Happy Birthday Thurgood Marshall

Civil rights pioneer and former Supreme Court Jusice Thurgood Marshall would have been 100 today. Marshall argued the NAACP position Brown v. Board of Education to the Supreme Court. The landmark case ended racial segregation. The neighborhood Linda Brown Thompson lived in was inegrated, but not the local school.

. . well. like I say, we lived in an integrated neighborhood and I had all of these playmates of different nationalities. And so when I found out that day that I might be able to go to their school, I was just thrilled, you know. And I remember walking over to Sumner school with my dad that day and going up the steps of the school and the school looked so big to a smaller child. And I remember going inside and my dad spoke with someone and then he went into the inner office with the principal and they left me out . . . to sit outside with the secretary. And while he was in the inner office, I could hear voices and hear his voice raised, you know, as the conversation went on. And then he immediately came out of the office, took me by the hand and we walked home from the school. I just couldn't understand what was happening because I was so sure that I was going to go to school with Mona and Guinevere, Wanda, and all of my playmates.[10]

Marshall was nearly lynched for representing clients Lloyd Kennedy and William Pillow.

We first went down to Mink Slide [the black neighborhood in Columbia] on our way out to get a bottle of whiskey. The bootlegger said, I'm sorry, I haven't got anything but vodka and whiskey. I just sold the last two bottles to the judge. They said they looked in there and they couldn't find any liquor in the car so one of them said, do you permit us to search your person? We also said, hell, no, we don't give you no permission to search us. He said well go ahead.

We started to drive off, we went a hundred yards or so and they pulled us over again because in the meantime I told [local NAACP attorney Z. Alexander] Looby it was Looby's car I said Looby you'd better drive because you've got a Tennessee license, I don't have a Tennessee license. Looby was driving and they pulled him over and they said you weren't driving this car were you? Looby said, I'm not going to answer that. The guy behind me, where I was sitting in the back seat, I couldn't see who it was but I heard what he said. This guy came back and said, weren't you driving? I said the same answer he gave. So they wanted to see my license. He said you're under arrested. I said for what? He said drunken driving. I said drunken driving? I haven't had a drink in a couple of days. You're drunk.

So they put me in a police car and they went back to Columbia. That's the first time that they knew what was going on. He said he told Looby to go to Nashville and don't follow them and then they drove toward Duck River. We didn't know until afterwards that's where the mob was waiting. Well Looby wouldn't leave. He kept right on the tail of the car and they kept going back to tell him. So eventually they got a little meeting together and they said hell with it, we'll take him back to town.

Here is a long lost interview Mike Wallace conducted with Marshall.