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[ Music ]
>> Chautauqua 2010 is brought to you
by the Maryland Humanities Council,
a private educational nonprofit organization that stimulates
and promotes, inform dialogue and civic engagement
on issues critical to Marylanders.
[ Music ]
>> Hello, I'm Angela Rice Beemer.
And I'm here at the Germantown Campus of Montgomery College
for a living history program called Chautauqua.
Tonight, a scholar actor will portray a very influential
figure in American history.
Although his reach was international, he's best known
for his work in the United States.
He used the law to challenge racial barriers and education,
voting rights, housing and transportation.
Our theme is "Beyond Boundaries".
And tonight, Chautauqua character is Supreme Court
Justice, Thurgood Marshall.
[ Applause ]
>> You all want to know about my life?
>> Yes.
>> So nosy.
So nosy. Well, I'll tell you, I was born in Baltimore,
Maryland on July the 2nd, 1908,
in what was called a nice colored neighborhood
in Baltimore, division street around Pennsylvania Avenue.
My mother and my father were both hard workers.
My mother was a school teacher and my father worked
for the B&O Railroad which in those days was a good job
for a colored man.
They both insisted, that my brother and I get an education.
They were so adamant about that.
I had an older brother by the name of Aubrey, who just seem
to do everything right.
Any of you the oldest in your family?
Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
You get pressed into being executive director whether you
want to or not.
And Aubrey made life very hard for me, he was so successful.
He did everything right.
He went to school and actually did strange things like study.
And, when I went to school, I went to play Peaknuckle and look
at the girls, I was kind of tall and cute and, you know, it was--
well, I started to learn geometry.
And-- But my mother always said, "Now Thurgood,
you be sure you study those books because that's the ticket
to a successful future."
And my father just backed it up, you know, "Boy, you better get
over there and read them books now,
I'm not going to tell you again."
And my father when he had a break
from the B&O Railroad would take us down to the courthouse,
what you all call the "The Mitchell Courthouse" today
so that we could watch justice being done.
And of course, the first thing we noticed is we had to sit
at the back of that courthouse to watch the proceedings.
There is some justice for you.
But we watched all kinds of trials, civil trials,
criminal trials, ***, petty larceny,
and then we'd come home and discuss it.
It was about the only time I could discuss anything
controversial with my father,
because you know how fathers were in that generation,
they had the last word even if it wasn't the right word.
And if you objected too strenuously they would--
well, let me put it this way, they would put some zoom
in your Fruit of the Looms.
[ Laughter ]
But that's how we learned about the law.
And my brother Aubrey was interested more in science.
And, when he went to school we went to the school
that was called a normal school, a colored normal school.
And that was the most ridiculous term for a school I ever heard.
There was nothing normal about it.
It was segregated.
It was inferior to the white school and they had nerve enough
to call it a normal school.
I figured after awhile they just said, "Let's just go
and call it Frederick Douglass, or something reasonable,
and we went to that school.
And every time I would get on the teacher's nerve,
which is white, pretty frequently,
the teacher would send me down in the basement
where the furnace is with the copy of the constitution,
and make me memorize portions
of the constitution in the basement.
I want to tell you by the time I graduated
from Frederick Douglass High School I knew every word
in that constitution.
I didn't know what it meant
but I knew every word in that constitution.
Now Aubrey and I didn't get along all that well.
He was just too much to follow.
He went up there to Lincoln University about hour and half
from Baltimore up there in Oxford Pennsylvania
and he studied all those exotic subjects, biology and chemistry
and subjects that I even had trouble spelling,
and he put a lot of pressure on me back there behind him.
But my mother said, "Thurgood, what are you going to do
when you graduate from high school?"
"Well, mom I'm going to do what most boys do when they graduate
from high school, they go to work."
See back in those days in the 'teens
and 20s you did not automatically go to college
when you came out of high school, you went to work.
So going to college was a big thing.
Aubrey had already gone to college,
he was doing well up there at Lincoln.
So, I eventually applied and got accepted at Lincoln University,
and when I got up there, there were about a 150,
200 colored male students up there at that school,
but not a single colored teacher, not one, not one.
Most of them are white teachers who had graduate degrees
or undergraduate degrees from places like Oberlin, Yale,
Michigan, and it just seemed that they were there
to do their practice teaching on us and we objected,
privately to ourselves of course.
But, being up at Lincoln University was a new adventure
for me.
How many of you could remember the first year you were away
from home?
First year you're away from home.
It's different, isn't it?
I mean, on hand you wonder how you're going to make it from day
to day, but on the other hand it's free at last, free at last.
[ Laughter ]
And I met a lot of friends there at Lincoln University.
We played cards.
We talk about everything, usually about--
except our subjects, and I met some fellows
from different places in the country.
They weren't all from Pennsylvania or Maryland
or New Jersey, some of 'em were even from Africa,
from the Middle East, there were a few from India.
And I remember this intense young fellow
from the Gold Coast.
He excelled in every subject and he was very focused,
and he said, "I must focus on my studies
for the liberation of my people."
And this fellow called himself Quami Enkuma.
And he said, "You know, that same white person
that you are experiencing here, we are experiencing
over in the Gold Coast as well."
And he use to pal around with a fellow from Nigeria
by the name of Namdie Izikiwe.
And this fellow would go on to be the head of his country.
And then there was almost the opposite of them also originally
from Rochester by way of Baltimore, a party person
to a much greater extent then I was
by the name of Cabell Calloway.
Now, he had gone to Frederick Douglass High School,
but he spend a year up there at Lincoln mostly, you know, party,
that's what he liked to do, he liked to entertain people.
And he was good at it, and the man could dress.
He could wear some clothes.
I mean, these were the only clothes I ever saw
that had a decibel level.
He was good.
You know, that hidee hidee ho number they used to do?
Oh yeah he practice that in Lincoln University.
So we met those fellows and then we meet a very intense young
fellow who seemed to commute
between Lincoln University and New York City.
He was a few years older than the rest of us
and he had already published poetry and essays
and little short stories.
And his name was Langston Hughes.
Now, Langston Hughes came along at a time
when something called the ***
or Harlem renaissance was just getting started,
it was a beautiful time for colored people.
The arts, literatures, sculpture, painting,
all kinds of essays, Arnold Bantam [assumed spelling],
Alain Locke [assumed spelling],
Countee Cullen [assumed spelling],
all of these people flourished during this time,
and Langston Hughes was connected to that.
But he embarrassed us.
He said, "You all, are at a colored school
and you don't have any colored professors, shame on you."
He didn't say it quite that way.
He said it a little bit more eloquently.
And he organized a referendum,
to get at least one colored teacher on that school.
And you know we voted against that referendum the first time?
That was my first direct lesson in civil rights.
How sometimes, even the people
who are oppressed don't understand the depths
and the meaning of their own oppression.
Hughes embarrassed us so much
that when he organized the referendum the second time we
voted overwhelmingly to get a colored teacher
on there and we got two.
Victory number 1.
And that started to tell me a few things
on the inside about change.
And then for recreation, recreation is a big deal.
Every Saturday, a big bus full
of women would come in from Philadelphia.
We couldn't wait.
We call them cute chicks.
My goodness, well, they just came to help us
with our assignments on the weekend, that's all.
[ Laughter ]
But I've got to thinking now, if they're that beautiful
when they're coming from Philadelphia,
there must be thousands more in Philadelphia itself,
maybe I aughta go there and investigate on my own.
But then when I didn't have money to go into Philadelphia,
we would go into town to the theatre in Oxford, Pennsylvania.
Now, this is above the Mason-Dixon line.
In Oxford, Pennsylvania there was a little theatre
and there was the practice even in that theatre,
of putting the colored people up there
in the balcony while the white people sat down in the loges.
Now, this is not in the south, this is in Oxford, Pennsylvania
and I thought to myself, this is the stupidest system I've ever
seen, don't these white people understand strategy?
We could tear them up from that balcony up there.
[ Laughter ]
And two or three of my friends had decided
that we would just sit down in the loges just
to see what would happen the next time we went
to that theatre.
And we sat right down there in the front and we weren't
in that seat but a few minutes but [inaudible] boy,
what are you doing in this seat?
And when I started standing up, apparently,
that fellow didn't know how tall I was.
And by the time I finished standing up, he was gone.
[ Laughter ]
Second civil rights victory.
[ Laughter ]
But I did go into Philadelphia on a number of occasions
and I figured I knew a little bit about Philadelphia
because one of the books that we were assigned.
I think it was the only book that we were assigned
that was written by a colored author was written
by the great *** scholar W.E.B. Du Bois,
and it was called the Philadelphia ***,
a major social science research project and it was
on the seventh ward of Philadelphia.
So I figured if I read that book I'd learn a little bit
about Philadelphia and I did.
And I went into Philadelphia and, well,
I went to let's say just to investigate things.
And, I was on 46th Street near the University
of Pennsylvania one day and out of one
of those buildings came the most beautiful woman I ever saw
in my life.
Now, men say that all the time.
But I really mean it folks, this woman was overwhelming.
She looked like a movie star and she was colored on top of that.
And I was wondering what she was doing at the University
of Pennsylvania because it was my understanding
that they didn't mix up any colored students.
And I went up nervously to talk to her--
you gentlemen know what I'm talking about.
When you're really are smitten some of you are smittened
by the women who are sitting next to you, you know,
they probably smote you last night, OK?
And I was nervous and I introduced myself
and she introduced herself
and she said her name was Vivian Burey,
I like the way she said, Burey.
And she was studying to be a librarian
at the University of Pennsylvania.
She was a little bit ahead of me in her studies, maybe a year.
And I fell deeply in love with this woman.
Just to give you a little understanding
of how deep this was, I did like a lot of women and I was willing
to put them all behind me just for her.
And after about a year and a half I even proposed to her.
And, the first thing she said is, " Thurgood, are you familiar
with the concept of work and employment?
[ Laughter ]
And even though interiorly I wasn't,
I say, "Yes, absolutely."
And I took her down to meet my parents and oh they loved her.
My mother said, "She is beautiful."
And on top of that she can finish raising you."
What?
[ Laughter ]
And all my father would say is, "Go on boy,
that's right" you know.
And we got married before I graduated
from Lincoln University.
I called her Buster.
People say, "You call your wife, Buster?
Beautiful, elegant, brilliant,
educated woman, you call her Buster?"
Yeah. Why?
Because she was.
[ Laughter ]
And, that name stuck and I called her Buster for the rest
of the time we were together.
Now, as I got to my junior and senior year,
Aubrey had graduated from Lincoln and gone
on to Howard University Medical School.
Now, Howard in those days was the Harvard
of all the Black schools.
Lincoln was the Princeton and he was down there
at the medical school embarrassing me
because I was just graduating from school,
graduating from college.
And my father said, "Thurgood, what are you going to do?
Now you graduated from college,
you're going to get job or what?"
"Yeah, I'm going to get a job Dad."
My mother said, "Is this the end of your education really?"
And Buster said, this is not the end of your education.
[ Laughter ]
And I though of going to law school
because I spoke pretty well, I argued even better
and I was an imposing presence when I stood up.
I was a tall fella, you know, and after a while,
I had a few biscuits in me, looked pretty big and I wanted
to go to the University of Maryland, Law School,
because it was walking distance from my home.
And I started to look into it and discovered that those people
at that school did not accept colored students
under any circumstances.
Was I upset and angry at the same time?
Just thoroughly, I almost gave up the idea.
And my father said, "Well, what about Howard University,
they have a law school?"
"Yeah, but dad the students down there who graduated
from that school don't pass the bar exam, you know.,
they don't seem to do that well."
"But Thurgood, they got a new dean
down there who's shaping the place up,
you better check it out."
And I applied and got accepted.
Now, you have to understand that this is the 1920s.
There was no interstate 95 and 295 and you took hour and a half
or more to get down to Washington DC by train.
And when I entered that law school there,
there were only seven of us freshmen,
sitting in the row together and this new dean came in.
And boy, he was like a military man.
His name was Charles Hamilton Houston, and he came in
and looked down at us and said, "Gentlemen, look to your left
and then look to your right.
The fellow on your left won't be here next semester
and the fellow on your right won't be here next year."
That caught our attention.
[ Laughter ]
Hamilton Houston was serious.
And to show you how serious he was, this is a man who graduated
from high school at 15 or 16 years old,
graduated from a white school, Amherst,
up there in Massachusetts by the age of 19,
went to the real Harvard University Law School.
Not only that he graduated the top of his class,
but he was the first colored editor
of the Harvard Law Review.
That wasn't enough for him.
And in those days when you got your law degree,
there was no JD.
It was LLB, Bachelor of Laws.
So he went on and got a Masters of Law at Harvard.
It took two more years.
Then he went on three more years and got a doctorate
in something called Juridical Science,
something I've never heard of.
And that wasn't enough for him.
He went to Spain and got another doctorate.
The man was unbelievable.
And he looked at me-- I should say he looked through me
and he took me aside and said, "Son, if you came here
for a party, you're in the wrong place, might as well leave now,
save us both some time."
I said, "No sir.
I'm really serious about [inaudible]."
I mumbled.
[ Laughter ]
And he took me under his wing.
And he said, "We're going to focus first
on constitutional law."
Now keep in mind that the law school at Howard University was
in the basement of the building it was in.
So here I was in the basement again studying the constitution.
[ Laughter ]
He says, "I want to tell you
about this constitution, Mr. Marshall.
It is a fabulous constitution."
Understand that at the time that this constitution was ratified
in 1789, most countries didn't have a constitution.
And the ones that did started right
out in their document concerned about the powers
of the monarchy, the powers of the military,
the powers of the landowners, all men,
they might incidentally mention citizen,
but they wouldn't start with.
This constitution's first statement after its preamble is,
"All legislative authority is vested in the Congress
of the United States," the people's institution.
He said, "It's a wonderful document a flourishing bill
of Rights," almost an after thought, first 10 amendments.
He said, "But you have to understand, Mr. Marshall,
that this constitution was not intended for us."
It did not apply to about two thirds of the humanity that were
in existence in the form of colonies at the time.
If you were a woman of any background including English,
it didn't apply to you.
If you were an African, slave or free, all it said was
that congress could regulate the slave trade across the states,
and when it came to the process of reapportionment,
determining how many members of the House
of Representatives a state could elect, we would count
as three-fifth of a person.
In my weight and size now, I would love to be three-fifths
of myself, but they didn't mean it as a compliment.
Understand Thurgood Marshal
that this constitution made American-Indians,
the original inhabitants of the land of foreign power.
We fought a terrible civil war over slavery in this country,
because we misunderstood our own constitution.
We lost nearly 700,000 people.
Even at the end of that civil war, a deal was made
between the North and the South that the former slaves,
the freed men would be incorporated
into the body of the citizenry.
But all most of the southern states did was turn the old
slave codes into black codes, you told me.
And in response the union government imposed military rule
on the south, dividing them up into five military districts,
each one presided over by a union governor.
Howard University is names after one of those union governors.
Hamilton Houston told me that because of the reconstruction,
republican leaders like Thaddeus Stevens up there in Pennsylvania
and Charles Sumner in the senate for Massachusetts insisted
on having these freed men in the south registered to vote.
They insisted equally fervently
that they'd be registered republicans.
So between 1870 and 1901 he told me, 22 colored members
of congress want to the congress, 20 to the House
of Representatives, 2 to the senate, and the two from senate
of all places were elected from Mississippi,
one replacing Jefferson Davis in the US Senate.
Hamilton Houston told me that the first civil rights act.
I didn't even know what civil rights was, was passed in 1866,
still on the books, became the basis for the 13th,
14th and 15th amendments he told me.
And the reason they went to amendments was
to keep the democrats from revealing the statute.
There was another civil rights act he told me in 1875,
that had something to do with public accommodations.
I didn't know what that was, but it was access to hotels, motels,
inns, theatres, street cars,
things like that on the basis of race.
But the United States Supreme Courts struck that statute
down in 1883, setting the stage for perhaps the momentous--
most momentous decision of the late 19th century,
and that was Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896, he told me.
Homer Plessy, light skinned colored man from New Orleans,
thought he could ride any place on the street car he want
and then ended up being at the center of a court case
that went all the way to the Supreme Court
and the courts decided that they would recognize the 14th
amendment on their own basis, on their own grounds.
Oh yeah, we understand that due process of the law
in civil cases and equal protection of the law,
but we think you can be racially separated and equal
at the same time, a brilliant piece of logic.
Hamilton Houston told me that women had just got the right
to vote just a few years ago, as a result of the 19th amendment
and Indians had just been voted citizenship by an act
of congress, not even a constitutional amendment,
conferring certificates of citizenship on them.
Hamilton Houston said to me, "Son,
this is why you are in law school.
This is what you are here for, not just to make some money.
This is your chance to not only change our condition
but to make America address its own ethics."
He was adamant about that, and he practiced it.
He was engaged as an active "Civil Rights lawyer."
And he said, "I know you're working.
I know your daddy got you a job up there
at the B&O Railroad, I heard about it.
Your wife insisted on you working,
and I know that the minute you got up there you wore one
of those little white--
waistcoats [phonetic] that the [inaudible] wear there.
And, I know that that pants weren't long enough for you,
and you complain about it to your white boss.
And that white boss looked you in the eye and said, "Boy,
don't you understand that it's easier for me
to get another Niger than to get you a long pair of pants."
I kind of understood that you made it throughout the summer
with those short pants on, but I'm going
to get you a different job, I want you do work right here
at the Howard university Law Library.
Now, this was a small school, small library.
Buster was just so elated, books, library and Thurgood,
all in the same place.
[ Laughter ]
Hamilton Houston is the reason that I graduated top
of my class coming out of Howard University Law School.
I passed the bar first time.
He connected me to some of the cases he was working on
but I put out my own shingle right there
at 4 East Redwood Street.
I had a little office, I was something.
I had my little two suits.
But most of the clients I got were colored clients
with no money, young black men accused of raping white women,
teachers who were not paid anywhere near the salaries
of their white counterparts.
Union folks who were just trying to get a decent wage, you know,
people like that who didn't have any money.
And after a while, I was about as poor as they were.
I mean, you know, you poor anytime pay for something
in cash and the cash bounces.
[ Laughter ]
And I was approached by a gentleman
who was also a Harvard graduate, who had been the head
of the German Department at Howard University
who started a newspaper called, the "Afro-American".
His name was Carl Murphy.
And Mr. Murphy was connected to what was going on there
in the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP and he
and that fiery young woman who was the president,
Lillie May Jackson approached me and they said, "We want you
to help us work on some of these cases as our general counsel."
And all I saw was dollar signs, finally some work.
Lillie May Jackson went through every one of those 15
to 20 cases in great and exhausted detail.
I said, "Boy, I'm going to be really in the cahoot now."
And she said, "Oh, by the way we don't have any money
to pay you."
[ Laughter ]
But one of the first cases that came
up was the case of Mr. Donald Murray.
Donald Gaines Murray, this is a young man
who graduated from Amherst College.
He was top of his class; who was trying to seek admission
to the University of Maryland, Law School.
I took that case on for free.
When I heard about that case, something inside of me went
[ Laughter ]
Yes sir. I took that case on and we fought it all the way
up to the Maryland Supreme Court,
and the Supreme Court said, "Well, the University
of Maryland argues that he should go
to Princess Anne Academy over there in Eastern Shore,
which you all called the University
of Maryland Eastern Shore today."
I argued, have you looked at the curriculum of the University
of Maryland, Law School compared to the curriculum
of Princess Anne Academy?
You tell me in the curriculum over here
at Princess Anne Academy where are the introductory courses
in contracts, constitutional law,
professional responsibility, criminal law,
you show me where that is and I will accept the fact
that Mr. Murray can go there.
Well, the Supreme Court of Maryland agreed with us,
he said, "You have to admit Donald Gaines Murray
because there is no colored law school
in the State of Maryland."
And we got him in a minute.
And then we turn our attention to the NAACP
to other civil rights issues like voting rights in the case
of Sweatt versus Painter, in the case of Smith versus Allwright,
we took on the white primary.
Now, this was the way to keep colored people for vote.
He would use all kind of devices.
You couldn't vote in the primary, at the party level,
that meant-- you weren't there
at the general election level either.
They made you read chapters from Hamlet if you wanted the vote,
or pay money, and we challenged that in the courts.
I want you to know this because what I'm
about to tell you before I sit down in a few minutes is
that the real heroes that you should be focusing
on is not Thurgood Marshall, not Charles Hamilton Houston,
but all those little people who put their lives
and their livelihood on the line to protect their families
and their children and to work with us
to advance equality not just for colored people
but for white people too, don't you understand
that if we have a society where everybody has access
to opportunity we are much more competitive
and everyone is better for it, everyone is better
for it, it's not just for us.
So, in the 1940s, we were approached by a Reverend
down there in Clarendon County, South Carolina.
He was an ordained minister, a pastor,
but he's also the principal of the Scott's Branch School.
Now, get this picture, Clarendon County, rural county
in South Carolina had about 3,900 students,
2,700 of them were college students.
The colored students were in old barns, old buildings and inside
that building they'd have one old pot belly stove
to keep them warm in the winter,
the teachers would teach every grade level.
The kids worked for sharecroppers and tenant farmers
and they would walk three to five miles to school
and from school everyday.
So, Reverend DeLaine went to the superintendent,
the white superintendent, Mr. Elliot, and said,
"Our children need a bus like your children do.
Give us your oldest bus even in the state of disrepair,
we'll fix it, we'll make it up operate, we'll pay for the gas."
The superintendent said, "We don't have any buses,
we don't cover children."
DeLaine undeterred came back the next week and asked again,
and the superintendent jumped up and said,
"I told you we have no buses for your colored--
your *** children."
DeLaine called us up right away and we would not intervene
in the case until 22 people signed a petition
for us to come in.
And we took up this case in Clarendon, South Carolina
and the case of Briggs versus Elliot.
And of course we lost in the South Carolina courts
but I want you to know about this case because those people,
those colored people in Clarendon,
South Carolina are the real heroes, they're the real heroes.
We would not have had a case without them,
and that would become one of the five cases
that would constitute the famous case of Brown
versus the Board of Education.
There would be other cases in Farmville, Virginia,
in Delaware, in Washington D.C., and of course in Topeka, Kansas.
We won a case at the Supreme Court on the issue
of restrictive covenants, keeping colored people
out of certain neighborhoods by supporting real estate practices
that refuse to sell them property
in a white neighborhood.
This was all before Brown.
We won two cases in higher education, Sweatt versus Painter
in Texas and McLaurin versus the Oklahoma Board of Regions
in Oklahoma where Mr. McLaurin was admitted
to the graduate school but the school wouldn't let him sit
with his own white counterparts in the class,
he had to sit by himself.
I want you to know also that there were a lot
of colored people who objected to what we did as well.
They were fearful of change, they thought they were going
to lose the little bit that they had.
We went to a meeting of the journal of *** Education,
and here is two or three hundred educators
in Howard University sitting in the audience objecting
to everything that were doing.
My staff tried to answer the questions, I sat silently,
finally I had it and I'm famous for my temper,
I want you to know that.
I got up and look-- glared down at that audience for 30 seconds
and said, "Can I guarantee victory?
Can I promise you success?"
The answer is no.
But, do you want to continue dancing to the tones
of the southern and white governors
who will decide whether
or not democracy's benefits will be conferred
on your children's children, and their children's children?
This is 1952, almost 100 years
since the emancipation proclamation.
Well, those people got up and gave me a standing ovation.
Now, this brown thing was not easy,
I want you to know that very quickly.
We failed the first time to convince the court.
Thank goodness for Felix Frankfurter.
He said, look, let's stop right now, reconstitute this
and come back, answering the question did the 14th amendment
intend for there to be integrated schools.
In the meanwhile, Chief Justice Benson died of a heart attack
and Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren, the next chief justice
under the great blessings for us.
When we went back, we were a little bit more prepared
but we still didn't know whether we were going to be victorious.
And when that day came, May 17th on 1954,
we were all in the courtroom with our hearts
in our hands hoping, Earl Warren read the decision,
look like it took him forever to get to the point
and finally he said, "On the matter of whether
or not segregated schools harm the colored children,
we believe that it does and the doctrine of separate
but equal has no place.
There was a gasp in that room you would not believe.
Now, I want you to know that was the beginning of the end for us.
We had to go back and get the court to define what they meant
by desegregation in Brown II, and that's where they came
out with all deliberate speed.
Now, I wish I had more time to talk to you
because there're lot-- many more details to this case,
many more details of the story.
Yes, I would eventually be appointed to the Circuit Court
of Appeals and I will eventually become the US Solicitor General,
and Lyndon Johnson who I loved would put me
on the Supreme Court, I love Lyndon because we like to drink
and tell rival jokes and smoke.
And I love his accent, I just love the accent, you know,
I have two semi-beautiful daughters
and two very ugly dogs.
Oh I loved him.
But, when I went on the Supreme Court, I want you to know
that this was torture for me.
It was torture, it was no joy on the Supreme Court
to see the years of work and risk that you had endured,
dismantled case by case.
So, ladies and gentlemen, as I go to my seat I want
to emphasize three things to you.
Number one, the issue of race in United States or for
that matter any form of discrimination is not just
about the victimized population, it's also about the soul
and the meaning, and the direction, and the future
of the oppressors as well.
Two, whoever you leave out, you pay for it.
Pay for him now, pay for him later, you will pay.
And most importantly ladies and gentlemen,
I want you to understand that the next chapters
in this story have to be written by you.
Whatever you do everyday in your lives,
you write the next chapters of this story
for America and the world.
I urge you to write them carefully, write them elegantly,
and write them eloquently because I'll be watching.
I'll be watching.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> I'm Angela Rice Beemer and I'm here
with Lenneal J. Henderson
who has just performed as Thurgood Marshall.
Thank you very much for coming for coming
to Montgomery College--
>> Thank you, thank you.
>> -- and doing that performance is wonderful performance.
>> Thank you very much.
>> You know, my first question is Justice Marshall's life is
kind of an example for young people of sort of turning things
around because he started out not a very serious student.
But after he gained that discipline, and he was able
to go on to do great, great things,
what kind of advice would you give to a student
who is not taking their studies seriously
or perhaps their purpose in life?
>> Well, aside from taking their studies seriously,
I think what happened to Marshall was that he saw
through his experience
at Lincoln University what possibilities there were
for change even in little actions
like desegregating the local theater
or getting a black professor at a black school,
and so that helped him.
And then, of course, when he went
to Howard University Law School, the mentoring
of Charles Hamilton Houston
and William Hastie were just absolutely invaluable to him.
So I would urge young people, aside from their parents,
because parents are a little different dynamic,
to get a good mentor.
>> And from the internship is such an extreme and that support
in general, he had a very supportive family.
>> He did.
>> Didn't he?
>> He did, had nuclear family, older brother.
Older brother was a physician, so both he
and his brother did very well in the end.
And his mother was a school teacher.
His father worked the entire time.
So, he had a very constructive nuclear family
and I think this is also a story about nuclear families
in that generation, how critical they were to the raising
of the next generation of outstanding people
like Thurgood Marshall.
>> Tell me a little bit about his wives--
his first wife, Vivian died early.
>> She did.
She did. She died at 44 years old.
They had been married 26 years and she was really his life
in many ways, because she was such an inspiration to him.
She was educated at the University of Pennsylvania
so she was a college grad.
She was really a beautiful woman, striking.
They-- one of the family,
but she had three miscarriages unfortunately.
She died of cancer 11 months after the Brown decision,
which was a devastating development
for Thurgood Marshall.
And so, curiously, we don't have a lot of archival material
about Vivian who he called Buster,
but we know from past experience and from the accounts
of others how important she was in his life.
>> And she did not mention she had cancer, is that correct?
>> For a long time she didn't.
She didn't [inaudible].
>> And I want to talk about his second wife, Cecilia also.
>> Yes.
>> How did they meet and-- ?
>> Cecilia worked at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund
and so they knew each other even before, you know,
Buster past away, and they were friends.
They were friends.
And, it was some months and years
after Vivian's passing they became reacquainted.
She was from Hawaii originally, but Filipino ancestry,
and she was very, very supportive
of Thurgood as Vivian was.
And, she bore him two sons,
both prominent young men practicing attorneys
in Virginia.
And so-- and she's still living.
So, she too was a great love of his life
and he enjoyed his time with his family.
He was a great family man,
something a lot people don't know about Thurgood Marshall,
and his sons loved him.
They love the attention that they received from him.
As busy as he was, he always had time for them.
>> I think the theme of sacrifice in terms
of the support kind of runs throughout because--
you want to talk a little bit more about that?
>> Huge. I think Thurgood Marshall's entire life is a
testament to sacrifice.
He could have been killed in any moment given what he was doing.
Going into the South trying these cases,
challenging the legal system, challenging segregation,
he could have ended up dead and almost did in Mississippi.
They almost lynched him.
And so, that was one kind of risk and sacrifice.
And then the other thing is
that he sacrificed great personal wealth.
He was very effective attorney
who would've been a dazzling corporate attorney
or real state attorney, but he chose to do something
with the law that would change America and change the flight
of African-Americans and other people who had been oppressed.
And that's an immense sacrifice.
He did not die a rich man.
He was also a very humble man in many ways.
He was not interested in a lot honors and honorary degrees
and he was very humble in a lot of ways.
And he had a wonderful sense of humor on top of that.
But I think he is the epitome of sacrifice,
long hours that you have to work to prepare for these cases
against opposition that was well-financed, had legal staff
to burn, had assistance and infrastructure available to him
and he didn't have much of that.
He had just loyal people working with the NAACP.
And so, it is an amazing story of sacrifice right to the end.
>> How did he prepare for cases?
Did he practice with other attorneys?
Did you find that in your readings?
Especially Brown, let's say, a case that was so--
>> That's a very good question because the evidence suggests
that they mulled over and filed all these cases ceaselessly.
They were up all hours of nights working different angles
of the case.
They would try something
and then he would say that's not going to work,
they would never go for that and they would argue about it
and they come back at it again.
Then they would work with their volunteers.
They had a lot of white and black social scientist
and historians who work with them, who would come in
and help them do their research for the cases.
So, the preparations for the cases were
absolutely exhaustive.
And it was not unusual for the staff to work 16,
18 hours a day or more if necessary.
And so, when you thought of all the years
that they were doing this,
it was amazing the Thurgood Marshall lived for as long
as he did because, you know, of course he smoked,
and he drink a little bit, but they were very meticulous
about every jot and tittle of every case.
They had to be, because of the Supreme Court itself,
the court system and because of the opposition.
>> Right, but he used-- he was renowned for the logic that he--
>> Absolutely.
>> -- used in the cases.
Speaking of the Supreme Court and the defense,
what was his relationship like with John W. Davis?
>> Well, he admired John W. Davis.
In fact, the rumor is that he cut school
when he was in law school.
Some of his friends and he to go watch John W. Davis litigate
when John W. Davis was the solicitor general.
He was that good, so he was an admirer of John W. Davis
and he was in awe of him and intimidated
to a very great extent when he found out the governor Burns
of South Carolina have retain the services of John W. Davis
in the Briggs case, one of the five cases
that constituted Brown.
So-- And they were very cordial
and respectful toward one another.
Davis, you know, congratulated him.
In fact, the Brown case was the very last case
that Davis tried before he died.
And so, they had a very, very mutual sort of mutual respect
for each other, not antipathy, not--
they didn't see each others enemies.
>> Even though they were on opposite side--
[ Multiple Speakers ]
>> Absolutely.
Yes.
>> Who were his knuckle heads?
I heard that he-- you tell us about that--
the phrase that he uses?
>> Well, any one of the team could be referred
to as knuckle head at any time.
And, you know, young William Coleman
who had the Harvard law degree and who was the clerk
to Felix Frankfurter the first black man to be a clerk
to a Supreme Court, was very young when he came
and work with the NAACP.
And, the way Marshall was sort of break him down the size is
to call him a knucklehead and they called him dense, you know,
sort of put him in his place and I think every member
of the staff at one time
or another was dressed down by Thurgood.
He had a way of intimidating you and he was very large man
and very imposing and he had one
of those I am the lord type voices.
And so, he-- I think took turns, sort of picking on people
but they knew that he still had a great affection for them.
In fact, they threw a wonderful birthday party for him one time
in which they gave him a beautiful new Lionel lines toy
train set.
And he was so excited.
And they gave him a little engineers hat to go with it
and Buster came running out and said, "We forgot one thing.
Sorry Thurgood."
And he said, "What is that?"
"Those little short pants you used to wear when you worked
for the B&O Railroad."
>> That's good.
That's good.
His father was a very interesting man
in that he would debate with him,
sort of as a matter or course of--
>> Yes.
>> -- it's sort of its training.
Tell us a little bit about that.
>> Yes. I like to describe his father
as an intellectual circumscribed by racism.
Had-- racism not been there,
his father would have been a professor,
he could have been an educator.
He had that bent.
He had an intellectual curiosity
that he passed on to his children.
I think it endeared him to his wife who's a school teacher
and he would deliberately take them not just to the court
to see how justice were done, but he would--
you know, every other Sunday he would take them on rides
in different places in the metropolitan area
to expose them to what was going on.
And he would sit down and talk to them, and he was tough
on them, he was very, very tough on them.
So, you know, like many men of his generation he--
the boundaries were very tightly drawn on what he could do
in spite of his immense intellectual ability.
And so, he's one of the tragedies I think of racism
to a very great extent, and yet he raised two wonderful sons
and had a wonderful marriage before he died.
>> And in a sense that's part of what the sacrifice--
is part of the sacrifice
that propels the next generation forward.
>> Correct.
>> His mother, what was she like?
>> Well, she was a school teacher, and school teachers
in those days were an authority figure,
both in the school and at home.
And they didn't teach, as school teachers often do today
in specialties, they had a tendency
to teach many different kinds of subjects,
and she was that kind of teacher.
And she had a master's degree, which is very unusual
for a teacher at that time.
And so, she was quite well educated
and she was quite capable of teaching in the social sciences
and the natural sciences.
She taught math at some point.
So, in a sense she complimented Thurgood and Aubrey's education
with a kind of informal home school along
with the flawless exposure.
So, they were doing home schooling before we called
it that.
And, the mother also at the same time was a very gentle person.
She was not an overbearing person.
She was a church going person, and yet very strong,
very strong black woman.
And I think also a Thurgood got his nose from her,
because when you look at photographs of mom and you look
at photographs of Thurgood, you can see that nose.
>> I wanted to ask you a little bit
about his time on the Supreme Court.
I read in a book by Davis and Clark, Warrior at the Bench,
that's part of the title,
that the Supreme Court was a monastery of intellect.
Did Thurgood Marshall feel that way about it, or how did that--
what were his feelings about the court?
>> Well, I think he might agree it was a monastery.
I don't think he would agree
that it was a monastery of intellect.
I think he was very bitter about many of the things
that happened on the court.
He felt there was a lot of grand standing, there was a lot of ego
that the court didn't really get
to all the fundamental issues in many instances.
And as he went on especially
as Warren Burger became the Chief Justice.
He became increasingly bitter
about the orientation of the court.
So, he felt to a very great extent
that they were abandoning a lot of the foundation
that have been established not just with Brown but some
of the civil rights cases the preceded Brown.
And he also felt that they were on the wrong side
of some other public policy issues that range
from abortion rights to housing to police to criminal justice
and law and criminal law.
So, he really was embattled during the time he was
on the court.
And, as he went on, he would not hesitate
to challenge even the chief justice in some instances,
he would always do it with the decorum of the court
but he was quite direct.
>> And, I'm afraid to the--
>> Uncompromising.
>> I've read that one of the things
that he asked law clerks before they came was do you
like writing decent.
>> That's right.
>> And if they did, didn't mind it or liked it, they were hired
because that was where he...
>> Absolutely.
>> What about some of his classmates.
At Lincoln, he sort of landed in a class with these people
who went on to do such illustrious things.
Did he talk a lot about that, you know, in what you read?
>> Well, actually he did.
His time at Lincoln University in a sense was his introduction
to the world, because he not only met--
well, he knew Cab Calloway of course but he met people
like Langston Hughes there,
and he met a very young Quami Enkuma, Namdie Izikiwe,
and others who would go on to be prominent individuals
in their own countries and he would keep abreast
of what they were doing in those countries when they went back,
which is why he would later on beyond the scene
when they won their independence,
and they were trying to write their constitutions,
so these relationships very formative to him.
They opened his eyes and they were as critical as his courses
in some ways because he always said
that to be an effective jurist, you have to know the law
but you have to know people better,
and he was good at knowing people.
And so, with those two things, he was able to go much further
than someone who just knew the details of the law.
So, as he went and litigated in the southern courtrooms
and so on, he could speak to colloquialisms
with judges, sheriffs, and so on.
And he was saying, "No, you know, come on now sheriff.
You know that that's not the right thing to do."
And so, now, you know, more formal jurist wouldn't do that.
So, he was very good with people,
he knew people quite well and I think that was the secret
to his success along with his knowledge of the law.
>> I also read that sometimes
in those southern courtrooms he would drift
into this southern accent--
>> Absolutely.
>> -- to bond in a sense with his opponent.
>> He can mimic anyone.
And, some old southern fellow told him one time, "You know,
we got to go slow, go gradual."
He says, "Well, it's been almost 100 years
since the emancipation proclamation,
is that gradual enough for you?"
>> Wow. Talk a little bit more about his international work.
You've touched on the constitution
of some international countries.
He was sent to Korea and Tokyo.
>> Yes, to Japan and to Korea to look in on the conditions
of black soldiers who were in very,
very unfavorable positions there.
And one particular that he focused on were those
who were arrested in the service for insubordination
or for other infractions, much more frequently
than their white counterparts.
And so, he was able to get the sentences of 22 or 23 of them
out of say 40 reduced while he was there.
It was quite effective, but he finally had a meeting
with General Douglas McArthur and this was a Waterloo
in some ways, this was a confrontation
and he asked him why these soldiers were being put
in harms way in these inferior positions
and not being recognized by it.
And, McArthur in his own way sort of told him "Well,
you know, the black soldiers were really weren't
of the same caliber as some of [inaudible].
And Thurgood really confronted him and,
you know, looked eye-to-eye.
The word was that it was McArthur who faded away,
because again, Thurgood was so incensed
about what was going on.
But Thurgood had actually kept abreast of what was going
on all during the build up to World War II,
largely because of the concerns that African-Americans had
about getting into defense-related industries.
So, he was aware of the efforts of A. Philip Randolph
to persuade President Roosevelt to issue an executive order,
banning racial discrimination in defense-related industries.
And he knew the connection of that to lend lease
to the war effort in the Pacific,
and the war effort in Europe.
So, he was always sort of abreast
of things global all of his life.
This wasn't a new thing to him.
>> What about your personality is most like Marshall?
>> Sense of fun, sense of humor.
I believe that whenever we're doing a serious business
but humor also is serious business, because it's a way
of relating to people and incorporating them
in whatever you're trying to do.
So, I think there's a similarity there.
I think, we also are risk takers, even getting involved
in this flight was a risk,
and thanks to the Maryland Humanities Council who's been
so supportive.
We've gone along with it.
But actually, the play was written
for a professional actor.
And so-- but Marshall was a risk taker.
He definitely was a risk taker.
And, I think the other commonality is a sort
of ongoing interest in fairness, in justice,
especially for women and for children.
He was very interested in cases involving children's rights,
something that's little known about Thurgood Marshall.
And I also have a great interest in children and the welfare
of children and making sure
that they have a nurturing environment.
We belong to our church's mentoring program
and so on so forth.
So, those are things that we saw that connected
with in the character.
Also his respect for his wife, and his listening to his wife.
And, I tried to practice that, also because the beds
in the homeless shelter are just too small for me.
So, you know.
[ Laughter ]
>> [Background Music] Thank you so, so very much.
>> It's a privilege.
>> We have really enjoyed it.
I do hope you come back with some
of your other characters soon to Chautauqua in Maryland.
>> Well, it's a privilege.
And thank you very much and thanks
to the Maryland Humanities Council for the opportunity.
>> They're wonderful, Ed [phonetic].
>> Absolutely.
>> Yeah, thank you so much for joining us.
You've been watching Chautauqua "Beyond Boundaries".
I'm Angela Rice Beemer from the Germantown Campus
of Montgomery College.
Good night.
[ Music ]