Thurgood Marshall Read Online Free PDF Page A

study whether crime and violence were the cause of rioting in Harlem. The leaders of the liberal white establishment were embracing him as their answer to angry blacks who said whites never gave a black man a chance.
    And yet a strong undercurrent of criticism of Marshall—he was unqualified, lazy, too liberal—continued. Marshall came under the most brutal attack from segregationists, who did not want an integrationist on the Court. President Johnson’s political strategy to have Marshall quickly and easily confirmed was crumbling. And even Marshall’s tough-mindedness, his amazing will to win, seemed to be overmatched.
    Hearings for most Supreme Court nominees began within a week of the nomination. Byron White, President Kennedy’s first candidate for the Court, had been nominated and confirmed within eight days. Abe Fortas, President Johnson’s first, had to wait only fourteen days. Thurgood Marshall was different. It would be seventy-eight days before his name would come up for a vote of Senate confirmation.
    In the two and a half months between the nomination and the vote on Marshall, his record as a lawyer, his writings, his drinking, the women he slept with, and his family came under the intense scrutiny of FBI and Senate investigations. Sen. Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, wrote to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, asking if there was information about Marshall’s ties to Communists. Another senator focused on uncovering evidence that Marshall hated whites; other senators loaded up on detailed legal questions, hoping to reveal gaps in Marshall’s knowledge of the law that would disqualify him for the high court.
    But the larger topics for Marshall’s opponents were still left unanswered: Who was this man? How did a black man so despised by millions of segregationists rise past Jim Crow political power to become a federal judge, the first black solicitor general, and finally to stand at the door of the highest station of American law, the Supreme Court? Simply put, where did this Negro come from?

CHAPTER 4
Waking Up
    A T AGE SIXTEEN T HURGOOD M ARSHALL BEGAN a metamorphosis. The teasing, often goofy boy embarked on a journey of experiences that opened his eyes to the painful realities of economic and racial problems crippling most black Americans. With high school behind him he had to find his place in an adult world where legal segregation and poverty plagued black people.
    His first revelation came with his struggle to attend college. Despite his mother’s protectiveness, it was clear to him that the family could not afford to send him to the school he desperately wanted to attend. Lincoln University was the top choice for the brightest black boys along the East Coast, and Aubrey was still there. Thurgood had been accepted, but the family still owed the school money for Aubrey’s junior year. “After consulting with the Treasurer I find that there is a balance of $330.50 [about a year’s tuition] on your son Aubrey’s account and this raises the question whether it would not be advisable for the younger boy to remain out of school and earn money for a year,” a Lincoln University official wrote to Norma in June 1925. 1
    At the request of Norma, W. W. Walker, a minister on McCullough Street and an 1897 graduate of Lincoln, wrote to the president of the university to give personal testimony that Willie Marshall had been ill for a year and that was the only reason for their financial difficulties: “I am well acquainted with the Marshall family. They stand high in the estimation of the people of Baltimore.… The mother is very anxious aboutthe entrance of Thurgood into Lincoln U. fearing the faculty will be influenced versus him because of what she owes.” Lincoln’s president responded that “the case will be considered on its own merits and certainly with a favorable attitude because of your letter and recommendation.” 2
    To save money for his college tuition, Thurgood began working full-time