrett. Right. In this world, this gigantic world of racism everywhere right. Where does marshall see the crack in the wall . How does he see a method of breaking through this gigantic wall of segregation which is everywhere . I think theres two pathways. First of all, i think he believes that through the law you can create change. Part of what hes doing is to help to i think shift the way that the courts are interpreting the law, the ways that might be more equitable, might be fair in their treatment, but i think what they also do is he and houston and others along with others in the naacp craft an interesting approach to attacking segregation. Plessy versus ferguson, 1896, i always get that and Frederick Douglass death 95. 95. One says the death of Frederick Douglas is the end of one age. Plessy versus ferguson is the beginning of the next age a year later. What plessy versus ferguson does is separate but equal is illegal. Unequal becomes the norm. And what they decide to do, marshall, houston, others, they go back to the original court ruling that says separate but equal is legal and what they decide to do is launch an attack and they want to make it separate and equal. Wherever you have these different kinds of settings, different kinds of schools for africanamericans and white children, if the facilities are not equal, their idea is lets force them to live up to the law and make them equal. They think it will be so expensive to create two equal systems that it will force the powers that be to say this is too expensive and they will bring them together. Their hope is by forcing them to be separate but equal according to the law, that they will create a crack in the system of separate but equal and theyll create a crack and make desegregation happen. What are some of the cracks . They start at first in the law schools and they believe that lets start up high because if we start in elementary school, it will drive people crazy and theyll never get any traction with that because it will create such a wave of resistance. They decided to start with professional schools. They started with a case in missouri with a guy by the name of gaynes. He applies to the law school and he makes the argument that separate but unequal is unfair. They get the ruling over several months, i think a couple of yea years. In the meantime he goes off to school in michigan. By the time they get the ruling, hes gone. They cant find him. There are all kinds of theories. They say he went to his apartment desk, told that he was going to die there, told he was going to a drugstore and never came back. Some think he was murdered. Others said he was paid off. Others decided he didnt want to put up with it anymore. The problem is naacp and marshall had gone through so many steps, when he disappears, they dont have someone to actually follow up, which means they have to start the case all over again. They then do a case in oklahoma, but as we were talking earlier, probably the most important case takes place in texas where they get a man who works for the post office who agrees to go through the process of applying to the law school in texas and texas comes up with a number of different steps along the way in which first they resist his coming there altogether. They then decide theyre going to create a separate law school for him where he can go to law school where they quickly assembled a library, books, a teacher or two, now we have a law school and its separate and equal. He refuses to accept it as does marshall. They say, this is not equal. You dont get the same kinds of benefits, same kind of start in life as a lawyer at this separate school and they continue to litigate it until finally they win the case in which the Supreme Court argues that the separate school does not give you the same experiences, the same contacts, the same launches as a lawyer in going to the university of texas itself. You have all of the most important people come in as teachers, alumnae, create connections and it allows you to be successful. You cant do that at a separate institution. They rule against texas. This creates the important crack in terms of the push that separate and equal had to be separate and equal. This creates panic and concern in a lot of schools. The side note to this, when its successful, its successful oklahoma. Its not just in the law school. It happens in the school of education and other places. The next big step is a student is accepted, i think its akoha, and he decides that he wants to live on campus. So now theyve got to figure out where is he going to stay . He says, ive got a little piece of paper that says i have a dorm room. Now theyve got to figure out and participate in the social life, in the Football Games at these schools and that creates more turmoil. I think thats part of what was underlying the idea that marshall and houston and others had is once we create this crack, once we begin to allow people to have access, that its going to create a movement in that direction that will break apart this whole idea of separate and equal and show, in fact, people can operate and live together and it wont cause a tremor in society along the way. So the texas case and the oklahoma case are important first steps at attacking this idea of separate and unequal and trying to make equal operate so that what can follow will be people beginning to actually intermix together and find that its not so terrible. Theres a story that when marshall is litigating the texas case and texas said they were going to start a separate law school for black people, marshall said, fine, we have somebody who wants to study Petroleum Engineering and are you going to spend the money to create an entire Engineering College for an africanamerican. So they win at the graduate schools, then they attack the public schools. Right. And im sure everybody here knows the outcome, which is brown v ward where the Supreme Court unanimously holds that separate but equal schools are inherently unequal, that they can never be equal. So this makes marshall in my view the central figure of civil rights for the 20th century. That without marshall, there is no montgomery bus boycott because the montgomery bus boycott is coming off of this huge victory in brown where the Supreme Court has eventually said segregation now with brown they said this only applies to the school, to nothing else. Anybody who has half a brain knows this is the beginning of the end. Right. So in that context there are some africanamericans who are very uncomfortable with this. Right. They are saying, you are destroying our world. We would be better off because some of the Southern States are saying were going to, you know, raise allocations, were going to raise teachers salaries, were going to build Better Schools. Were going to make the separate schools equal. Some are arguing it would be better for our children right now to go to a Better School than to litigate and fight and face trauma for a decade or more to get them into an integrated school. Some districts in virginia simply shut down their schools. We dont have to have public schools. If we have to integrate, well simply close them down. So my question is by the way, in other fields the same thing occurs so that Jackie Robinson is a great hero of america, but Jackie Robinson knows the negro leagues. Once baseball is integrated, you dont need the separate leagues. Were about out of time and our moderator is waiving at us silently, time to do the question answer. I want to ask you one last question. If we could bring back Thurgood Marshall and say, mr. Marshall or mr. Justice marshall because i think he would say his that being a Supreme Court justice was the crown on his career. Right. But his career was in the trenches. Right. If we could bring him back today and we asked him was it the right tactic . Was integration the way to go or should we have fought to force all of these bigoted white southern rednecks, the Strom Thurmonds of the world, to actually make everything equal, would it have been better if they had done that and they were forced to spend millions and millions and then billions on creating equality and eventually come to the conclusion themselves that they had to stop rather than fighting it out and winning it at the cost of, in cases like Prince Edward county, virginia, kids not being able to go to school at all . Marshall was unflinching in support of what he did. He had a number of arguments in texas about that very thing where the Texas Legislature offered to create a separate black law school and to bring money into it and to really bump it up and what marshall suggested was that you still wouldnt get something that was of the same quality as what other people had. And his belief was that until you forced the students to be in the same places, you werent going to get similar kinds of funding, similar kinds of resources to go to those schools. So even though you might get Better Schools than you had before, better facilities than you had before, they still wouldnt be up to par to the ones that other students had access to them. He was a Firm Believer, as was houston, that once you put those students together, then you cannot separate their resources. That would force everyone to get an equal education, otherwise youre getting partially equal but not the same thing. He was adamant about that from the very start, to the very beginning. People today would still believe that was the way to go and the world youre getting now would not have had quickly. You might have had a number of separate schools, maybe Better Schools, but they still wouldnt have the same quality of resources. We can see it in Society Today that we still see the resources to poor areas, to areas of color dont get the same resources because you can separate them out and you can find other devices to get resources into other places secretly. So i dont think marshall would have varied at all or had any regrets about the pathway that he followed. He was a Firm Believer in desegregation. I think we are now going to open it up to the audience. Are there people with microphones somewhere . Wed like you to use them so that your question gets heard. For our online community. Right here. Am i on . My question is for mr. Fingle steen fipgleman, im sorry. Is jim crow a Southern Institution . So the jim crow, of course, began as a singing and dancing figure in the period before the civil war. Thats where jim crow came from. Of course jim crow comes to stand for segregation, and the answer is that in most of the United States at some point there are some elements of segregation so that some places its done by law, some places its done by custom. I, for instance, was once doing research on the history of civil rights in detroit and i came across a manual published by the real estate institute. It wasnt merely black and white. There was a whole section on where you send jews so they wont live in neighborhoods where White Christians dont want them. Then there were discussions about how if you have a black client you need to steer them to the right neighborhood where they belong. And so this was not legal and it was not a statute, it was simply an institution created by an entire profession. You had that across the board. On the other hand, we were talking before about the first School Desegregation takes place in iowa in 1868 when an africanamerican man in muskatine, iowa, named Alexander Clark sues the school board because they wont let his daughter go to the high school and there isnt a high school for blacks. The iowa Supreme Court says under iowa law, everybody is entitled to an education and you cannot discriminate and the iowa Supreme Court says, if you allow segregated schools for blacks, then you have to set up schools for catholics, or for jews, or for germans, or for french people and basically the court mocks the whole idea of discrimination. You have a wide range. Give you an example. In 1875 Congress Passes an important law known as the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which provides for public accommodations for all people. Says you cant discriminate in hotels, in restaurants, on trai trains, on street cars, in theaters, in places where people gather in the public. The Supreme Court strikes that down in 1883, says its unconstitutional. You cant make the hotels in new york open their doors to blacks. In new york. Im going to slow him down because this is a class. No, im going to end right now. Very quickly. In the next 25 years yeah, but in the next 25 years virtually every northern and Western State passes their own Civil Rights Act making such discrimination illegal. Now they dont always enforce it, as we know, but they make it illegal. So on one level, yes, segregation is found in the north, but compared to the south, its a completely different world. The reality is is blacks hold Public Office in the north, they go to the state universities in the north, they face discrimination, they face racism but in the south they are completely cut out of public life. Remember, until the 1930s, 90 of all africanamericans lived in the former 15 slave states plus washington, d. C. , which is also a segregated city. The segregation is affecting the vast majority of africanamericans. But its a class. Ill stop. Should never let a College Professor answer. My question is, you know, United States right now, we on the precipice of being a majority minority country. My question is do you believe in the current Political Climate that the brown versus board of education would pass the current Supreme Court . Wow. Lets say i am not optimistic. Im always hopeful but not optimistic that this court would find for that because the question is would a civil rights law Pass Congress now . And im not sure that would happen either. I think were in a different time. We hope to pass through it and get to a better time, but these are dicey times. Good evening. My question is this, knowing Thurgood Marshalls history, and of course about the history mystery of the disappearance of lloyd gains right. Once again, i guess the question is about if he was here, what would you ask him . Im going to have to rely on you two for this. Do you believe if he could do it all again, what would be the thing that he would do differently considering he was so close into breaking things wide open with lloyd gains and of course he leaves the hotel and disappears and we cant find him in the history books. Well, i think what marshall said is the disappointment they didnt find someone that could stay the course that had the wherewithal to really hang in the there. He does the sipiole case. Shes a strong person, shes determined and she will not shell stay the course. She will not drop by the way side because its taking so long. I think the other thing is lloyd gains had quite an ego and even sweet met him at michigan and he was not impressed because lloyd began to read his own headlines and began to see himself as important, wanted special treatment. I think what it made marshall do Going Forward is be a little bit more careful about the character and quality of people they brought forward to head up these cases to make sure that they had the character and wherewithal, but also that they had the right credentials in the sense that there werent issues in their background, issues in how they presented themselves that might be used as an excuse for them not to be allowed into these schools. So the lesson he learned was to carefully select individuals you want to stand for your test cases. If i could just add one more thing to that. In cases involving social change, sometimes an organization can choose its client, can choose its plaintiff so in the montgomery bus case, rosa parks is not some random person. Rosa parks is the secretary of the naacp in montgomery. She knows exactly what shes doing and she is doing it because shes the right person to do it. On the other hand, sometimes somebody simply comes along and finds themselves in the situation, and i think in some cases wade lloyd gains was like that. One funny story about heman sweat, hes a postal delivery person, hes not wealthy. Hes applying for the university of Texas Law School and in the process he gets invited up to austin and ushered into the main rich persons white hotel and he walks in the front door, which black people arent supposed to do, and immediately the bellman takes him to the elevator, which hes not supposed to get into and hes taken up to a suite where hes not supposed to go and in the suite are a number of very, very wealthy texas business men with literally a bag of cash and they offer him this bag of cash if he will withdraw his case. And he walks away. He later suffers tremendous medical problems because of the nerves and the stress of this, but hes one tough man whos willing to stick it out, and thats what i think youre talking about. Sweat is vetted before he goes forward. Gains was not. Or its possible that gains was murdered. Right. We dont know what happened to him, but there is a recent book by the university of Missouri Press on gains, but its ambiguous as to what happened to him. Thank you. Sweat is actually they have to do a lot of searching to finally find someone who would step forward in texas as well. Character has to be there in a lot of different kinds of ways, not only your toughness to stay away from bribery, but your toughness understanding whats ahead of you and might give it away. What we dont often think about is the toll that those individuals play over the long haul in terms of what happens to them in their lives. What we didnt talk about, ill mention real quickly, what we dont realize about marshall is how much he put himself in danger to be a civil rights lawyer in the south. That he almost found himself lynched in one instance, saved only because his one instance b friends wouldnt leave him. He would go to town and as soon as hed get to town the local residents would put him into car and take him from house to house each night so local officials wouldnt know where he was. So this entire process of social engineering also called for a great deal of personal courage along the way, and i think thats one of the things we dont recall about marshal because we think of him as a Supreme Court justice. The title mr. Civil rights was a title he had up through the 50s because of what he stood for and the changes he brought with him. And we dont often i think recognize that orunderstand that about him or more importantly about the people in those locations who decide to step forward and defy the local laws. So that character runs throughout these individuals who are involved in these processes. Theres also a odd flip side to this in that in many of these cases when you read the stories in spencers book which is really a very good book and youll learn a lot. One of the things that comes out is that the University Administrators who are required to segregate do so in ways that undermine their own case. So, for example, when swed applies for the University Law school the dean doesnt say youre unqualified. He says we will admit you but you are a negro the word was at the time. The law school says you would make a fine candidate but for the fact youre the wrong color. So when you go into court and you make the argument that she should be let in or he should be let in you have essentially the dean saying, yes. There are also remarkable examples of students in both oklahoma and texas who protest segregation so that in one case a man named mclaren who was in his 60s and getting a dockerate in education is told he has to sit at a separate table in the cafeteria and at the library and white students simply come and join him, sort of daring the administration to arrest them. That is also part of the story. But what spencer has not talked about is the way marshal also goes into the south and defends people charged with crimes and hes putting his life at risk every time he does it. The fact that marshal is never lynched is in some ways remarkable because he could have faced that many times. My father was a great admirer of thurgood marshal. I still remember the conversation at dinner the day he was confirmed to the Supreme Court, and i think there probably are some younger people who perhaps dont know cases, significant cases that he wrote decisions for. I i just wonder if you could i know the book focused more on his civil rights career but maybe theres a decision or two that were important that he weighed in on . I think hes probably better with the law side of it because what i loved about marshall was the early part of it. For me his Supreme Court years were significant but not the most significant part about him. I mean, there are a couple of cases. What he was in terms of his strength and his focus was he was against the Death Penalty consistently. He believed in the rights of the poor to be treated fairly by the courts. The rights of defendants or people arrest bide police to be given their rights rather than to be harassed into confessions, i think. While hes solicitorgeneral he had to argue against the miranda case where the police have to offer their point of view. But once he was on the court he was a supporter of that going throughout that. So what i think about is the kind of stream of things that were important to him and what he stood for and why his early days thin court i think he found very, very up lifting, but the latter ten years or so of his years in the court he felt very unhappy because he could see a conservative string coming into place in which they were more interested in protecting the recognizes of individuals rather tan the rights of people. And he found himself often what we could call the loyal opposition in which he would write more dissents against rulings of the main court than supporting of them. A couple of cases that come to mind is richmond, virginia, where they are decreeing the city of richmond says theyve been biased against minority firms for years. And if you get a contract you have to have a minority firm as part of your working group. When they go to court and the Supreme Court finds rules in fact that company does not have to do that and marshall writes a very fun dissent against that in which he cannot believe after years and years of discrimination the court is saying theres not enough of a record to show or to justify why richmond is so i dont know the cases by name but i know what he stands for in spirit and what were the important aspects of his work. I think what resonated for his father is marshal stalwart stand against mistreatment of those who cant defend themselves easy enough. Marshall defends in a case known as rodrigo vs. San Antonio School district. This is case brought by mexicanamericans living in san antonio where you have five separate School Districts within the city and county actually within the city. And the five separate School Districts have completely different funding ratios. And in the poorest School District the people actually pay the highest tax rate. But because the property valueerize so low and the people are so poor they produce the lowest revenue. And the Supreme Court rules that economic status and the amount of tax dollars raised for the schools is not something that the constitution requires to create equality. So as long as the schools are integrated on race it doesnt matter whether the poor people get crummy schools and rich people get great schools. And marshall writes a stenging dissent because marshall understands while race has been the central issue in American History and by the way this is me talking as well as marshall, that race has been the central issue of American History since the first europeans encounter the first nativeamericans, that in our own World Economics and poverty are as weequally important in terms of creating equality. And thats what marshall stands for in the court all the time. And for that hes a great justice. But he is much greater as mr. Civil rights. What the court rules in that case is good education is not a right. And thats what drives marshall crazy among other things, the sense that fair treatment is not a right. Good evening and thank you so very much for this discussion. Im a native texan and in fact im a graduate of the university of Texas Law School. In the early 80s, which felt like it wasnt that much time since mr. Sweat entered we kind of saw and heard a lot about the deplorable conditions that he suffered when he was a student there. And much of that was actually still there when i was there. My question is this. Given justice marshalls thoughts about integration as opposed to segregation and separate but equal what advice would he give in todays environment as we witness a lot of the affinity groups both, you know, in our work conditions and in the community where people are purposely sort of segregating themselves out race based membership only of that particular group, and what advice would he give about the wisdom of doing that in todays environment . The parallel i could give you to think about is that as stokely, car michael and black power came to the forefront and the idea of black power and black separation marshall was firmly against it. He didnt believe that thats the way to go. He almost said thats like being a white southerner pushing for segregation. It went against all the things he believed in and all the things he felt was important because by segregating yourself once again he would feel you left yourself vulnerable, and it became then the easier pathway to give fewer resources, give fewer support to one side versus the other. For him and for houston that connection is what made for equality of resources. And i think when you look at him closely i think desegregation might have been a better word than integration in the sense that i think he liked everyone but he didnt believe that one was better than the other but he knew pairing together was what made equality of resources work, and thats the core. How do we make sure all our children has equal access to education and resources . You have to bind them together and you cant then separate those streams of resources. I think he might also remind us that in addition to desegregation cases and integration cases and criminal cases that marshall and the nacp that he worked for and when he left was led by his assistant for many years, Jack Greenberg that the nacp was constantly fighting for Voting Rights and that Voting Rights marshall is a patriot, if you wanted to have sort of a picture of a true someone who truly believes in american ideals it would have have been Thurgood Marshall. Because people died for the right to register to vote. Marshall and other lawyers risked their lives for the right to register to vote. And i think he would answer that part of his legacy is people taking advantage of the victories he led and not sort of sitting back and saying, okay, now we have it and we dont have to keep fighting. So i think that would also be part of his argument. In fact, what he said while brown vs. The board of education was an important case he often argued the most important case he had was the texas primary case, white primary, where they were able to break the back of texas using the white primary as a way of excluding africanamericans for voting but now instead opened it up so africanamericans could have the vote. It and it was one of the most important cases he prosecuted because voting really does provide a platform and springboard for a lot of other changes that can follow. I agree with paul that voting for him was a very, very important concept and focus for his work. And by the way chief Justice Warren who wrote the brown decision when asked in requirement what his most important opinion was he did not say brown. He said it was the reapportionment cases because it provided democracy and representation for all americans. So put marshall who argued brown and warn who wrote brown together and theyre both going to end up at the same thing, in some same place that yes we have to win court cases but we also have to be politically involved in our country if we want our country to succeed. I think that was our last question. Id like to thank our two distinguished speakers this evening. Please give them a rousing round of applause. [ applause ] id like to remind you of a couple of things. The book sign and sales are up in Heritage Hall where youll get to meet our director as the book is sold, and hell sign it for you. You also have in your hand out a short evaluation that we would love to hear from you, hear your feedback of this program. And we have volunteers who are here who will collect those evaluations from you. Hope to see you again in the near future and have a great night. American history tv on cspan 3 exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend coming up this weekend, saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war historians of the noouvg Historical Society talk about artifacts related to the july 1863 draft riots in new york city. Featured in their joint publication, the civil war in 50 objects. On sunday at 6 00 p. M. On american artifacts well tour Fort Monroe Casemate Museum the largest fort in the United States which sits at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay near hampton, virginia. Hear how the fort served as a beacon of freedom for enslaved people who were protected at the union strong hold and how it held former confederate president Jefferson Davis as prisoner for two years after the war. At 7 00 p. M. A look at fdr, truman and the atopic bomb on the heels of the 75th anniversary of the bombings on hiroshima and nagasaki. Fdr president ial library and Museum Director paul sparrow and historian edward lengthel. And at 8 00 p. M. On the presidency Ronald Reagans 1983 interview with readers dizwres and his 1988 interview with bbcs godfreed hobson with reagan discussing a variety of issues including his hollywood days, the 1983 bombing that killed u. S. Marines in lebanon and the assassination attempt that left him seriously wounded. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan 3. Thegsry secretary Steven Mnuchin appears before the house small bsz committee on oversight Small Business administration and department of treasury pandemic program. Live coverage begins today at 10 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan. And u. S. Attorney general william barr appears in the oversight he oversight hearing on the justice department. Watch today at 10 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Watch anytime on cspan. Org or listen on the go with the cspan radio app. Dissenting at the Supreme Court is a series hosted by the Supreme Court Historical Society. Next on American History Tv University of arkansas law professor mark kilenbeck is introduced and then discusses several opinions decided in cases between 1810 and 1927. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Im pleased to welcome you in the first lecture in the silverman series. This year were examining dissent not majority opinions, different aspects thereof. Youve already been warned about your cellphones and your apple watches and so forth, so i wont