Thurgood Marshall, My Father

Crisis, The, May/Jun 2004 by Marshall, Thurgood Jr

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. My father served proudly as an attorney on the Brown case, and my mother was an NAACP secretary. I learned from them to regard the Brown anniversary as a reminder of the many dedicated individuals who successfully pursued the cause of civil rights. It's also a reminder of the way in which we, as a people, can come together for the greater good.

The lawyers who worked on the Brown cases were a unique collection of individuals who seemed tailor-made for the challenges that they undertook. Many were trained directly or indirectly by Howard University Law School professor, Charles Hamilton Houston. Houston placed a premium on excellence and scholarship and believed that a lawyer who was not a social engineer was merely a parasite on our society.

Houston found a kindred spirit in my father, but one with a rebellious wrinkle. My father grew up in Baltimore. He and his brother, Aubrey, benefited from a strong family environment and influential role models, including a great grandfather who had been born a slave. His grandmother, Annie, ran a small store on a street corner in Baltimore and made a name for herself protesting a city plan to place a power pole outside her store. She placed a chair on the planned spot for the pole and sat there each day until the city decided that it would be far easier to find a new location than to test her tenacity.

My father was just as rebellious while attending Baltimore's Colored High and Training School, now Frederick Douglass High School, and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Yet somehow his grades remained excellent. He expressed interest in becoming a lawyer, and his mother pawned her wedding and engagement rings to pay for him to attend Howard University School of Law.

At Howard, he landed in a class with similarly rebellious students. Houston tapped into this brilliant and aggressive group. He gave them the tools, focus and inspiration to tackle Jim Crow, and served as the architect for much of the legal strategy employed in the Brown school desegregation cases.

After my father graduated from Howard, he and Houston successfully sued the University of Maryland to force the institution to admit African American students to its law school. Years earlier, the school's segregationist admission policy had dissuaded my father from applying to the law school. In 1936, he joined Houston at the NAACP national headquarters in New York, where his friend Roy Wilkins was assistant to the executive secretary Walter White.

My parents' life can best be described as frenetic, yet warmly collegial. They worked hard, but also enjoyed themselves when they could, marveling in the simple things in life. My father would proudly tell people that I took my first steps as a toddler on a poker table during one of the games that regularly occurred among their group. Yet they never strayed from their mission. They cranked out legal briefs and traveled the country for weeks at a time.

My parents often found themselves in dicey situations as targets of those who vehemently opposed their presence. In Little Rock, Ark., for example, they would usually stay at the home of Daisy Bates, a local NAACP member who organized the Little Rock Nine. It was not unusual for bricks and worse to be thrown through Mrs. Bates's front window - which also happened to be the window in the room where my father and his colleagues slept. Each lawyer would try to finagle their way out of being the person sleeping next to the window.

My father often said that people such as Daisy Bates were the true heroes of the legal cases - the courageous people who helped the legal team by providing support and as a result became targets for the enemies of the Civil Rights Movement.

So for all of the important discussions occurring during this anniversary year to assess the progress and unfinished business of Brown, I believe it is every bit as important to pay tribute to the countless people who gave of themselves in ways large and small to make the Brown case and its message of equal opportunity a reality. Many others are making those same contributions and sacrifices now as organizers, clients and supporters so that the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund can continue to serve as beacons of justice, equality and fairness in our society.

Thurgood Marshall Jr. is a partner in the Washington, D.C., law offices of Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman LLP