Thurgood

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. — Thurgood Marshall

I was recently riveted by the movie Marshall, a 2017 American biographical legal drama on Netflix starring Chadwick Boseman (who passed away in 2020) as Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. Though the movie focuses on one of the first cases of Marshall’s career, namely the State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell, in which an African-American chauffeur (they were described as “negro” back then) was accused of rape by his pedigreed employer Eleanor Strubing, it brought to the fore the qualities that made Thurgood Marshall a beacon.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sent Marshall to various states to defend black boys and men accused of serious crimes, saving them from lynching, if not death. Winning the case was crucial because if Joseph Spell were to be found guilty, many blacks would likely be let go by their white employers due to racist fears that they might behave like him.

Marshall was unflinching. He let all the wounds of being a man of color leave indelible scars on him that served as proud reminders of his purpose in life. Not to yield.

In fact, many of the disappointments of his early life turned out to be blessings — he was unable to attend the law school of his choice and was thus forced to enroll in a school that admitted men of color. Though it took him 90 minutes by bus one way to reach the school, it was to be his good fortune. At Howard, he was mentored by Charles Hamilton Houston, who taught his students to be “social engineers,” willing to use the law to fight for civil rights.

How many times, like Marshall, have we had to accept the second choice, only to realize later, that God was giving us the best choice?

Marshall won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court. Marshall’s most famous case was the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case in which Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren noted, “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

In 1961, my American idol President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court.

Since then, only two other African-American justices have been appointed: Clarence Thomas, in 1991; and Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022.

***

The feeling of being treated unfairly is not unfamiliar to us — it could be because we thought we were blamed for something our sibling or cousin did, or we got a lower grade due to perceived favoritism from a teacher, or a traffic cop wrote us a ticket but let the next Juan dela Cruz off the hook. Or the injustices could run deeper than that.

It s_cks to be at the short end of the stick.

But these perceived injustices or unfair treatments are arguably not in the league of those who were discriminated against because of the color of their skin. Something they are born with. Something they cannot change even with mega doses of glutathione — that is, if they wanted to change it.

By 1900 in the United States, “persons of color” were required to be separated from white people in railroad cars and depots, hotels, theaters, restaurants, barber shops and other establishments. By an 8–1 majority, the Court upheld a Louisiana law that required the segregation of passengers on railroad cars.

On Dec. 1, 1955, an African-American woman named Rosa Parks was riding a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama when the driver told her to give up her seat to a white man. Parks refused and was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation ordinances.

At 2 a.m. on July 11, 1958, Mildred Jeter was lying next to her husband Richard Loving, when police began knocking on their door, demanding to know about the nature of their relationship. At the time, interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia and the newly-wed couple was guilty of breaking the law.

But men and women like Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks have blazed the trail for equality in the United States that benefits not only people of color, but all people. For instance, four women of color participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes, like providing the calculations for America’s first journeys into space.

The United States has had an African-American president (Barack Obama, from 2009-2017) and its current vice president (Kamala Harris) is a woman of color. One of the highest paid and most influential media personalities in the US is Oprah Winfrey. America has moved forward in giant strides since the days of slavery, and yet discrimination due to the color of one’s skin or the shape of one’s eyes is still present.

And yet, now we know that there is recourse to discrimination. That we can all be social engineers, or concerned bystanders, as when hate crimes are perpetrated against people because of their race — including Filipinos.

The movie wasn’t all about Marshall, however; it was also about the heroes, willing or accidental, who made a difference in the lives of African-Americans, and in helping them live up to their full potential, helped shape the American nation for the better. In the movie, lawyer Samuel Friedman was portrayed as an accidental hero, an initially reluctant hero who handled insurance claims in court but was somehow convinced into taking the defense of Joseph Spell alongside Marshall. In the movie, Friedman, a devout Jew, eventually embraces the case as his very own.

Marshall inspires because it shows that crusaders succeed. The journey might take long, the journey may be perilous, but many crusaders do reach their destination. You just have to keep hammering on, moving forward, all the while keeping the faith. *