Living the dream
Thurgood Marshall was America's leading radical
By: Leshundra T. Britt
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: Features
Thurgood Marshall was America's leading radical. He led a civil rights revolution in the 20th century that forever changed the landscape of American society.
But he is the least well known of the three leading black figures of this century. Martin Luther King Jr., with his preaching's of love and non-violent resistance, and Malcolm X, the fiery street preacher who advocated a bloody overthrow of the system, are both more closely associated in the popular mind and myth with the civil rights struggle.
But it was Thurgood Marshall, working through the courts to eradicate the legacy of slavery and destroying the racist segregation system of Jim Crow, who had an even more profound and lasting effect on race relations than either of King or Malcolm X.
It was Marshall who ended legal segregation in the United States. He won Supreme Court victories breaking the color line in housing, transportation and voting, all of which overturned the "Separate-but-Equal" apartheid of American life in the first half of the century.
It was Marshall who won the most important legal case of the century, Brown v. Board of Education, ending the legal separation of black and white children in publi.
The success of the Brown case sparked the 1960s civil rights movement, led to the increased number of black high school and college graduates and the incredible rise of the black middle-class in both numbers and political power in the second half of the century.
And it was Marshall, as the nation's first African-American Supreme Court justice, who promoted affirmative action - preferences, set-asides and other race conscious policies - as the remedy for the damage remaining from the nation's history of slavery and racial bias. Justice Marshall gave a clear signal that while legal discrimination had ended, there was more to be done to advance educational opportunity for people who had been locked out and to bridge the wide canyon of economic inequity between blacks and whites.
But he is the least well known of the three leading black figures of this century. Martin Luther King Jr., with his preaching's of love and non-violent resistance, and Malcolm X, the fiery street preacher who advocated a bloody overthrow of the system, are both more closely associated in the popular mind and myth with the civil rights struggle.
But it was Thurgood Marshall, working through the courts to eradicate the legacy of slavery and destroying the racist segregation system of Jim Crow, who had an even more profound and lasting effect on race relations than either of King or Malcolm X.
It was Marshall who ended legal segregation in the United States. He won Supreme Court victories breaking the color line in housing, transportation and voting, all of which overturned the "Separate-but-Equal" apartheid of American life in the first half of the century.
It was Marshall who won the most important legal case of the century, Brown v. Board of Education, ending the legal separation of black and white children in publi.
The success of the Brown case sparked the 1960s civil rights movement, led to the increased number of black high school and college graduates and the incredible rise of the black middle-class in both numbers and political power in the second half of the century.
And it was Marshall, as the nation's first African-American Supreme Court justice, who promoted affirmative action - preferences, set-asides and other race conscious policies - as the remedy for the damage remaining from the nation's history of slavery and racial bias. Justice Marshall gave a clear signal that while legal discrimination had ended, there was more to be done to advance educational opportunity for people who had been locked out and to bridge the wide canyon of economic inequity between blacks and whites.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
David
posted 3/03/08 @ 8:01 PM CST
This was an enlightening article; beautifully written. More stories such as his (Thurgood Marshall) should be told. Thank you for a great article.
d-N-b
dNb
posted 3/04/08 @ 11:50 AM CST
This was truly an enlightening article. Very much well written.
Post a Comment