February 25, 2025 • 34 mins
Maybe it was his dad? Or all the punishments he got as a naughty high schooler? Or perhaps it was inspired by watching so many Soap Operas? Whatever the cause, Thurgood Marshall's life story is remarkable. From watching trials as a child to almost getting lynched for trying cases in the deep South, Will and Mango look back at the life and legacy of one of America's greatest legal minds.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's that? Will? All? Right?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Well, you know how people like to keep tabs on
their old classmates, you know, just you can see what
everybody's wound up doing.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
That is why I joined Facebook. I want to see
what people are doing. I want to see how my
high school rivals are doing terribly.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I hope did you recently join Facebook?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, loves to discover it like your grandmother. That's pretty great.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Actually, I was thinking about that this week while reading
up on THURGOODE. Marshal, and it actually made me feel
so bad for the Lincoln College class of nineteen thirty,
which I know you're I think you're.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
An expert on the Lincoln College class of nineteen thirty.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I am not, but I'm guessing it's because they graduated
a future Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
So Lincoln's class of nineteen thirty was actually home to
a slew of prominent black leaders. So for literature, you
had Langston Hughes. For music, there was Cab Callaway. Then
of course there was Marshall himself, who made this colossal
name for himself in the legal system and on the
political side of things, the class said Kwame Nakruma of
the future President of Ghana.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Isn't that unbelievable?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I mean, no matter which field the other students went into,
they were all pretty much guaranteed to be out shown
by those classmates. But the more I poked around Marshall's biography,
the more I wanted to know.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
How did he become such.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
A larger than life figure in the courtroom, how did
he look at the constitution and did he really take
the oath of office from an ex clan member?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So let's dive in.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketer and on the other side of
the soundproof glass watching old Days of Our Lives reruns.
This gives him an excuse to do this because I
know he likes to do this on the quiet, but
in honor of Thurgood Marshall.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I know it's a tribute, but uh, I do feel
like Tristan just loves his stories.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
He does. He definitely loves his stories.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well that was my first thought, but Tristan was so
adamant about only watching episodes from the nineteen seventies and
eighties that it made me wonder if there really was
a connection. So we did a little bit of digging,
of course, and it turns out that during his years
on the bench, Justice Third Good Marshall was actually a big.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Fan of Days of Our Lives.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
And I love this, but I mean, like really a
fan of soap operas in general. And apparently he once
told Justice Brennan there was quote a lot to be
learned about life from soap operas.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So things like how to stop your evil twin from
stealing the men you love.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I imagine these practical life lessons, and Justice Marshall didn't
want to miss any of them. In fact, Time magazine
ran to this report this was back in nineteen seventy six,
claiming that Marshall would often call a recess right around
one pm so that he could watch the latest Days
of Our Lives episode in his chambers. You know, I
guess they didn't have a way to a TVO or
record things, did I just say TVO? Anyway, Sometimes he
(03:10):
would be late to his next meeting because he didn't
want to miss the end of an episode.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I totally said TiVo.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So obviously this is a funny thing to point out, because,
you know, aside from his odd TV habit, which actually
makes him feel pretty human, like, his legacy is just stunning.
I mean, you think about the pivotal role he had
in the civil rights movement. His landmark appointment is the
first black member of the Supreme Court. There's just a
ton to discuss here. Yeah, there definitely is. All right, well,
(03:39):
I'll leave it up to you. Where do you want
to start? How about with a bombshell? You know how
I like to start these things, Yeah, with bombshells. Apparently,
Third Good Marshall's name wasn't actually Thirgood Marshall when he
was born in Maryland. This is in nineteen oh eight.
He was actually given the name thorough Good Marshal, like
the word thorough right good put together. But it was
such a mouth and so annoying, the spell that Marshall
(04:02):
told this reporter. By the time I reached the second grade,
I got tired of spelling all that out and had
shortened it to Thurgood.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I love that he had decided this by second grade.
And that's pretty amazing. All right, Well, I actually didn't
know his name was abbreviated, but.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
What else did you dig up on his childhood?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So he was born and raised in Baltimore, This is
around the turn of the twentieth century. He had one
older brother, this guy, William Aubrey Marshall. His mother was
a school teacher, and his father, William Canfield Marshall, worked
as a dining car waiter on a railroad and then
later is this steward at a fancy country club. So
the Marshals weren't exactly wealthy, but they felt middle class.
(04:39):
And that's kind of amazing in itself when you consider
that Goood's father was actually the grandson of a former slave.
And this was not lost on Thoroughgood, like the social
progress that was made just a generation or two, and
of course later he'd make it his mission to sort
of push progress even further.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So I'm curious how did Thurgood get interested in law
in the first place, because I was looking at lot
about his early legal career, but there really wasn't a
lot of insight into what made him want to be
a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So from everything I read, it was really his father
who kind of sparked this passion. His dad, William, was
this amateur writer, and he'd also been interested in legal
proceedings and how courts worked, and it was such an
obsession for him that in his free time he liked
to go down to the local courthouse and listen to
the civil and criminal trials. And sometimes he'd bring his
sons along too. But this is the amazing part. Right
(05:28):
when they got home, the three of them would actually
lay out all the arguments they'd heard that day and
then had these big, lively debates around the dinner table.
And sometimes these discussions would happen five times in a week.
So in all this excitement, Thurgood really started to develop
this interest in law and how to use words to
confront and justice. In fact, we actually have their good's
words on this. In nineteen sixty five, he talked about
(05:50):
his father's influence, saying, quote, he did it by teaching
me to argue, by challenging my logic on every point,
by making me prove every statement. He never told me
to be a lawyer, but he turned me into one.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You know, my son is big into this series by
John Grisham called Theodore Boone, have your.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Kids I've discovered this yet.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So that's all I think about law now is like
what kids are in the courtroom, like listening to these cases.
But did you get a sense for like what kinds
of cases the marshals were scrutinizing when they were at home?
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So Gaye pulled a ton of this for us, and
he couldn't track down specific cases, but it is easy
to imagine that they would have seen a lot of
cases involving racial discrimination. When Thurgood was growing up in Baltimore,
the city's death rate for African Americans was actually double
that of white residents, and because of segregation, he and
his brother were actually forced to attend this all black
public school. So he felt all of this at this
(06:40):
really early age, and what he saw in both court
and the classroom that really shaped the viewpoints he'd ultimately
spend his life fighting for right.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
So he was obviously engaged in a lot of self education,
a really curious kid and observing all these trials, debating
law with his dad. But I'm curious, how was he
in school? Like was he a pretty good student grade wise?
He was excellent in high school.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
His grades were above average, and he made a name
for himself on the debate team, you know, thanks to
all this practice that he and his dad had had
at home. But when it came to behavior, Good was
actually kind of a trouble maker.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Really.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, you might even say he no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Do not say third Bad. I could tell I knew
that's where you were going with that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, that's probably for the best. But he actually misbehaved
a lot at school, and whenever he did, his teachers
would make him read the Constitution as punishment.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And here's the.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Thing, Third Good gotten so much trouble that by the
time he graduated in nineteen twenty five, which was a
year early, he had memorized the entire Constitution.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know, it's funny they didn't realize how much they
were contributing to his, you know, excellence in this in
this field. And listening to you lay all this out,
I mean, it's pretty amazing how all these different little
things in his life seemed to be working together to
sort of, you know, nudge him along a certain path.
And I mean, I know we're looking at all this
in hindsight and speaking in these broad terms, but his
family history, his city, his school. His dad's interests, of course,
(08:03):
and now even his punishments contributed to this. But you know,
when you take it all together, it almost seems inevitable
that he would become a lawyer and fight for civil rights.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, and I guess they're a good agreed with you,
because after graduating college in nineteen thirty, he immediately applied
to the University of Maryland law school. And this is
actually where one of those nudges down the path comes in,
because despite a glowing high school transcript, the college ultimately
rejected They're Good because of the color of his skin.
But even though this is jumping a little bit ahead,
I want to give you some instant satisfaction by telling
(08:35):
you that about five years after he applied, They're Good
actually helped launch and win the case that brought an
end to segregation at the very school that rejected him.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Oh wow, it's pretty sweet vindication. That's pretty great and
I can only imagine how good it must have felt
when that verdict came in. And I'm curious, though, like,
where did Marshall wind up studying law?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So instead of Maryland, Marshall went to law school at
Howard University, which is obviously historically black, though segregation wasn't
an issue, and at the time, the dean of the
law school was this super well respected civil rights lawyer
named Charles Houston, and on campus, Houston had this reputation
for being super strict and demanding, but Marshall actually responded
(09:14):
well to the style of teaching, and in fact, the
two hit it off so well that Houston became a
mentor to Marshall and years later they worked closely together
in the legal division of the NAACP.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, and Marshall's work with the NAACP became the cornerstone
of his career, so I definitely say he chose the
right mentor in Houston. So when did Marshall first get
involved with the NAACP. Was that straight out of law school?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
No, So, Marshall actually passed the bar exam and graduated
from Howard with honors, but he spent his first few
post grad years trying to get this private practice going
in Baltimore. He landed a few small cases every now
and then, but none of them paid very much, and
things got so bad that in nineteen thirty four, Thurgood
was forced to take a second job at an STD
clinic just to make rent. In fact, if you remember
(10:00):
breakthrough case I mentioned earlier, the one where Thurgood got
the University of Maryland to desegregate, he was working the
late shift at that clinic the whole time he prepped
for the case.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And even when he moved to New York City in
nineteen thirty six to work full time for the NAACP,
Thurgood was so concerned that things wouldn't pan out as
a lawyer that he didn't actually quit his job at
the clinic. He just requested a six month leave of absence.
That's how touch and go things were for him as
a young lawyer.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
That is pretty wild.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
You mentioned Marshall's mentor was involved with the NAACP. Did
he actually have something to do with Marshall getting called
up to New York So.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Charles Houston had actually resigned as dean in nineteen thirty
five so that he could become the first legal counsel
for the NUBACP, and by the time Marshall joined on
a year later, Houston had already become the director of
the group's legal division, and the two worked side by
side on civil rights cases for the next few years,
and then when Houston retired from the role in nineteen forty,
Thurgood stepped in and he really didn't miss a beat.
(10:56):
He stayed on as director all throughout the forties and
the fifties.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, and that's probably the portion of his career that
I feel most familiar with, you know, all the landmark
cases he tackled, and you know, not just his a
justice serving on the Supreme Court, but as a lawyer
arguing in front of the Supreme Court, which is perfect
because I'll hand you the baton and you can walk
us through it.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
But let's take a quick break first.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
how Thurgood Marshall earned his seat on the highest.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Court in the country.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
And I feel like you were maybe alluding to this
answer just before the break. You were saying that it
was Marshall's time with the NAACP that really won him
his acclaim.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, it's definitely true.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
I mean, Marshall served as the group's top attorney for
a little over two decades and this was when he
really made a name for himself because during that period
he argued at record setting thirty two cases before the
Supreme Court. And get this, So, out of those thirty
two civil rights cases, Marshall won.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Twenty nine of those, not a bad average at all.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Even today, all these decades later, Marshall is still near
the top of the list for the number of cases
argued and one before the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I mean, that's stunning. But what were some of his
biggest wins. Well, his first Supreme Court victory was a
pretty big one. So this was a nineteen forty case.
It was called Chambers versus Florida, and it dealt with
these four black men who had confessed to a murder
earlier that year and had been sentenced to death for it. However,
Marshall was able to show that their confessions to the
crime had been coerced by the police. So the four
(12:35):
suspects had been held in police custody for a full week,
never given access to legal counsel, and despite this, the
men had been questioned individually throughout the week, with as
many as ten police officers and community members present during
these interrogations, but again no lawyers were present, and because
this was all prior to the establishment of Miranda rights,
(12:56):
no one told the men that they had the right
to remain silent during these interrogations. So in the end,
the court ruled that the confessions that had led to
a conviction had not been given voluntarily, which made them inadmissible.
So the death sent its ruling was actually overturned. I mean,
it is wild to think that there was a time
when those kinds of tactics were actually the norm, you know,
(13:18):
holding people without charges, denying them counsel, and of course,
you know, these civil rights violations still happened, but in
the era we're talking about, it sounds like it was
more or less acceptable behavior until cases like this were
brought to trial.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, it would actually be another twenty six years after
the Chambers case before those tactics would finally be outlawed
by the court.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And that's when police actually had to start telling suspects
that they had the right to an attorney and the
right to remain silent and all that.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yep, that was the ruling in the Miranda versus Arizona
case of nineteen sixty six, which by the way, was
also a case that Marshall argued, though he was the
Solicitor General by that point and no longer working for
the NAACP and Marshall had a slew of other landmark
victories in the years between Chambers and Miranda, but the
biggest had to be Brown versus the Board of Education,
(14:04):
you know, the case that brought down school segregation and
the whole separate but Equal doctrine. So there's no question
that was one of the most important cases of the
twentieth century and probably the most defining moment of Marshall's
whole career.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And this was in the early fifties, right, Yes.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Was nineteen fifty four, so this was really before the
civil rights movement had gotten into full swing. It was
a year before Rosa Park's bus ride, three years before
the Civil Rights Act of nineteen fifty seven, and so
the Brown case was kind of a precursor to all
of that.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And it may have taken a while for.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
The positive ruling to be fully enforced, but right from
the outset, it definitely helped kick off the movement and
kind of pave the way for more civil rights victories
to come.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
So, I know the main takeaways from the Brown case
have been covered pretty well by now, but could you
maybe run through the basics just for certainly for me
before anyone else who might have forgotten.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
So basically Marshall was representing a group of black parents
whose children had been forced to attend all black schools.
And this was in Topeka, Kansas, you might remember. And
of course this was a case that was near Marshall's
heart because this was something he had experienced himself, first
in high school and then of course again in college.
So in the end, Marshall argued that separate educational facilities
(15:16):
are inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court
agreed with him unanimously actually, So to be clear that
positive ruling was never guaranteed given the political climate of
the era, particularly in the South, you know, where Jim
Crow laws were still very much in effect, but it
helped that Marshall was so forceful and so clear when
(15:37):
exposing the hypocrisies of the current laws in court. So,
for example, there was one point during the Brown Arguments
when the Attorney General of Virginia complained that bringing the
case before the court was an assault by the NAACP
on the quote cherished heritage of segregation.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, And it gets even worse when you hear how
the Attorney General phrased all this. He said that the
NAACP was trying to quote, press this crown of thorns
upon our brow and hold the hemlock to our lips.
It's just so bizarre, which I guess is a dual reference,
likening the fall of segregation to both the crucifixion of
Christ and the death of Socrates. I'm not really interesting,
(16:16):
but just like you said, it is definitely messy and weird. Yeah,
and you know you'll actually like Marshall's response to this.
So he told the court, you have heard references to
one state's greatest and most cherished heritage, and when you
look for it, you find that greatest and most cherished
heritage is to segregate colored people.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
I mean, it's just signing to me that they voted
unanimously right with him. It's crazy. But I do want
to go back to something you mentioned a little earlier.
You said, Marshall became the Solicitor General in the.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Sixties, right, Yeah, So Marshall actually received a couple of
presidential appointments before finally being called up to the Supreme Court.
He left the NAACP in the early sixties, and this
was to serve on the US Court of Appeals and
that was after being nominated by President Kennedy, and then
four years later Kennedy's successor, Linda Johnson, he appointed Marshall
the first black solicitor General in US history, which.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Is obviously important historically, but I feel like I'd appreciate
a little bit more if I actually knew what a
solicitor general did.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
You don't think about this every day. That's fair.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well, so, the solicitor General is, as you might expect,
a legal post, and it's basically the attorney who goes
before the Supreme Court to argue cases on behalf of
the federal government. So a lot like what he had
done for twenty years with the NAACP, but now with
the federal government as his client.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So I get what he does now. Was he still
sticking to arguing civil rights cases once he started working
for the government or did that all change?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
No, he definitely was.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
And it was during this time on the Court of
Appeals that Marshall issued over one hundred decisions on civil
rights battles as well as other hot button issues like
women's rights, police brutality, and amazingly, none of these hundred
plus decisions were overturned by the Supreme Court and had
a similarly strong record during his two years as Solicitor
General two So he argued nineteen cases before the Supreme
(18:06):
Court during that stint, and one fourteen of those.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
That is really impressive.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And with a track record like that, it wasn't long
before President Johnson decided that Marshall belonged on the Supreme Court.
So there were a couple of wrenches in his plan, though,
and chief among them was that there wasn't actually a
vacancy to appoint him to.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
So I'm guessing Johnson might have played a little dirty
and engineered something for him, right, I.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Need some say that he did, Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
The story goes that Johnson decided to engineer a vacancy
himself by creating a conflict of interest for one of
the sitting justices, and this was a fellow Democrat named
Tom Clark. So apparently President Johnson appointed Clark's son as
Attorney General, which prompted his father to step down, so
it wouldn't look like nepotism. So it's up for debate
whether this was done to open the seat to Marshall specifically,
(18:53):
but he is definitely the one who filled it. And
there is evidence that Johnson and Marshall liked each other
and got along pretty well. So according to biographer Jan Williams,
the two men loved to drink bourbon and tell stories full.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Of lies and watch soap operas.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Maybe so, But even with Johnson on his side, it's
not like Marshall's appointment to the Supreme Court was a
cake wall.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I can't imagine. There was a backlash to trying to
get a black person on the Supreme Court, right.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Pretty shocking, I know. But all right, well, let's take
a quick break and then get back into this.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Okay, Well, so third good. Marshall was sworn into the
Supreme Court in October of nineteen sixty seven, But that
was only after what it sounds like was this pretty
grueling confirmation process. It took place over the course of
a week that summer, and from what I read, Marshall
underwent more hours of questioning than any Supreme Court nominee
before him.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, and this was largely because a handful of senators
from Southern States really did their best to torpedo his nomination.
To the history of the region has left many of
these old guard senators with, you know, an axe to
grind and shutting down. The first potential black SCOTUS member
definitely fit the bill. So, for instance, Mississippi senator at
the time was a guy named James Eastland, and according
to The Atlantic, Eastland was quote a notorious racist whose
(20:19):
father had famously lynched black people. He himself owned a
plantation that employed more than one hundred black sharecroppers, and
his daughter had been crowned Missed Confederacy nineteen fifty six.
That's a little clue there. Anyway, he was the head
of the committee for Marshall's nomination.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
It was like a little uphill battle.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah. I mean, you read a LinkedIn profile like that
and it feels like a miracle that Marshall got through, right.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
I Mean, he wasn't the only one there with you know,
you might consider questionable views on race. So Senators from
Thurman was also on the committee. It's amazing how long
this guy was in office. And his main contribution was
to subject Marshall to what basically amounted to a Jim
Crow a literacy test. He cross examined Marshall, quizzing him
on all these obscure, ridiculously specific portions of political history.
(21:08):
So for instance, one question he asked him was to
name all the members of the Congressional Committee that had
reviewed the fourteenth.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Amendment in eighteen sixty six.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Of course he couldn't answer this, But there's one thing
nobody could. A little later in the preceding Ted Kennedy
astrom thurnament, if he could name the committee members from
eighteen sixty six and guess what you couldn't.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
No, of course he couldn't.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
And there was no reason why a Supreme Court justice
would need to rattle off random information like that. So
these Southern senators were drilling Marshall because of the color
of his skin and because of what he represented, not
because they had any real serious doubts about his legal
knowledge or his ability to serve in this position, and
because the case against Marshall was so flimsy. The Judiciary
(21:51):
Committee ultimately approved his nomination with a resounding eleven to
five vote, and then the Senate confirmed him with an
equally definitive vote of sixty nine to eleven, which honestly
is a little surprising when you look back.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, I mean, that's impressive, but it does feel like
there are a significant amount of Senators who didn't vote
on it, right, Like, that's only like eighty people who
voted on his nominations quick mask. Well.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
In the end, President Johnson knew he could never get
the votes of the Southern Democratic senators who opposed Marshall,
so rather than trying to sway the unswayable, he instead
focused on getting them to abstain from voting altogether, rather
than casting a vote against Marshall. And the lobbying seemed
to work, as you can tell from these numbers. But
I do think it's worth noting that even if all
twenty of those abstentions had voted no on Marshall, he
(22:38):
still would have had more than enough yeses to get confirmed.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, and after the harassment and committee, it must have
been nice to have that kind of validation, right, Like,
that's a pretty resounding vote in Marshall's favor.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Oh definitely.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I mean the hearing had been this speed bump in
one ended up being a pretty smooth next few years
for Marshall. He joined a very liberal Supreme Court, which
obviously lined up very well with Marshall's own political views.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
So I am curious about this, Like, what would you
say those views were? Broadly speaking? Like his job was
obviously to interpret the Constitution. So what was his take
on it?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I mean, it's hard to say definitively, but from what
I've read about his rulings and from people who work
closely with him, it sounds like Marshall largely viewed the
Constitution as a means of promoting a kind of equality
under the law, especially following the Civil War and the
addition of certain amendments. And I think that viewpoint is
certainly reflected in the changes to the constitutional law that
(23:30):
he had advocated for during all his years as both
an attorney and then later as a judge. And he
was trying to make the law align more closely with
the goal of legal equality under the law that he
saw represented in the Constitution. And actually, I have a
quote here that's a good example of the kind of
alignment I'm talking about. This is something Marshall said in
nineteen eighty eight, which is just a few years before
(23:51):
his retirement. In ninety one, he said, quote, a child
born to a black mother in a state like Mississippi
has exactly the same rights as a white baby be
born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's
not true, but I challenge anyone to say it's not
a goal worth working.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
For, which is obviously like a powerful way to think
about it. And it's interesting to think about how people
interpret Marshall's philosophy. It's kind of this do what you
think is right and let the law catch up idea.
And on one hand that puts them in the category
of activist judges, which some politicians kind of rail against today,
and on the other hand it sort of lets the
laws guide the country to a more equitable world. But
(24:31):
I was thinking a lot about this week how Marshall
played a pretty unique role in the civil rights movement
in that regard, Like you think about Martin Luther King
Junior and Malcolm X and how they sort of share
the spotlight when people think about the most influential figures
of that era, and they each tried their own different
courses of action, right like King was more this I
have a dream, big unity, big movement, and Malcolm was
(24:53):
more by any means necessary. But in the background you've
got Thurgerd. Marshall plugging away with a third course of action,
not to change society directly, but to actually change the
laws that dictate the kind of society we live in.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
It actually came across an obituary from Marshall that that said,
we make movies about Malcolm X. We get a holiday
to honor doctor Martin Luther King, But every day we
live the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall. Which isn't to
say that we don't live the legacy of the other
guys too, But legal precedent can sometimes hold more sway
in the long term than a speech or a march.
(25:26):
So I do think we owe a special kind of
debt to Marshall for, you know, sort of covering the
bases on that end.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So why do you.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Think Marshall doesn't seem to get as much attention these
days as other civil rights icons. Is it just that
like courtroom dramas are seen as kind of stuffy or
dense or academic compared to like speeches and protests.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I actually think a lot
of it comes down to how Marshall's career went in
the years after he joined the Supreme Court. We mentioned
there had been a liberal majority when Marshall was confirmed
in the late nineteen sixties, but that changed drastically over
the course of the seventies and then into the eighties.
In fact, during Marshall's twenty four years on the court,
Republican presidents made eight consecutive appointments, which transformed the court
(26:07):
and filled every spot on the bench but his. So
that means that in the second half of his tenure,
Marshall was in the minority and found you know, his
opinions increasingly overruled. As you might imagine that there wasn't
an easy transition for somebody whose entire career was built
on his incredible penchant for winning. Marshall became more and
more isolated from the rest of the court, you know,
(26:28):
with his contributions mostly limited to these strongly worded descents
about his colleagues's rulings.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
But he never gave up.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Actually, at one point even vowed to remain on the
court until he was one hundred and ten years old.
But in the end he became too ill to continue
serving and had to step down in nineteen ninety one.
So two years later Marshall passed away at the age
of eighty four.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Well, it's fascinating to hear how Marshall got stymied like
that after finally making it to the Supreme Court. But
I know his presence on the court alone still had
this like profound impact on the country and certainly on
the issues he spent his whole life fighting for. And
I'm sure just having a black man seated on the
highest court in the land had to be life changing
for millions of people and something that must have influenced
(27:10):
so many kids and what they dreamed was possible.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah, I think even if you don't have that personal
connection with his service, there's still so much to admire
about Marshall's legacy. So his commitment to changing the system
from within and you know, being a voice for the
voiceless is something that should still resonate with all of us.
In fact, this is going to sound random, but did
you happen to come across the commencement address that he
gave at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
No, I haven't read that all.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Right, Well, he gave it to the graduating class of
nineteen seventy eight and it is worth tracking down. I
won't read all of it here, but there's this one
piece of advice that really stuck out to me, and
it just says, where you see wrong or inequality or injustice,
speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy,
make it, protect it, pass it on.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
So what do you say we leave things there and
jump straight into the fact off, all.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Right, we'll here's something kind of random.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Remember how I mentioned that thirdgood Marshall graduated college with
the first president of Ghana earlier. So well, it turns
out that wasn't the only connection Marshall had with the
emerging nation. In the nineteen fifties, after Marshall made a
name for himself with the NAACP, the United Nations and
the United Kingdom asked him to help write the constitutions
of Ghana and Tanzania, which he of course did, and
(28:31):
in fact, both of those constitutions are still in use today.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That is wild.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
But you know what made the UN and in the
UK think to ask Marshall for help.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Well, at the time, the regions had just won their
independence from European rules, so there was some international concern
about the minority white citizens of the new countries and
the fact that they might face oppression. And so the
UN and the UK figured that since Marshall had been
such an effective champion for minority rights in America, he
actually might be able to do the same for Ghana
and Tanzania.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
That's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So here's when I was pretty shocked to learn not
only was Thurgood Marshall sworn into the Supreme Court by
a former clansman, it actually happened by Marshall's request. So
apparently Marshall saw it as a way to kind of
extend an Olive branch to the South and to the
Southern senators who had opposed his nomination. And weirdly enough,
the one time Alabama Clan member was this guy named Hugo.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Black.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
He was also a Justice of the Supreme Court when
Marshall was appointed in nineteen sixty seven. So Black had
been appointed to the Court back in nineteen thirty seven,
and it was just a few weeks into his term
that his prior involvement with the Klan came to light.
So dozens of newspapers called for his resignation, but Black
stayed on on the court anyway, citing the fact that
he'd already cut ties with the clan I guess more
(29:46):
than a decade earlier, and that he had no intention
of ever joining up again.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So do you think Black ever really turned over a
new leaf or was he just distancing himself from the Klan,
you know, for political reasons.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
It is tough to say for certain either way, but
the the truth is probably somewhere in between. If you
look at Black's track record on the court, it certainly
seems like he changed his mind. He was part of
that unanimous ruling that struck down in school segregation, and
he and Marshall actually became pretty chummy while serving together
until Black's retirement in nineteen seventy one. Of course, anyway
you look at it, a former klansman swearing in the
(30:18):
first black Supreme Court justice does say a lot about
the changing shape of race relations in America at the time,
and it was this really powerful message to send, and
Marshall didn't let that opportunity to.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Go to waste our One thing I don't think we've
mentioned yet is the nickname Marshall earned for himself during
his time working for the NAACP. He was known colloquially
as mister Civil Rights really creative. I want that teach
makes sense though, and his dedication to the cause certainly
made him deserving of this title. In fact, Marshall often
put his own life on the line while fighting for
(30:51):
these civil rights and it was in nineteen forty six
that he went to Tennessee to defend a group of
black men in a pretty racially charged case. Once the
trial was over, Marshall and his colleagues knew it was
in their best entries to get out of town as
fast as possible. Unfortunately, their concern was quickly validated because,
according to biographer will Haygood, Marshall's group was ambushed on
(31:12):
the road by locals and Marshall himself was arrested on
these false charges. Separate from this group, Marshall was then
placed in a black sheriff's car immediately driven off the
main road, which, given the circumstances, was pretty omorous, and
to make the whole thing even more suspicious, Marshall's colleagues
were instructed not to follow and instead to continue driving
(31:33):
on their way to Nashville. Luckily, the group knew better.
They decided to tail the sheriff anyway, and at that
point the car quickly returned to the main road and
Marshall was released not long afterward. So, when recounting the
event years later, Marshall said he would have been lynched
then and there if not for his colleagues.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
So that is horrifying. Here's one that's a little lighter.
According to Marshall's second wife, he was a super talented
home cook and he would often come home in the
evenings after a long day in the Supreme Court and
then just whip up these amazing meals for his wife
and two sons, using every single pot in the kitchen.
Apparently his specialty dish was chicken and Chitlin's.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
I kind of want this third good Marshall cookbook. You
know me too, all right. Well, speaking of Marshall's second wife,
I've actually got a sweet one here about her. She
was a woman of Philippine descent. Her name was Cecilia Suyat,
and the way she and Marshall met was a bit
of a happy accident. Cecilia went to the unemployment office
in nineteen forty eight she was looking for work, and
because her skin was on the darker side, the clerk
(32:32):
assumed she was black and set her up with a
job as a stenographer for the NAACP's legal team. Cecilia
later said she was forever grateful for the clerk's mistaken assumption,
because not only did it open her eyes to the
race problem of America, It also introduced her to her
future husband. At first, though Cecilia wasn't sure she and
Marshall would make a good match, or at least not
(32:54):
a publicly accepted one. Although she had been born in Hawaii.
She worried that people would think Marshall was marrying a
foreigner and then it would have had a negative impact
on his budding career. But Marshall didn't want any of that.
When Cecilia raised this concern, Marshall told her plainly, I
don't care what people think.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I'm marrying you. And he did.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
But Marshall and Cecilia tied the knot in nineteen fifty five,
had two sons together, John and Thurgood Junior, and remained
happily married until Marshall's passing in nineteen ninety three. Oh
and I'm happy to report Cecilia herself is still going
strong today at ninety years young.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I love that it's such a great story, and I
do think you deserve Today's trophy for it. That does
it for today's show. If you want to send us back,
so just say hello. We're at part time genius at
iHeartMedia dot com. So from Gabe Tristan willem me, thank
you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Part Time Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's that? Will? All? Right?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Well, you know how people like to keep tabs on
their old classmates, you know, just you can see what
everybody's wound up doing.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
That is why I joined Facebook. I want to see
what people are doing. I want to see how my
high school rivals are doing terribly.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I hope did you recently join Facebook?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, loves to discover it like your grandmother. That's pretty great.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Actually, I was thinking about that this week while reading
up on THURGOODE. Marshal, and it actually made me feel
so bad for the Lincoln College class of nineteen thirty,
which I know you're I think you're.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
An expert on the Lincoln College class of nineteen thirty.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I am not, but I'm guessing it's because they graduated
a future Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
So Lincoln's class of nineteen thirty was actually home to
a slew of prominent black leaders. So for literature, you
had Langston Hughes. For music, there was Cab Callaway. Then
of course there was Marshall himself, who made this colossal
name for himself in the legal system and on the
political side of things, the class said Kwame Nakruma of
the future President of Ghana.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Isn't that unbelievable?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I mean, no matter which field the other students went into,
they were all pretty much guaranteed to be out shown
by those classmates. But the more I poked around Marshall's biography,
the more I wanted to know.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
How did he become such.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
A larger than life figure in the courtroom, how did
he look at the constitution and did he really take
the oath of office from an ex clan member?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So let's dive in.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketer and on the other side of
the soundproof glass watching old Days of Our Lives reruns.
This gives him an excuse to do this because I
know he likes to do this on the quiet, but
in honor of Thurgood Marshall.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I know it's a tribute, but uh, I do feel
like Tristan just loves his stories.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
He does. He definitely loves his stories.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well that was my first thought, but Tristan was so
adamant about only watching episodes from the nineteen seventies and
eighties that it made me wonder if there really was
a connection. So we did a little bit of digging,
of course, and it turns out that during his years
on the bench, Justice Third Good Marshall was actually a big.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Fan of Days of Our Lives.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
And I love this, but I mean, like really a
fan of soap operas in general. And apparently he once
told Justice Brennan there was quote a lot to be
learned about life from soap operas.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So things like how to stop your evil twin from
stealing the men you love.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I imagine these practical life lessons, and Justice Marshall didn't
want to miss any of them. In fact, Time magazine
ran to this report this was back in nineteen seventy six,
claiming that Marshall would often call a recess right around
one pm so that he could watch the latest Days
of Our Lives episode in his chambers. You know, I
guess they didn't have a way to a TVO or
record things, did I just say TVO? Anyway, Sometimes he
(03:10):
would be late to his next meeting because he didn't
want to miss the end of an episode.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I totally said TiVo.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So obviously this is a funny thing to point out, because,
you know, aside from his odd TV habit, which actually
makes him feel pretty human, like, his legacy is just stunning.
I mean, you think about the pivotal role he had
in the civil rights movement. His landmark appointment is the
first black member of the Supreme Court. There's just a
ton to discuss here. Yeah, there definitely is. All right, well,
(03:39):
I'll leave it up to you. Where do you want
to start? How about with a bombshell? You know how
I like to start these things, Yeah, with bombshells. Apparently,
Third Good Marshall's name wasn't actually Thirgood Marshall when he
was born in Maryland. This is in nineteen oh eight.
He was actually given the name thorough Good Marshal, like
the word thorough right good put together. But it was
such a mouth and so annoying, the spell that Marshall
(04:02):
told this reporter. By the time I reached the second grade,
I got tired of spelling all that out and had
shortened it to Thurgood.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I love that he had decided this by second grade.
And that's pretty amazing. All right, Well, I actually didn't
know his name was abbreviated, but.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
What else did you dig up on his childhood?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So he was born and raised in Baltimore, This is
around the turn of the twentieth century. He had one
older brother, this guy, William Aubrey Marshall. His mother was
a school teacher, and his father, William Canfield Marshall, worked
as a dining car waiter on a railroad and then
later is this steward at a fancy country club. So
the Marshals weren't exactly wealthy, but they felt middle class.
(04:39):
And that's kind of amazing in itself when you consider
that Goood's father was actually the grandson of a former slave.
And this was not lost on Thoroughgood, like the social
progress that was made just a generation or two, and
of course later he'd make it his mission to sort
of push progress even further.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So I'm curious how did Thurgood get interested in law
in the first place, because I was looking at lot
about his early legal career, but there really wasn't a
lot of insight into what made him want to be
a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So from everything I read, it was really his father
who kind of sparked this passion. His dad, William, was
this amateur writer, and he'd also been interested in legal
proceedings and how courts worked, and it was such an
obsession for him that in his free time he liked
to go down to the local courthouse and listen to
the civil and criminal trials. And sometimes he'd bring his
sons along too. But this is the amazing part. Right
(05:28):
when they got home, the three of them would actually
lay out all the arguments they'd heard that day and
then had these big, lively debates around the dinner table.
And sometimes these discussions would happen five times in a week.
So in all this excitement, Thurgood really started to develop
this interest in law and how to use words to
confront and justice. In fact, we actually have their good's
words on this. In nineteen sixty five, he talked about
(05:50):
his father's influence, saying, quote, he did it by teaching
me to argue, by challenging my logic on every point,
by making me prove every statement. He never told me
to be a lawyer, but he turned me into one.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You know, my son is big into this series by
John Grisham called Theodore Boone, have your.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Kids I've discovered this yet.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So that's all I think about law now is like
what kids are in the courtroom, like listening to these cases.
But did you get a sense for like what kinds
of cases the marshals were scrutinizing when they were at home?
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So Gaye pulled a ton of this for us, and
he couldn't track down specific cases, but it is easy
to imagine that they would have seen a lot of
cases involving racial discrimination. When Thurgood was growing up in Baltimore,
the city's death rate for African Americans was actually double
that of white residents, and because of segregation, he and
his brother were actually forced to attend this all black
public school. So he felt all of this at this
(06:40):
really early age, and what he saw in both court
and the classroom that really shaped the viewpoints he'd ultimately
spend his life fighting for right.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
So he was obviously engaged in a lot of self education,
a really curious kid and observing all these trials, debating
law with his dad. But I'm curious, how was he
in school? Like was he a pretty good student grade wise?
He was excellent in high school.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
His grades were above average, and he made a name
for himself on the debate team, you know, thanks to
all this practice that he and his dad had had
at home. But when it came to behavior, Good was
actually kind of a trouble maker.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Really.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, you might even say he no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Do not say third Bad. I could tell I knew
that's where you were going with that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, that's probably for the best. But he actually misbehaved
a lot at school, and whenever he did, his teachers
would make him read the Constitution as punishment.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And here's the.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Thing, Third Good gotten so much trouble that by the
time he graduated in nineteen twenty five, which was a
year early, he had memorized the entire Constitution.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know, it's funny they didn't realize how much they
were contributing to his, you know, excellence in this in
this field. And listening to you lay all this out,
I mean, it's pretty amazing how all these different little
things in his life seemed to be working together to
sort of, you know, nudge him along a certain path.
And I mean, I know we're looking at all this
in hindsight and speaking in these broad terms, but his
family history, his city, his school. His dad's interests, of course,
(08:03):
and now even his punishments contributed to this. But you know,
when you take it all together, it almost seems inevitable
that he would become a lawyer and fight for civil rights.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, and I guess they're a good agreed with you,
because after graduating college in nineteen thirty, he immediately applied
to the University of Maryland law school. And this is
actually where one of those nudges down the path comes in,
because despite a glowing high school transcript, the college ultimately
rejected They're Good because of the color of his skin.
But even though this is jumping a little bit ahead,
I want to give you some instant satisfaction by telling
(08:35):
you that about five years after he applied, They're Good
actually helped launch and win the case that brought an
end to segregation at the very school that rejected him.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Oh wow, it's pretty sweet vindication. That's pretty great and
I can only imagine how good it must have felt
when that verdict came in. And I'm curious, though, like,
where did Marshall wind up studying law?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So instead of Maryland, Marshall went to law school at
Howard University, which is obviously historically black, though segregation wasn't
an issue, and at the time, the dean of the
law school was this super well respected civil rights lawyer
named Charles Houston, and on campus, Houston had this reputation
for being super strict and demanding, but Marshall actually responded
(09:14):
well to the style of teaching, and in fact, the
two hit it off so well that Houston became a
mentor to Marshall and years later they worked closely together
in the legal division of the NAACP.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, and Marshall's work with the NAACP became the cornerstone
of his career, so I definitely say he chose the
right mentor in Houston. So when did Marshall first get
involved with the NAACP. Was that straight out of law school?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
No, So, Marshall actually passed the bar exam and graduated
from Howard with honors, but he spent his first few
post grad years trying to get this private practice going
in Baltimore. He landed a few small cases every now
and then, but none of them paid very much, and
things got so bad that in nineteen thirty four, Thurgood
was forced to take a second job at an STD
clinic just to make rent. In fact, if you remember
(10:00):
breakthrough case I mentioned earlier, the one where Thurgood got
the University of Maryland to desegregate, he was working the
late shift at that clinic the whole time he prepped
for the case.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And even when he moved to New York City in
nineteen thirty six to work full time for the NAACP,
Thurgood was so concerned that things wouldn't pan out as
a lawyer that he didn't actually quit his job at
the clinic. He just requested a six month leave of absence.
That's how touch and go things were for him as
a young lawyer.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
That is pretty wild.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
You mentioned Marshall's mentor was involved with the NAACP. Did
he actually have something to do with Marshall getting called
up to New York So.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Charles Houston had actually resigned as dean in nineteen thirty
five so that he could become the first legal counsel
for the NUBACP, and by the time Marshall joined on
a year later, Houston had already become the director of
the group's legal division, and the two worked side by
side on civil rights cases for the next few years,
and then when Houston retired from the role in nineteen forty,
Thurgood stepped in and he really didn't miss a beat.
(10:56):
He stayed on as director all throughout the forties and
the fifties.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, and that's probably the portion of his career that
I feel most familiar with, you know, all the landmark
cases he tackled, and you know, not just his a
justice serving on the Supreme Court, but as a lawyer
arguing in front of the Supreme Court, which is perfect
because I'll hand you the baton and you can walk
us through it.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
But let's take a quick break first.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
how Thurgood Marshall earned his seat on the highest.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Court in the country.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
And I feel like you were maybe alluding to this
answer just before the break. You were saying that it
was Marshall's time with the NAACP that really won him
his acclaim.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, it's definitely true.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
I mean, Marshall served as the group's top attorney for
a little over two decades and this was when he
really made a name for himself because during that period
he argued at record setting thirty two cases before the
Supreme Court. And get this, So, out of those thirty
two civil rights cases, Marshall won.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Twenty nine of those, not a bad average at all.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Even today, all these decades later, Marshall is still near
the top of the list for the number of cases
argued and one before the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I mean, that's stunning. But what were some of his
biggest wins. Well, his first Supreme Court victory was a
pretty big one. So this was a nineteen forty case.
It was called Chambers versus Florida, and it dealt with
these four black men who had confessed to a murder
earlier that year and had been sentenced to death for it. However,
Marshall was able to show that their confessions to the
crime had been coerced by the police. So the four
(12:35):
suspects had been held in police custody for a full week,
never given access to legal counsel, and despite this, the
men had been questioned individually throughout the week, with as
many as ten police officers and community members present during
these interrogations, but again no lawyers were present, and because
this was all prior to the establishment of Miranda rights,
(12:56):
no one told the men that they had the right
to remain silent during these interrogations. So in the end,
the court ruled that the confessions that had led to
a conviction had not been given voluntarily, which made them inadmissible.
So the death sent its ruling was actually overturned. I mean,
it is wild to think that there was a time
when those kinds of tactics were actually the norm, you know,
(13:18):
holding people without charges, denying them counsel, and of course,
you know, these civil rights violations still happened, but in
the era we're talking about, it sounds like it was
more or less acceptable behavior until cases like this were
brought to trial.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, it would actually be another twenty six years after
the Chambers case before those tactics would finally be outlawed
by the court.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And that's when police actually had to start telling suspects
that they had the right to an attorney and the
right to remain silent and all that.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yep, that was the ruling in the Miranda versus Arizona
case of nineteen sixty six, which by the way, was
also a case that Marshall argued, though he was the
Solicitor General by that point and no longer working for
the NAACP and Marshall had a slew of other landmark
victories in the years between Chambers and Miranda, but the
biggest had to be Brown versus the Board of Education,
(14:04):
you know, the case that brought down school segregation and
the whole separate but Equal doctrine. So there's no question
that was one of the most important cases of the
twentieth century and probably the most defining moment of Marshall's
whole career.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And this was in the early fifties, right, Yes.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Was nineteen fifty four, so this was really before the
civil rights movement had gotten into full swing. It was
a year before Rosa Park's bus ride, three years before
the Civil Rights Act of nineteen fifty seven, and so
the Brown case was kind of a precursor to all
of that.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And it may have taken a while for.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
The positive ruling to be fully enforced, but right from
the outset, it definitely helped kick off the movement and
kind of pave the way for more civil rights victories
to come.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
So, I know the main takeaways from the Brown case
have been covered pretty well by now, but could you
maybe run through the basics just for certainly for me
before anyone else who might have forgotten.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
So basically Marshall was representing a group of black parents
whose children had been forced to attend all black schools.
And this was in Topeka, Kansas, you might remember. And
of course this was a case that was near Marshall's
heart because this was something he had experienced himself, first
in high school and then of course again in college.
So in the end, Marshall argued that separate educational facilities
(15:16):
are inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court
agreed with him unanimously actually, So to be clear that
positive ruling was never guaranteed given the political climate of
the era, particularly in the South, you know, where Jim
Crow laws were still very much in effect, but it
helped that Marshall was so forceful and so clear when
(15:37):
exposing the hypocrisies of the current laws in court. So,
for example, there was one point during the Brown Arguments
when the Attorney General of Virginia complained that bringing the
case before the court was an assault by the NAACP
on the quote cherished heritage of segregation.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, And it gets even worse when you hear how
the Attorney General phrased all this. He said that the
NAACP was trying to quote, press this crown of thorns
upon our brow and hold the hemlock to our lips.
It's just so bizarre, which I guess is a dual reference,
likening the fall of segregation to both the crucifixion of
Christ and the death of Socrates. I'm not really interesting,
(16:16):
but just like you said, it is definitely messy and weird. Yeah,
and you know you'll actually like Marshall's response to this.
So he told the court, you have heard references to
one state's greatest and most cherished heritage, and when you
look for it, you find that greatest and most cherished
heritage is to segregate colored people.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
I mean, it's just signing to me that they voted
unanimously right with him. It's crazy. But I do want
to go back to something you mentioned a little earlier.
You said, Marshall became the Solicitor General in the.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Sixties, right, Yeah, So Marshall actually received a couple of
presidential appointments before finally being called up to the Supreme Court.
He left the NAACP in the early sixties, and this
was to serve on the US Court of Appeals and
that was after being nominated by President Kennedy, and then
four years later Kennedy's successor, Linda Johnson, he appointed Marshall
the first black solicitor General in US history, which.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Is obviously important historically, but I feel like I'd appreciate
a little bit more if I actually knew what a
solicitor general did.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
You don't think about this every day. That's fair.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well, so, the solicitor General is, as you might expect,
a legal post, and it's basically the attorney who goes
before the Supreme Court to argue cases on behalf of
the federal government. So a lot like what he had
done for twenty years with the NAACP, but now with
the federal government as his client.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So I get what he does now. Was he still
sticking to arguing civil rights cases once he started working
for the government or did that all change?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
No, he definitely was.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
And it was during this time on the Court of
Appeals that Marshall issued over one hundred decisions on civil
rights battles as well as other hot button issues like
women's rights, police brutality, and amazingly, none of these hundred
plus decisions were overturned by the Supreme Court and had
a similarly strong record during his two years as Solicitor
General two So he argued nineteen cases before the Supreme
(18:06):
Court during that stint, and one fourteen of those.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
That is really impressive.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And with a track record like that, it wasn't long
before President Johnson decided that Marshall belonged on the Supreme Court.
So there were a couple of wrenches in his plan, though,
and chief among them was that there wasn't actually a
vacancy to appoint him to.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
So I'm guessing Johnson might have played a little dirty
and engineered something for him, right, I.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Need some say that he did, Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
The story goes that Johnson decided to engineer a vacancy
himself by creating a conflict of interest for one of
the sitting justices, and this was a fellow Democrat named
Tom Clark. So apparently President Johnson appointed Clark's son as
Attorney General, which prompted his father to step down, so
it wouldn't look like nepotism. So it's up for debate
whether this was done to open the seat to Marshall specifically,
(18:53):
but he is definitely the one who filled it. And
there is evidence that Johnson and Marshall liked each other
and got along pretty well. So according to biographer Jan Williams,
the two men loved to drink bourbon and tell stories full.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Of lies and watch soap operas.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Maybe so, But even with Johnson on his side, it's
not like Marshall's appointment to the Supreme Court was a
cake wall.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I can't imagine. There was a backlash to trying to
get a black person on the Supreme Court, right.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Pretty shocking, I know. But all right, well, let's take
a quick break and then get back into this.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Okay, Well, so third good. Marshall was sworn into the
Supreme Court in October of nineteen sixty seven, But that
was only after what it sounds like was this pretty
grueling confirmation process. It took place over the course of
a week that summer, and from what I read, Marshall
underwent more hours of questioning than any Supreme Court nominee
before him.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, and this was largely because a handful of senators
from Southern States really did their best to torpedo his nomination.
To the history of the region has left many of
these old guard senators with, you know, an axe to
grind and shutting down. The first potential black SCOTUS member
definitely fit the bill. So, for instance, Mississippi senator at
the time was a guy named James Eastland, and according
to The Atlantic, Eastland was quote a notorious racist whose
(20:19):
father had famously lynched black people. He himself owned a
plantation that employed more than one hundred black sharecroppers, and
his daughter had been crowned Missed Confederacy nineteen fifty six.
That's a little clue there. Anyway, he was the head
of the committee for Marshall's nomination.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
It was like a little uphill battle.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah. I mean, you read a LinkedIn profile like that
and it feels like a miracle that Marshall got through, right.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
I Mean, he wasn't the only one there with you know,
you might consider questionable views on race. So Senators from
Thurman was also on the committee. It's amazing how long
this guy was in office. And his main contribution was
to subject Marshall to what basically amounted to a Jim
Crow a literacy test. He cross examined Marshall, quizzing him
on all these obscure, ridiculously specific portions of political history.
(21:08):
So for instance, one question he asked him was to
name all the members of the Congressional Committee that had
reviewed the fourteenth.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Amendment in eighteen sixty six.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Of course he couldn't answer this, But there's one thing
nobody could. A little later in the preceding Ted Kennedy
astrom thurnament, if he could name the committee members from
eighteen sixty six and guess what you couldn't.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
No, of course he couldn't.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
And there was no reason why a Supreme Court justice
would need to rattle off random information like that. So
these Southern senators were drilling Marshall because of the color
of his skin and because of what he represented, not
because they had any real serious doubts about his legal
knowledge or his ability to serve in this position, and
because the case against Marshall was so flimsy. The Judiciary
(21:51):
Committee ultimately approved his nomination with a resounding eleven to
five vote, and then the Senate confirmed him with an
equally definitive vote of sixty nine to eleven, which honestly
is a little surprising when you look back.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, I mean, that's impressive, but it does feel like
there are a significant amount of Senators who didn't vote
on it, right, Like, that's only like eighty people who
voted on his nominations quick mask. Well.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
In the end, President Johnson knew he could never get
the votes of the Southern Democratic senators who opposed Marshall,
so rather than trying to sway the unswayable, he instead
focused on getting them to abstain from voting altogether, rather
than casting a vote against Marshall. And the lobbying seemed
to work, as you can tell from these numbers. But
I do think it's worth noting that even if all
twenty of those abstentions had voted no on Marshall, he
(22:38):
still would have had more than enough yeses to get confirmed.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, and after the harassment and committee, it must have
been nice to have that kind of validation, right, Like,
that's a pretty resounding vote in Marshall's favor.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Oh definitely.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I mean the hearing had been this speed bump in
one ended up being a pretty smooth next few years
for Marshall. He joined a very liberal Supreme Court, which
obviously lined up very well with Marshall's own political views.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
So I am curious about this, Like, what would you
say those views were? Broadly speaking? Like his job was
obviously to interpret the Constitution. So what was his take
on it?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I mean, it's hard to say definitively, but from what
I've read about his rulings and from people who work
closely with him, it sounds like Marshall largely viewed the
Constitution as a means of promoting a kind of equality
under the law, especially following the Civil War and the
addition of certain amendments. And I think that viewpoint is
certainly reflected in the changes to the constitutional law that
(23:30):
he had advocated for during all his years as both
an attorney and then later as a judge. And he
was trying to make the law align more closely with
the goal of legal equality under the law that he
saw represented in the Constitution. And actually, I have a
quote here that's a good example of the kind of
alignment I'm talking about. This is something Marshall said in
nineteen eighty eight, which is just a few years before
(23:51):
his retirement. In ninety one, he said, quote, a child
born to a black mother in a state like Mississippi
has exactly the same rights as a white baby be
born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's
not true, but I challenge anyone to say it's not
a goal worth working.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
For, which is obviously like a powerful way to think
about it. And it's interesting to think about how people
interpret Marshall's philosophy. It's kind of this do what you
think is right and let the law catch up idea.
And on one hand that puts them in the category
of activist judges, which some politicians kind of rail against today,
and on the other hand it sort of lets the
laws guide the country to a more equitable world. But
(24:31):
I was thinking a lot about this week how Marshall
played a pretty unique role in the civil rights movement
in that regard, Like you think about Martin Luther King
Junior and Malcolm X and how they sort of share
the spotlight when people think about the most influential figures
of that era, and they each tried their own different
courses of action, right like King was more this I
have a dream, big unity, big movement, and Malcolm was
(24:53):
more by any means necessary. But in the background you've
got Thurgerd. Marshall plugging away with a third course of action,
not to change society directly, but to actually change the
laws that dictate the kind of society we live in.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
It actually came across an obituary from Marshall that that said,
we make movies about Malcolm X. We get a holiday
to honor doctor Martin Luther King, But every day we
live the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall. Which isn't to
say that we don't live the legacy of the other
guys too, But legal precedent can sometimes hold more sway
in the long term than a speech or a march.
(25:26):
So I do think we owe a special kind of
debt to Marshall for, you know, sort of covering the
bases on that end.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So why do you.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Think Marshall doesn't seem to get as much attention these
days as other civil rights icons. Is it just that
like courtroom dramas are seen as kind of stuffy or
dense or academic compared to like speeches and protests.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I actually think a lot
of it comes down to how Marshall's career went in
the years after he joined the Supreme Court. We mentioned
there had been a liberal majority when Marshall was confirmed
in the late nineteen sixties, but that changed drastically over
the course of the seventies and then into the eighties.
In fact, during Marshall's twenty four years on the court,
Republican presidents made eight consecutive appointments, which transformed the court
(26:07):
and filled every spot on the bench but his. So
that means that in the second half of his tenure,
Marshall was in the minority and found you know, his
opinions increasingly overruled. As you might imagine that there wasn't
an easy transition for somebody whose entire career was built
on his incredible penchant for winning. Marshall became more and
more isolated from the rest of the court, you know,
(26:28):
with his contributions mostly limited to these strongly worded descents
about his colleagues's rulings.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
But he never gave up.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Actually, at one point even vowed to remain on the
court until he was one hundred and ten years old.
But in the end he became too ill to continue
serving and had to step down in nineteen ninety one.
So two years later Marshall passed away at the age
of eighty four.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Well, it's fascinating to hear how Marshall got stymied like
that after finally making it to the Supreme Court. But
I know his presence on the court alone still had
this like profound impact on the country and certainly on
the issues he spent his whole life fighting for. And
I'm sure just having a black man seated on the
highest court in the land had to be life changing
for millions of people and something that must have influenced
(27:10):
so many kids and what they dreamed was possible.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah, I think even if you don't have that personal
connection with his service, there's still so much to admire
about Marshall's legacy. So his commitment to changing the system
from within and you know, being a voice for the
voiceless is something that should still resonate with all of us.
In fact, this is going to sound random, but did
you happen to come across the commencement address that he
gave at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
No, I haven't read that all.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Right, Well, he gave it to the graduating class of
nineteen seventy eight and it is worth tracking down. I
won't read all of it here, but there's this one
piece of advice that really stuck out to me, and
it just says, where you see wrong or inequality or injustice,
speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy,
make it, protect it, pass it on.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
So what do you say we leave things there and
jump straight into the fact off, all.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Right, we'll here's something kind of random.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Remember how I mentioned that thirdgood Marshall graduated college with
the first president of Ghana earlier. So well, it turns
out that wasn't the only connection Marshall had with the
emerging nation. In the nineteen fifties, after Marshall made a
name for himself with the NAACP, the United Nations and
the United Kingdom asked him to help write the constitutions
of Ghana and Tanzania, which he of course did, and
(28:31):
in fact, both of those constitutions are still in use today.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That is wild.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
But you know what made the UN and in the
UK think to ask Marshall for help.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Well, at the time, the regions had just won their
independence from European rules, so there was some international concern
about the minority white citizens of the new countries and
the fact that they might face oppression. And so the
UN and the UK figured that since Marshall had been
such an effective champion for minority rights in America, he
actually might be able to do the same for Ghana
and Tanzania.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
That's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So here's when I was pretty shocked to learn not
only was Thurgood Marshall sworn into the Supreme Court by
a former clansman, it actually happened by Marshall's request. So
apparently Marshall saw it as a way to kind of
extend an Olive branch to the South and to the
Southern senators who had opposed his nomination. And weirdly enough,
the one time Alabama Clan member was this guy named Hugo.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Black.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
He was also a Justice of the Supreme Court when
Marshall was appointed in nineteen sixty seven. So Black had
been appointed to the Court back in nineteen thirty seven,
and it was just a few weeks into his term
that his prior involvement with the Klan came to light.
So dozens of newspapers called for his resignation, but Black
stayed on on the court anyway, citing the fact that
he'd already cut ties with the clan I guess more
(29:46):
than a decade earlier, and that he had no intention
of ever joining up again.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So do you think Black ever really turned over a
new leaf or was he just distancing himself from the Klan,
you know, for political reasons.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
It is tough to say for certain either way, but
the the truth is probably somewhere in between. If you
look at Black's track record on the court, it certainly
seems like he changed his mind. He was part of
that unanimous ruling that struck down in school segregation, and
he and Marshall actually became pretty chummy while serving together
until Black's retirement in nineteen seventy one. Of course, anyway
you look at it, a former klansman swearing in the
(30:18):
first black Supreme Court justice does say a lot about
the changing shape of race relations in America at the time,
and it was this really powerful message to send, and
Marshall didn't let that opportunity to.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Go to waste our One thing I don't think we've
mentioned yet is the nickname Marshall earned for himself during
his time working for the NAACP. He was known colloquially
as mister Civil Rights really creative. I want that teach
makes sense though, and his dedication to the cause certainly
made him deserving of this title. In fact, Marshall often
put his own life on the line while fighting for
(30:51):
these civil rights and it was in nineteen forty six
that he went to Tennessee to defend a group of
black men in a pretty racially charged case. Once the
trial was over, Marshall and his colleagues knew it was
in their best entries to get out of town as
fast as possible. Unfortunately, their concern was quickly validated because,
according to biographer will Haygood, Marshall's group was ambushed on
(31:12):
the road by locals and Marshall himself was arrested on
these false charges. Separate from this group, Marshall was then
placed in a black sheriff's car immediately driven off the
main road, which, given the circumstances, was pretty omorous, and
to make the whole thing even more suspicious, Marshall's colleagues
were instructed not to follow and instead to continue driving
(31:33):
on their way to Nashville. Luckily, the group knew better.
They decided to tail the sheriff anyway, and at that
point the car quickly returned to the main road and
Marshall was released not long afterward. So, when recounting the
event years later, Marshall said he would have been lynched
then and there if not for his colleagues.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
So that is horrifying. Here's one that's a little lighter.
According to Marshall's second wife, he was a super talented
home cook and he would often come home in the
evenings after a long day in the Supreme Court and
then just whip up these amazing meals for his wife
and two sons, using every single pot in the kitchen.
Apparently his specialty dish was chicken and Chitlin's.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
I kind of want this third good Marshall cookbook. You
know me too, all right. Well, speaking of Marshall's second wife,
I've actually got a sweet one here about her. She
was a woman of Philippine descent. Her name was Cecilia Suyat,
and the way she and Marshall met was a bit
of a happy accident. Cecilia went to the unemployment office
in nineteen forty eight she was looking for work, and
because her skin was on the darker side, the clerk
(32:32):
assumed she was black and set her up with a
job as a stenographer for the NAACP's legal team. Cecilia
later said she was forever grateful for the clerk's mistaken assumption,
because not only did it open her eyes to the
race problem of America, It also introduced her to her
future husband. At first, though Cecilia wasn't sure she and
Marshall would make a good match, or at least not
(32:54):
a publicly accepted one. Although she had been born in Hawaii.
She worried that people would think Marshall was marrying a
foreigner and then it would have had a negative impact
on his budding career. But Marshall didn't want any of that.
When Cecilia raised this concern, Marshall told her plainly, I
don't care what people think.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I'm marrying you. And he did.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
But Marshall and Cecilia tied the knot in nineteen fifty five,
had two sons together, John and Thurgood Junior, and remained
happily married until Marshall's passing in nineteen ninety three. Oh
and I'm happy to report Cecilia herself is still going
strong today at ninety years young.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I love that it's such a great story, and I
do think you deserve Today's trophy for it. That does
it for today's show. If you want to send us back,
so just say hello. We're at part time genius at
iHeartMedia dot com. So from Gabe Tristan willem me, thank
you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
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