Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Guess what, Mango? What's that? Well? All right, we know
Speaker 1: how people like to keep tabs on their old classmates,
Speaker 1: you know, just you can see what everybody's wound up doing.
Speaker 1: That is why I joined Facebook. I want to see
Speaker 1: what people are doing. I want to see how my
Speaker 1: high school rivals are doing terribly. I hope did you
Speaker 1: recently joined Facebook like your grandmother. That's pretty great. Actually,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that this week while reading up
Speaker 1: on Third Good Marshal, and it actually made me feel
Speaker 1: so bad for the Lincoln College class of nineteen thirty,
Speaker 1: which I know you're I think you're an expert on
Speaker 1: the Lincoln College class of nineteen thirty. I am not,
Speaker 1: but I'm guessing it's because they graduated a future Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justice. Well, that's the thing. So Lincoln's class of
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty was actually home to a slew of prominent
Speaker 1: black leaders. So for literature you had Lengths and Hughes.
Speaker 1: For music, there was Cab Callaway. Then of course there
Speaker 1: was Marshall himself, who made this colossal name for himself
Speaker 1: in the legal system and on the political side of things.
Speaker 1: The class had Quamae Nachroma of the future president of Ghana.
Speaker 1: Isn't that unbelievable? I mean, no matter which field the
Speaker 1: other students went into, they were all pretty much guaranteed
Speaker 1: to be outshone by the classmates. But the more I
Speaker 1: poked around Marshall's biography, the more I wanted to know.
Speaker 1: How did he become such a larger than life figure
Speaker 1: in the courtroom, how did he look at the Constitution?
Speaker 1: And did he really take the oath of office from
Speaker 1: an ex clan member? So let's dive in, say their
Speaker 1: podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson
Speaker 1: and as always I'm joined by my good friend man
Speaker 1: Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof
Speaker 1: glass watching old Days of Our Lives reruns. This is
Speaker 1: gives him an excuse to do this because I know
Speaker 1: he likes to do this on the quiet, but in
Speaker 1: honor of third good Marshall, that's our friend and producer
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. I know it's a tribute, but uh I
Speaker 1: I do feel like Tristin just loves his stories. He does,
Speaker 1: he definitely loves his stories. Well that was my first thought,
Speaker 1: but Tristan was so adamant about only watching episodes from
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies and eighties that it made me wonder
Speaker 1: if there really was a connection. So we did a
Speaker 1: little bit of digging, of course, and it turns out
Speaker 1: that during his years on the bench, Justice Third Good
Speaker 1: Marshall was actually a big fan of Days of Our
Speaker 1: Lives And I love this, but I mean, like really
Speaker 1: a fan of soap operas in general. And apparently he
Speaker 1: once told Justice Brennan there was quote a lot to
Speaker 1: be learned about life from soap operas, so things like
Speaker 1: how to stop your evil twin from stealing the men
Speaker 1: you love. I imagine at these practical life lessons, and
Speaker 1: Justice Marshall didn't want to miss any of them. In fact,
Speaker 1: Time magazine ran this report this was back in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies six, claiming that Marshall would often call a recess
Speaker 1: right around one pm so that he could watch the
Speaker 1: latest Days of Our Lives episode in his chambers. You know,
Speaker 1: I guess they didn't have a way to uh TiVo
Speaker 1: or record things that I just say TiVo. Sometimes he
Speaker 1: would be late to his next meeting because he didn't
Speaker 1: want to miss the end of an episode, I totally said, TiVo.
Speaker 1: So obviously this is a funny thing to point out, because,
Speaker 1: you know, aside from his odd TV habit, which actually
Speaker 1: makes him feel pretty human, like, his legacy is just stunning. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean you think about the pivolal role he had
Speaker 1: in the civil rights movement, his landmark appointment as the
Speaker 1: first black member of the Supreme Court. There's just a
Speaker 1: ton to discuss here. Yeah, there definitely is. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I'll leave it up to you. Where where do you
Speaker 1: want to start? How about with a bombshell? You know
Speaker 1: how I like to start these things. Apparently third Good
Speaker 1: Marshall's name wasn't actually third Good Marshal when he was
Speaker 1: born in Maryland. This was he was actually given the
Speaker 1: name thorough Good Marshal, like the word thorough good put together.
Speaker 1: But it was such a mouth well and so annoying,
Speaker 1: the spell that Marshall told this reporter. By the time
Speaker 1: I reached the second grade, I got tired of spelling
Speaker 1: all that out and had shortened it to third Good.
Speaker 1: I love that he had decided this by second grade,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty amazing. All right. Well, I actually didn't
Speaker 1: know his name was abbreviated. But but what else did
Speaker 1: you dig up on his childhood? So he was born
Speaker 1: and raised in Baltimore, this is around the turn of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. He had one older brother, this guy,
Speaker 1: William Aubrey Marshall. His mother was a school teacher, and
Speaker 1: his father, William Canfield Marshall, worked as a dining car
Speaker 1: waiter on a railroad and then later as this steward
Speaker 1: at a fancy country club. So the Marshalls weren't exactly wealthy,
Speaker 1: but they felt middle class. And that's kind of amazing
Speaker 1: in itself when you consider that Thurgood's father was actually
Speaker 1: the grandson of a former slave, and this was not
Speaker 1: lost on Thurgood, like the social progress that was made
Speaker 1: in just a generation or two, and of course later
Speaker 1: he'd make it his mission to sort of push progress
Speaker 1: even further. So I'm curious how did Thurgood get interested
Speaker 1: in the law in the first place, because I was
Speaker 1: looking a lot about his early legal career, but there
Speaker 1: really wasn't a lot of insight into what made him
Speaker 1: want to be a lawyer. So from everything I read,
Speaker 1: it was really his father who kind of sparked this passion.
Speaker 1: His dad William was this amateur writer, and he had
Speaker 1: also been interested in legal proceedings and how courts worked.
Speaker 1: And it was such an obsession for him that in
Speaker 1: his free time he liked to go down to the
Speaker 1: local courthouse and listen to the civil and criminal trials.
Speaker 1: And sometimes he'd bring his sons along too. But this
Speaker 1: is the amazing part. Right when they got home, the
Speaker 1: three of them would actually lay out all the arguments
Speaker 1: they'd heard that day and then have these big, lively
Speaker 1: debates around the dinner table. And sometimes these discussions would
Speaker 1: happen five times in a week. So in all this excitement,
Speaker 1: Thur A Good really started to develop this interest in
Speaker 1: law and how do you use words to confront injustice?
Speaker 1: In fact, we actually have their good words on this
Speaker 1: In he talked about his father's influence, saying, quote, he
Speaker 1: did it by teaching me to argue, by challenging my
Speaker 1: logic on every point, by making me prove every statement.
Speaker 1: He never told me to be a lawyer, but he
Speaker 1: turned me into one. You know, my son is big
Speaker 1: into this series by John Grisham called Theodore Boone. Have
Speaker 1: your kids discovered this yet? So like, that's all I
Speaker 1: think about law now? Is like what kids are in
Speaker 1: the in the courtroom, like listening to these cases. But
Speaker 1: did you get a sense for like what kinds of
Speaker 1: cases the marshals were scrutinizing when they were at home.
Speaker 1: So Gaye pulled a ton of this for us, and
Speaker 1: and he couldn't track down specific cases, but it is
Speaker 1: easy to imagine that they would have seen a lot
Speaker 1: of cases involving racial discrimination. When third Good was growing
Speaker 1: up in Baltimore, the city's death rate for African Americans
Speaker 1: was actually double that of white residence, and because of segregation,
Speaker 1: he and his brother were actually forced to attend this
Speaker 1: all black public school. So he felt all of this
Speaker 1: at this really early age, and what he saw in
Speaker 1: both court and the classroom that really shaped the viewpoints
Speaker 1: he'd ultimately spend his life fighting for all right, So
Speaker 1: it was obviously engaged in a lot of self education,
Speaker 1: a really curious kid and observing all these trials, debating
Speaker 1: law with his dad. But I'm curious, how was he
Speaker 1: in school? Like? Was he was? He a pretty good student?
Speaker 1: I'm in grade wise, he was excellent in high school.
Speaker 1: His grades were above average, and he made a name
Speaker 1: for himself on the debate team, you know, thanks to
Speaker 1: all this practice that he and his dad had had
Speaker 1: at home. But when it came to behavior, third Good
Speaker 1: was actually kind of a troublemaker. Yeah, you might even
Speaker 1: say he no, no, no, do not say they're bad.
Speaker 1: I could tell I knew that's where you were going
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, that's probably for the best. But he
Speaker 1: actually misbehaved a lot at school, and whenever you did,
Speaker 1: his teachers would make him read the Constitution as punishment.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. They're Good gotten so much trouble
Speaker 1: that by the time he graduated, which was a year early,
Speaker 1: he had memorized the entire Constitution. Uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's funny. They didn't realize how much they were
Speaker 1: contributing to his, you know, excellence in this in this field.
Speaker 1: And listening to you lay all this out, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing how all these different little things in
Speaker 1: his life seemed to be working together to sort of
Speaker 1: nudge him along a certain path. And I mean, I
Speaker 1: know we're looking at all this in hindsight and speaking
Speaker 1: in these broad terms, but his family history, his city,
Speaker 1: his school, his dad's interests of course, and now even
Speaker 1: his punishments contributed to this, but you know, when you
Speaker 1: take it all together, it almost seems inevitable that he
Speaker 1: would become a lawyer and fight for civil rights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess They're Good, agreed with you, Because after
Speaker 1: graduating college in ninety he immediately applied to the University
Speaker 1: of Maryland law school. And this is actually where one
Speaker 1: of those nudges down the path comes in, because despite
Speaker 1: a glowing high school transcript, the college ultimately rejected They're
Speaker 1: Good because of the color of his skin. But even
Speaker 1: though this is jumping a little bit ahead, I want
Speaker 1: to give you some instant satisfaction by telling you that
Speaker 1: about five years after he applied, They're Good actually helped
Speaker 1: launch and win the case that brought an end to
Speaker 1: segregation at the very school that rejected him. It's pretty
Speaker 1: sweet vindication. That's that's pretty great and I can only
Speaker 1: imagine how good it must have felt when that verdict
Speaker 1: came in. And I'm curious that, like, where did Marshall
Speaker 1: wind up studying law? So instead of Maryland, Marshall went
Speaker 1: to law school at Howard University, which is obviously historically black,
Speaker 1: so segregation wasn't an issue, and at the time the
Speaker 1: dean of the law school was this super well respected
Speaker 1: civil rights lawyer named Charles Houston, and on campus, Houston
Speaker 1: had this reputation for being super strict and demanding, but
Speaker 1: Marshall actually responded well to the style of teaching, and
Speaker 1: in fact, the two hit it off so well that
Speaker 1: Houston became a mentor to Marshall, and years later they
Speaker 1: worked closely together in legal division of the a CP. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Marshall's work with the a CP became the cornerstone of
Speaker 1: his career, so I definitely say he chose the right
Speaker 1: mentor in Houston. So when did Marshall first get involved
Speaker 1: with the a CP. Was Was that straight out of
Speaker 1: law school? No? So, Marshall actually passed the bar exam
Speaker 1: and graduated from Howard with honors. But he spent his
Speaker 1: first few post grad years trying to get this private
Speaker 1: practice going in Baltimore. He landed a few small cases
Speaker 1: every now and then, but none of them paid very much,
Speaker 1: and things got so bad that Thirdgood was forced to
Speaker 1: take a second job at an STD clinic just to
Speaker 1: make rent. In fact, if you remember breakthrough case I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, the one where Third Goood got the University
Speaker 1: of Maryland to desegregate. He was working the late shift
Speaker 1: at that clinic the whole time he prepped for the case.
Speaker 1: And even when he moved to New York City in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six to work full time for the ub
Speaker 1: A CP, Third Good was so concerned that things wouldn't
Speaker 1: pan out as a lawyer that he didn't actually quit
Speaker 1: his job at the clinic. He he just requested a
Speaker 1: six month leave of absence. That's how touch and go
Speaker 1: things were for him as a young lawyer. That is
Speaker 1: pretty wild. You mentioned Marshall's mentor was involved with the
Speaker 1: Double A CP. Did did he actually have something to
Speaker 1: do with Marshall getting called up to New York? So,
Speaker 1: Charles Houston had actually resigned as dean in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: five so that he could become the first legal counsel
Speaker 1: for the Double A CP, and by the time Marshall
Speaker 1: joined on a year later, Houston had already become the
Speaker 1: director of the group's legal division and the two worked
Speaker 1: side by side on civil rights cases for the next
Speaker 1: few years. And then when Houston retired from the role
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty, third Good stepped in and he really
Speaker 1: didn't miss a beat. He stayed on as director all
Speaker 1: throughout the forties and the fifties. Yeah, that's probably the
Speaker 1: portion of his career that I feel most familiar with,
Speaker 1: you know, all the landmark cases he tackled, and you know,
Speaker 1: not just as a justice serving on the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: but as a lawyer arguing in front of the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: which is perfect because I'll hand you the baton and
Speaker 1: you can walk us through it. But let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break first. You're listening to Part Time Genius and
Speaker 1: we're talking about how third Good Marshall earned his seat
Speaker 1: on the highest court in the country. And I feel
Speaker 1: like you were maybe alluding to this answer just before
Speaker 1: the break. You were saying that it was Marshall's time
Speaker 1: with the double A CP that really won him his acclaim. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely true. I mean, Marshall served as the group's
Speaker 1: top attorney for a little over two decades, and this
Speaker 1: was when he really made a name for himself because
Speaker 1: during that period he argued a record setting thirty two
Speaker 1: cases before the Supreme Court. And get this, so, out
Speaker 1: of those thirty two civil rights cases, Marshal won twenty
Speaker 1: nine of those, not a bad average at all, even today,
Speaker 1: all these decades later, Marshall is still near the top
Speaker 1: of the list for the number of cases argued and
Speaker 1: one before the Supreme Court. I mean, that's stunning. But
Speaker 1: what were some of his biggest wins. Well, his first
Speaker 1: Supreme Court victory was a pretty big one. So this
Speaker 1: was a ninety case. It's called Chambers versus Florida, and
Speaker 1: it dealt with these four black men who had confessed
Speaker 1: to a murder earlier that year and had been sentenced
Speaker 1: to death for it. However, Marshall was able to show
Speaker 1: that their confessions to the crime had been coerced by
Speaker 1: the police. So the four suspects had been held in
Speaker 1: police custody for a full week, never given access to
Speaker 1: legal counsel, and despite this, the men had been questioned
Speaker 1: individually throughout the week, with as many as ten police
Speaker 1: officers and community members present during these interrogations, but again
Speaker 1: no lawyers were present, and because this was all prior
Speaker 1: to the establishment of Miranda rights, no one told the
Speaker 1: men that they had the right to remain silent during
Speaker 1: these interrogations. So in the end, the court ruled that
Speaker 1: the confessions that had led to a conviction had not
Speaker 1: been given voluntarily, which made them inadmissible, so the death
Speaker 1: sentence ruling was actually overturned. I mean, it is wild
Speaker 1: to think that there was a time when those kinds
Speaker 1: of tactics were actually the norm, you know, holding people
Speaker 1: without charges, denying them counsel, and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: these civil rights violations still happened, but in the era
Speaker 1: we're talking about, it sounds like it was more or
Speaker 1: less acceptable behavior until cases like this were brought to trial. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would actually be another twenty six years after the
Speaker 1: Chambers case before those tactics would finally be outlawed by
Speaker 1: the court, and that's when police actually had to start
Speaker 1: telling suspects that they had the right to an attorney
Speaker 1: and the right to remain silent and all that. Yep,
Speaker 1: that was the ruling in the Miranda versus Arizona case
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty six, which by the way, was also
Speaker 1: a case that Marshall argued, though he was the Solicitor
Speaker 1: General by that point and no longer working for the
Speaker 1: Double A. CP and Marshall had a slew of other
Speaker 1: landmark victories in the years between Chambers and Miranda, but
Speaker 1: the biggest had to be Brown versus the Board of Education,
Speaker 1: the case that brought down school segregation and the whole
Speaker 1: separate but equal doctrine. So there's no question that was
Speaker 1: one of the most important cases of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: and probably the most defining moment of Marshall's whole career.
Speaker 1: And this was in the early fifties, right, Yes, was
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four, so this was really before the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement had gotten into full swing. It was a
Speaker 1: year before Rosa Parks bus ride, three years before the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act of nineteen fifty seven, and so the
Speaker 1: Brown Case was kind of a precursor to all of that,
Speaker 1: And it may have taken a while for the positive
Speaker 1: ruling to be fully enforced, but right from the outset,
Speaker 1: it definitely helped kick off the movement and kind of
Speaker 1: paved the way for more civil rights victories to come. So,
Speaker 1: I know the main takeaways from the Brown case have
Speaker 1: been covered pretty well by now, but could you maybe
Speaker 1: run through the basics just for certainly for me, but
Speaker 1: for anyone else who might have forgotten. Sure. So, basically,
Speaker 1: Marshall was representing a group of black parents whose children
Speaker 1: had been forced to attend all black schools, and this
Speaker 1: was in Topeka, Kansas, you might remember. And of course
Speaker 1: this was a case that was near Marshall's heart because
Speaker 1: this was something he had experienced himself, first in high
Speaker 1: school and then of course again in college. So in
Speaker 1: the end, Marshall argued that separate educational facilities are inherently
Speaker 1: unequal and therefore unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court agreed with
Speaker 1: him unanimously. Actually, So to be clear that positive ruling
Speaker 1: was never guaranteed given the political climate of the era,
Speaker 1: particularly in the South, you know, where Jim Crow laws
Speaker 1: were still very much in effect, but it helped that
Speaker 1: Marshall was so forceful and so clear when exposing the
Speaker 1: hypocrisies of the current laws in court. So, for example,
Speaker 1: there was one point during the Brown arguments when the
Speaker 1: Attorney General of Virginia complained that bringing the case before
Speaker 1: the Court was an assault by the double A C
Speaker 1: P on the quote cherished heritage of segregation. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it gets even worse when you hear how the Attorney
Speaker 1: General phrased all this. He said that the d A
Speaker 1: CP was trying to quote, pressed this crown of thorns
Speaker 1: upon our brow and hold the hemlock to our lips.
Speaker 1: It's just so bizarre, which I guess is a dual reference,
Speaker 1: likening the fall of segregation to both the crucifixion of
Speaker 1: Christ and the death of Socrates. I'm not, I'm not,
Speaker 1: but just like you said it, it's definitely messy and weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know you'll actually like Marshall's response to this.
Speaker 1: So he told the court, you have heard references to
Speaker 1: one state's greatest and most cherished heritage, and when you
Speaker 1: look for it, you find that greatest and most cherished
Speaker 1: heritage is to segregate colored people. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: stuinny to me that they voted unanimously right with him.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. But I I do want to go back
Speaker 1: to something you mentioned a little earlier. You said Marshall
Speaker 1: became the Solicitor General in the sixties, Right, So, Marshall
Speaker 1: actually received a couple of presidential appointments before finally being
Speaker 1: called up to the Supreme Court. He left the end
Speaker 1: of a CP in the early sixties, and this was
Speaker 1: to serve on the U s Court of Appeals, And
Speaker 1: that was after being nominated by President Kennedy. And then
Speaker 1: four years later Kennedy's successor, Linda Johnson, he appointed Marshall
Speaker 1: the first black solicitor general in US history, which is
Speaker 1: obviously important historically, but I feel like I'd appreciate it
Speaker 1: a little bit more if I actually knew what a
Speaker 1: solicitor general did? You know? You don't think about this
Speaker 1: every day. That's fair. Well, so, the solicitor General is,
Speaker 1: as you might expect, a legal post, and it's basically
Speaker 1: the attorney who goes before the Supreme Court to argue
Speaker 1: cases on behalf of the federal government. So a lot
Speaker 1: like what he had done for twenty years with the
Speaker 1: double A CP, but now with the federal government as
Speaker 1: his client, so I get what he does now. Was
Speaker 1: he still sticking to arguing civil rights cases once he
Speaker 1: started working for the government or did that all change? No,
Speaker 1: he definitely was. And it was during this time on
Speaker 1: the Court of Appeals that Marshall issued over one hundred
Speaker 1: decisions on civil rights battles as well as other hot
Speaker 1: button issues like women's rights, police brutality, and amazingly, none
Speaker 1: of these hundred plus decisions were overturned by the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and Marshall had a similarly strong record during his two
Speaker 1: years as Solicitor General too. So he argued nineteen cases
Speaker 1: before the Supreme Court during that stint, and one fourteen
Speaker 1: of those. That is really impressive. Yeah, it's true. And
Speaker 1: with a track record like that, it wasn't long before
Speaker 1: President Johnson decided that Marshall belonged on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So there were a couple of wrenches in his plan, though,
Speaker 1: and the chief among them was that there wasn't actually
Speaker 1: a vacancy to appoint him to. So I'm guessing Johnson
Speaker 1: might have played a little dirty and engineered something for him, right,
Speaker 1: Some say that he did, Yeah, I mean, the story
Speaker 1: goes that Johnson decided to engineer a vacancy himself by
Speaker 1: creating a conflict of interest for one of the sitting justices,
Speaker 1: and this was a fellow Democrat named Tom Clark. So
Speaker 1: apparently President Johnson appointed Clark's son as Attorney General, which
Speaker 1: prompted his father to step down, so it wouldn't look
Speaker 1: like nepotism. So it's up for debate whether this was
Speaker 1: done to open the seat to Marshall specifically, but he
Speaker 1: is definitely the one who filled it, and there is
Speaker 1: evidence that Johnson and Marshall liked each other and got
Speaker 1: along pretty well. So according biographer Juan Williams the two
Speaker 1: men love to drink bourbon and tell stories full of
Speaker 1: lies and watch soapar Rose. Maybe so, But even with
Speaker 1: Johnson on his side, it's not like Marshall's appointment to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court was a cake wall. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: There was a backlash to trying to get a black
Speaker 1: person on the Supreme Court. Pretty shocking, I know. But
Speaker 1: all right, well, let's take a quick break and then
Speaker 1: get back into this. Okay, Well, so third good. Marshall
Speaker 1: was sworn into the Supreme Court in October of nineteen seven,
Speaker 1: but that was only after what it sounds like was
Speaker 1: this pretty grueling confirmation process. It took place over the
Speaker 1: course of a week that summer, and from what I read,
Speaker 1: Marshall underwent more hours of questioning than any Supreme Court
Speaker 1: nominee before him. Yeah, this was largely because a handful
Speaker 1: of senators from Southern States really had their best to
Speaker 1: torpedo his nomination. To the history of the region has
Speaker 1: left many of these old guard senators with, you know,
Speaker 1: an axe to grind and shutting down. The first potential
Speaker 1: black Scotus member definitely fit the bill. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: Mississippi senator at the time was a guy named James Eastland,
Speaker 1: and according to The Atlantic, Eastland was quote a notorious
Speaker 1: racist whose father had famously lynched black people. He himself
Speaker 1: owned a plantation that employed more than one hundred black sharecroppers,
Speaker 1: and his daughter had been crowned miss Confederacy nineteen six.
Speaker 1: That's a little clue there. Anyway, he was the head
Speaker 1: of the committee for Marshall's nomination. It's like a little
Speaker 1: uphill battle. Yeah. I mean, you read a LinkedIn profile
Speaker 1: like that and it feels like a miracle that that
Speaker 1: Marshall got through, right. I Mean, he wasn't the only
Speaker 1: one there with you know, you might consider questionable views
Speaker 1: on race. So Senators from Thurman was also on the committee.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how long this guy is in office. And
Speaker 1: his main contribution was to subject Marshal to what basically
Speaker 1: amounted to a Jim Crow or a literacy test. He
Speaker 1: crossed examined Marshall, quizzing him on all these obscure, ridiculously
Speaker 1: specific portions of political history. So, for instance, one question
Speaker 1: he asked him was to name all the members of
Speaker 1: the Congressional committee that had reviewed the fourteenth amendment in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties six. Of course he couldn't answer this. But
Speaker 1: there's one thing nobody could a little later in the
Speaker 1: preceding Ted Kennedy Astrom tournament, if he could name the
Speaker 1: committee members from eighteen sixty six and guess what. No,
Speaker 1: of course he couldn't, and there was no reason why
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice would need to rattle off random information
Speaker 1: like that. So these Southern senators were drilling Marshall because
Speaker 1: of the color of his skin and because of what
Speaker 1: he represented, not because they had any real serious doubts
Speaker 1: about his legal knowledge or his ability to serve in
Speaker 1: this position, and because the case against Marshall was so flimsy.
Speaker 1: The Judiciary Committee ultimately approved his nomination with a resounding
Speaker 1: eleven to five vote, and then the Senate confirmed him
Speaker 1: with an equally definitive vote of six nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: which honestly is a little surprising when you look back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's impressive, but it does feel like there
Speaker 1: are a significant amount of Senators who didn't vote on it, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's only like eighty people who voted on his nominations.
Speaker 1: Quick math. Well, in the ind President Johnson knew he
Speaker 1: could never get the votes of the Southern Democratic senators
Speaker 1: who opposed Marshall, so rather than trying to sway the unswayable,
Speaker 1: he instead focused on getting them to abstain from voting altogether,
Speaker 1: rather than casting a vote against Marshall. And the lobbying
Speaker 1: seemed to work, as you can tell from these numbers.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's worth noting that even if
Speaker 1: all twenty of those substentions had voted no on Marshall,
Speaker 1: he still would have had more than enough yes is
Speaker 1: to get confirmed. Yeah, and after the harassment and committee,
Speaker 1: it must have been nice to have that kind of validation, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty resounding vote in Marshall's favor. Oh, definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean, the hearing had been this speed bump and
Speaker 1: one ended up being a pretty smooth next few years
Speaker 1: for Marshall. He joined a very liberal Supreme Court, which
Speaker 1: obviously lined up very well with Marshall's own political views.
Speaker 1: So I am curious about this, Like, what would you
Speaker 1: say those views were? Broadly speaking? Like, his job was
Speaker 1: obviously to interpret the Constitution, so what was his take
Speaker 1: on it? I mean, it's hard to say definitively, but
Speaker 1: from what I've read, about his rulings and from people
Speaker 1: who worked closely with him, it sounds like Marshall largely
Speaker 1: viewed the Constitution as a means of promoting a kind
Speaker 1: of equality under the law, especially following the Civil War
Speaker 1: and the addition of certain amendments. And I think that
Speaker 1: viewpoint is certainly reflected in the changes to the constitutional
Speaker 1: law that he had advocated for during all his years
Speaker 1: as both an attorney and then later as a judge.
Speaker 1: And he was trying to make the law align more
Speaker 1: closely with the goal of legal equality under the law
Speaker 1: that he saw represented in the Constitution. And actually, I
Speaker 1: have a quote here that's a good example of the
Speaker 1: kind of alignment I'm talking about. This is something Marshall
Speaker 1: said in which is just a few years before his
Speaker 1: retirement in ninety one. He said, quote, a child born
Speaker 1: to a black mother in a state like Mississippi has
Speaker 1: exactly the same rights as a white bay be born
Speaker 1: the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true,
Speaker 1: but I challenge anyone to say it's not a goal
Speaker 1: worth working for, which is obviously like a powerful way
Speaker 1: to think about it. And it's interesting to think about
Speaker 1: how people interpret Marshall's philosophy. It's kind of this, uh,
Speaker 1: do what you think is right and let the law
Speaker 1: catch up idea. And on one hand that puts them
Speaker 1: in the category of activist judges, which some politicians kind
Speaker 1: of rail against today, And on the other hand it
Speaker 1: sort of lets the laws guide the country to a
Speaker 1: more equitable world. But I was thinking a lot about
Speaker 1: this week how Marshall played a pretty unique role in
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement in that regard, like you think
Speaker 1: about Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X, and how
Speaker 1: they sort of shared the spotlight when people think about
Speaker 1: the most influential figures of that era, and they each
Speaker 1: tried their own different courses of action, right Like King
Speaker 1: was more of this I have a dream, big unity,
Speaker 1: big movement, and Malcolm was more by any means necessary.
Speaker 1: But in the background you've got through Marshall plugging away
Speaker 1: with the third Course of Act and not to change
Speaker 1: society directly, but but to actually change the laws that
Speaker 1: dictate the kind of society we live in. He actually
Speaker 1: came across an obituary from Marshall that um that said,
Speaker 1: we make movies about Malcolm X. We get a holiday
Speaker 1: to honor Dr Martin Luther King. But every day we
Speaker 1: live the legacy of justice third good Marshal, Which isn't
Speaker 1: to say that we don't live the legacy of the
Speaker 1: other guys too, But legal precedent can sometimes hold more
Speaker 1: sway in the long term than a speech or a march.
Speaker 1: So I do think we owe a special kind of
Speaker 1: debt to Marshall for you know, sort of covering the
Speaker 1: bases on that end. So why do you think Marshall
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to get as much attention these days as
Speaker 1: other civil rights icons. Is it just that like courtroom
Speaker 1: dramas are seen as kind of stuffy or dance or
Speaker 1: academic compared to like speeches and protests. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I actually think a lot of it comes
Speaker 1: down to how Marshall's career went in the years after
Speaker 1: he joined the Supreme Court. We mentioned there had been
Speaker 1: a liberal majority when Marshall was confirmed in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, but that changed drastically over the course of
Speaker 1: the seventies and then into the eighties. If during Marshall's
Speaker 1: twenty four years on the court, Republican presidents made eight
Speaker 1: consecutive appointments, was transformed the court and filled every spot
Speaker 1: on the bench but his So that means then in
Speaker 1: the second half of his tenure, Marshall was in the
Speaker 1: minority and found you know, his opinions increasingly overruled. As
Speaker 1: you might imagine that, there wasn't an easy transition for
Speaker 1: somebody whose entire career was built on his incredible pensiant
Speaker 1: for winning. Marshall became more and more isolated from the
Speaker 1: rest of the court. You know, his contributions mostly limited
Speaker 1: to these strongly worded descents about his colleagues rulings. But
Speaker 1: he never gave up. Actually, at one point even vowed
Speaker 1: to remain on the court until he was a hundred
Speaker 1: and ten years old. But in the end he became
Speaker 1: too ill to continue serving and had to step down
Speaker 1: in n So two years later, Marshall passed away at
Speaker 1: the age of eighty four. Well, it's fascinating to hear
Speaker 1: how Marshall got styming like that after finally making it
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. But I know, his presence on
Speaker 1: the court alone still had this like profound impact on
Speaker 1: the country and and certainly on the issues he spent
Speaker 1: his whole life fighting for. And I'm sure just having
Speaker 1: a black man seated on the highest court in the
Speaker 1: land had to be life changing for millions of people
Speaker 1: and something that must have influenced so many kids and
Speaker 1: what they dreamed was possible. You know, I think even
Speaker 1: if you don't have that personal connection with his service,
Speaker 1: there's still so much to admire about Marshall's legacy. So
Speaker 1: his commitment to changing the system from within, and you know,
Speaker 1: being a voice for the voiceless is something that should
Speaker 1: still resonate with all of us. In fact, this is
Speaker 1: gonna sound random, but did you happen to come across
Speaker 1: the commencement address that he gave at the University of Virginia. No,
Speaker 1: I haven't read that, all right, Well, he gave it
Speaker 1: to the graduating class of ninety eight, and it is
Speaker 1: worth tracking down. I won't read all of it here,
Speaker 1: but there's this one piece of advice that really stuck
Speaker 1: out to me, and it just says, where you see
Speaker 1: wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out because this is
Speaker 1: your country, this is your democracy, make it, protect it,
Speaker 1: pass it on. I like that. So what do you
Speaker 1: say we leave things there and jump straight into the
Speaker 1: fact off. All right, Well, here's something kind of grando.
Speaker 1: Remember how I mentioned that third good. Marshall graduated college
Speaker 1: with the first president of Ghana earlier. So well, it
Speaker 1: turns out that wasn't the only connection Marshall had with
Speaker 1: the emerging nation. In the nineteen fifties, after Marshall made
Speaker 1: a name for himself with the a c P, the
Speaker 1: United Nations and the United Kingdom asked him to help
Speaker 1: write the constitutions of Ghana and Tanzi, which he of
Speaker 1: course did and in fact, both of those constitutions are
Speaker 1: still in use today. That is wild. But you know
Speaker 1: what made the UN and in the UK think to
Speaker 1: ask Marshal for help. Well, at the time, the regions
Speaker 1: had just won their independence from European rules, so there
Speaker 1: was some international concern about the minority white citizens of
Speaker 1: the new countries and the fact that they might face oppression.
Speaker 1: And so the U N and the UK figured that
Speaker 1: since Marshall had been such an effective champion for minority
Speaker 1: rights in America, he actually might be able to do
Speaker 1: the same for God in Tanzania. That's really interesting. So
Speaker 1: here's what I was pretty shocked to learn. Not only
Speaker 1: was Thurgood Marshall sworn into the Supreme Court by a
Speaker 1: former klansman, it actually happened by Marshall's request. So apparently
Speaker 1: Marshall saw it as a way to kind of extend
Speaker 1: in Olive branch to the South and to the Southern
Speaker 1: senators who had opposed his nomination. And weirdly enough, the
Speaker 1: one time Alabama Clan member was this guy named Hugo. Black.
Speaker 1: He was also a Justice of the Supreme Court when
Speaker 1: Marshall was appointed in nineteen sixty seven. So Black had
Speaker 1: been appointed to the Court back in ninety seven, and
Speaker 1: it was just a few weeks into his term that
Speaker 1: his prior involvement with the clan came to light. So
Speaker 1: dozens of newspapers called for his resignation, but Black stayed
Speaker 1: on on the court anyway, sitting the fact that he
Speaker 1: had already cut ties with the clan I guess more
Speaker 1: than a decade earlier, and that he had no intention
Speaker 1: of ever joining up again. So do you think Black
Speaker 1: ever really turned over a new leaf or was he
Speaker 1: just distancing himself from the clan, you know, for political reasons.
Speaker 1: It is tough to say for certain either way, but
Speaker 1: the truth is probably somewhere in between. If you look
Speaker 1: at Black's track record on the court, it certainly seems
Speaker 1: like he changed his mind. He was part of that
Speaker 1: unanimous ruling that struck down school segregation, and he and
Speaker 1: Marshall actually became pretty chummy while serving together until Black's
Speaker 1: retirement in nineteen seventy one. Of course, anyway you look
Speaker 1: at it, a former klansman swearing in the first black
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice does say a lot about the changing
Speaker 1: shape of race relations in America at the time, and
Speaker 1: it was this really powerful message to send, and Marshall
Speaker 1: didn't let that opportunity go to waste. Or One thing
Speaker 1: I don't think we've mentioned yet is the nickname Marshall
Speaker 1: earned for himself during his time working for the Double
Speaker 1: A c P. He was known colloquially as Mr. Civil Rights.
Speaker 1: Really creative though, and his dedication to the cause certainly
Speaker 1: made him deserving of this title. In fact, Marshall often
Speaker 1: put his own life on the line while fighting for
Speaker 1: these civil rights, and it was in nineteen forty six
Speaker 1: that he went to Tennessee to defend a group of
Speaker 1: black men and a pretty racially charged case. Once the
Speaker 1: trial over, Marshall and his colleagues knew it was in
Speaker 1: their best entriest to get out of town as fast
Speaker 1: as possible. Unfortunately, their concern was quickly validated because, according
Speaker 1: to biographer Will hay Good, Marshall's group was ambushed on
Speaker 1: the road by locals and Marshall himself was arrested on
Speaker 1: these false charges. Separate from this group. Marshall was then
Speaker 1: placed in a black sheriff's car immediately driven off the
Speaker 1: main road, which, given the circumstances, was pretty omous, and
Speaker 1: to make the whole thing even more suspicious, Marshall's colleagues
Speaker 1: were instructed not to follow and instead to continue driving
Speaker 1: on their way to Nashville. Luckily, the group knew better.
Speaker 1: They decided to tail the sheriff anyway, and at that
Speaker 1: point the car quickly returned to the main road and
Speaker 1: Marshall was released not long afterwards. So when recounting the
Speaker 1: event years later, Marshall said he would have been lynched
Speaker 1: then and there if not for his colleagues, So that
Speaker 1: is horrifying. Here's one that's a little later. According to
Speaker 1: Marshall's second wife, he was a super talented home cook,
Speaker 1: and he would often come home in the evenings after
Speaker 1: a long day in the Supreme Court and then just
Speaker 1: whip up these amazing meals for his wife and two sons,
Speaker 1: using every single pot in the kitchen. Apparently his specialty
Speaker 1: dish was chicken and Chitland's. I kind of want this
Speaker 1: a third good Marshall cook book, all right. Speaking of
Speaker 1: Marshall's second wife, I've actually got a sweet one here
Speaker 1: about her. She was a woman of Philippine descent. Her
Speaker 1: name was Cecilia Suyot, and the way she and Marshall
Speaker 1: met was a bit of a happy accident. Cecilia went
Speaker 1: to the unemployment office in ninety eight she was looking
Speaker 1: for work, and because her skin was on the darker side,
Speaker 1: the clerk assumed she was black and set her up
Speaker 1: with a job as a stenographer for then double A
Speaker 1: CPS legal team. Cecilia later said she was forever grateful
Speaker 1: for the clerk's mistaken assumption, because not only did it
Speaker 1: open her eyes to the race problem of America, it
Speaker 1: also introduced her to her future husband. At first, though,
Speaker 1: Cecilia wasn't sure she and Marshall would make a good match,
Speaker 1: or at least not a publicly accepted one. Although she
Speaker 1: had been born in Hawaii, she worried that people would
Speaker 1: think Marshall was marrying a foreigner. And then it would
Speaker 1: have had a negative impact on his budding career. But
Speaker 1: Marshall didn't want any of that. When Cecilia raised this concern,
Speaker 1: Marshall told her plainly, I don't care what people think.
Speaker 1: I'm marrying you. And he did. But Marshall and Cecilia
Speaker 1: tied the knot in nineteen had two sons together, John
Speaker 1: and Third Good Jr. And remained happily married until Marshall's
Speaker 1: passing in nine oh and I'm happy to report Cecilia
Speaker 1: herself is still going strong today at ninety years young.
Speaker 1: I love that, such a great story, and I do
Speaker 1: think you deserved today's trophy for it. That does it
Speaker 1: for today's show. If you want to send us facts
Speaker 1: or just say hello, where a part Time Genius at
Speaker 1: I heart media dot com. So from Gabe, Tristan Will
Speaker 1: and me, thank you so much for listening. Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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