WEBVTT - How did Thurgood Marshall become such an Incredible Lawyer? 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:06.200 Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:13.680 Guess what, Mango? What's that? Well? All right, we know 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:15.960 how people like to keep tabs on their old classmates, 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:18.040 you know, just you can see what everybody's wound up doing. 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:20.720 That is why I joined Facebook. I want to see 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:22.759 what people are doing. I want to see how my 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.759 high school rivals are doing terribly. I hope did you 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:30.960 recently joined Facebook like your grandmother. That's pretty great. Actually, 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.080 I was thinking about that this week while reading up 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.320 on Third Good Marshal, and it actually made me feel 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.320 so bad for the Lincoln College class of nineteen thirty, 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:39.880 which I know you're I think you're an expert on 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.160 the Lincoln College class of nineteen thirty. I am not, 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.920 but I'm guessing it's because they graduated a future Supreme 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.680 Court justice. Well, that's the thing. So Lincoln's class of 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.599 nineteen thirty was actually home to a slew of prominent 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.640 black leaders. So for literature you had Lengths and Hughes. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.800 For music, there was Cab Callaway. Then of course there 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.840 was Marshall himself, who made this colossal name for himself 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.679 in the legal system and on the political side of things. 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.080 The class had Quamae Nachroma of the future president of Ghana. 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.000 Isn't that unbelievable? I mean, no matter which field the 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.760 other students went into, they were all pretty much guaranteed 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.080 to be outshone by the classmates. But the more I 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.720 poked around Marshall's biography, the more I wanted to know. 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:22.880 How did he become such a larger than life figure 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.520 in the courtroom, how did he look at the Constitution? 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.119 And did he really take the oath of office from 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:51.840 an ex clan member? So let's dive in, say their 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.600 podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.640 and as always I'm joined by my good friend man 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.160 Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.320 glass watching old Days of Our Lives reruns. This is 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:03.920 gives him an excuse to do this because I know 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:05.640 he likes to do this on the quiet, but in 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.240 honor of third good Marshall, that's our friend and producer 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.560 Tristan McNeil. I know it's a tribute, but uh I 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.200 I do feel like Tristin just loves his stories. He does, 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.679 he definitely loves his stories. Well that was my first thought, 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.880 but Tristan was so adamant about only watching episodes from 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.520 the nineteen seventies and eighties that it made me wonder 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.239 if there really was a connection. So we did a 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:27.079 little bit of digging, of course, and it turns out 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.880 that during his years on the bench, Justice Third Good 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.600 Marshall was actually a big fan of Days of Our 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:34.960 Lives And I love this, but I mean, like really 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.760 a fan of soap operas in general. And apparently he 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.680 once told Justice Brennan there was quote a lot to 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.120 be learned about life from soap operas, so things like 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.560 how to stop your evil twin from stealing the men 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.960 you love. I imagine at these practical life lessons, and 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.640 Justice Marshall didn't want to miss any of them. In fact, 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.160 Time magazine ran this report this was back in nineteen 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.519 seventies six, claiming that Marshall would often call a recess 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.079 right around one pm so that he could watch the 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.120 latest Days of Our Lives episode in his chambers. You know, 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:05.959 I guess they didn't have a way to uh TiVo 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.519 or record things that I just say TiVo. Sometimes he 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:12.880 would be late to his next meeting because he didn't 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.560 want to miss the end of an episode, I totally said, TiVo. 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.359 So obviously this is a funny thing to point out, because, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.080 you know, aside from his odd TV habit, which actually 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:29.320 makes him feel pretty human, like, his legacy is just stunning. Um. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.120 I mean you think about the pivolal role he had 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.440 in the civil rights movement, his landmark appointment as the 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.760 first black member of the Supreme Court. There's just a 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.480 ton to discuss here. Yeah, there definitely is. All right, Well, 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:40.800 I'll leave it up to you. Where where do you 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.440 want to start? How about with a bombshell? You know 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.320 how I like to start these things. Apparently third Good 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.080 Marshall's name wasn't actually third Good Marshal when he was 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.520 born in Maryland. This was he was actually given the 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.400 name thorough Good Marshal, like the word thorough good put together. 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.280 But it was such a mouth well and so annoying, 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.280 the spell that Marshall told this reporter. By the time 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:06.320 I reached the second grade, I got tired of spelling 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:08.320 all that out and had shortened it to third Good. 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:10.800 I love that he had decided this by second grade, 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.080 and that's pretty amazing. All right. Well, I actually didn't 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.160 know his name was abbreviated. But but what else did 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.520 you dig up on his childhood? So he was born 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:19.640 and raised in Baltimore, this is around the turn of 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.880 the twentieth century. He had one older brother, this guy, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:27.240 William Aubrey Marshall. His mother was a school teacher, and 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.200 his father, William Canfield Marshall, worked as a dining car 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.159 waiter on a railroad and then later as this steward 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.920 at a fancy country club. So the Marshalls weren't exactly wealthy, 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.320 but they felt middle class. And that's kind of amazing 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.640 in itself when you consider that Thurgood's father was actually 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.920 the grandson of a former slave, and this was not 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.880 lost on Thurgood, like the social progress that was made 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.920 in just a generation or two, and of course later 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.720 he'd make it his mission to sort of push progress 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.839 even further. So I'm curious how did Thurgood get interested 0:04:57.880 --> 0:04:59.640 in the law in the first place, because I was 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.720 looking a lot about his early legal career, but there 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.520 really wasn't a lot of insight into what made him 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.560 want to be a lawyer. So from everything I read, 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.160 it was really his father who kind of sparked this passion. 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.680 His dad William was this amateur writer, and he had 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.719 also been interested in legal proceedings and how courts worked. 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.120 And it was such an obsession for him that in 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:20.680 his free time he liked to go down to the 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.479 local courthouse and listen to the civil and criminal trials. 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.640 And sometimes he'd bring his sons along too. But this 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.280 is the amazing part. Right when they got home, the 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.200 three of them would actually lay out all the arguments 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.000 they'd heard that day and then have these big, lively 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.760 debates around the dinner table. And sometimes these discussions would 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.919 happen five times in a week. So in all this excitement, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.039 Thur A Good really started to develop this interest in 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.960 law and how do you use words to confront injustice? 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.320 In fact, we actually have their good words on this 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.440 In he talked about his father's influence, saying, quote, he 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:54.880 did it by teaching me to argue, by challenging my 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.360 logic on every point, by making me prove every statement. 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:00.440 He never told me to be a lawyer, but he 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.560 turned me into one. You know, my son is big 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.960 into this series by John Grisham called Theodore Boone. Have 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.760 your kids discovered this yet? So like, that's all I 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:10.800 think about law now? Is like what kids are in 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.200 the in the courtroom, like listening to these cases. But 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.280 did you get a sense for like what kinds of 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.920 cases the marshals were scrutinizing when they were at home. 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:20.440 So Gaye pulled a ton of this for us, and 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.039 and he couldn't track down specific cases, but it is 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:24.720 easy to imagine that they would have seen a lot 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.159 of cases involving racial discrimination. When third Good was growing 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:30.679 up in Baltimore, the city's death rate for African Americans 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:34.440 was actually double that of white residence, and because of segregation, 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.760 he and his brother were actually forced to attend this 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.719 all black public school. So he felt all of this 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.839 at this really early age, and what he saw in 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.080 both court and the classroom that really shaped the viewpoints 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.080 he'd ultimately spend his life fighting for all right, So 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.440 it was obviously engaged in a lot of self education, 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.640 a really curious kid and observing all these trials, debating 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.040 law with his dad. But I'm curious, how was he 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.080 in school? Like? Was he was? He a pretty good student? 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.440 I'm in grade wise, he was excellent in high school. 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.600 His grades were above average, and he made a name 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.279 for himself on the debate team, you know, thanks to 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.480 all this practice that he and his dad had had 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.160 at home. But when it came to behavior, third Good 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.440 was actually kind of a troublemaker. Yeah, you might even 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.720 say he no, no, no, do not say they're bad. 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:20.800 I could tell I knew that's where you were going 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.560 with that. Yeah, that's probably for the best. But he 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.320 actually misbehaved a lot at school, and whenever you did, 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.400 his teachers would make him read the Constitution as punishment. 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.800 And here's the thing. They're Good gotten so much trouble 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.440 that by the time he graduated, which was a year early, 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.560 he had memorized the entire Constitution. Uh, you know, it's 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.560 it's it's funny. They didn't realize how much they were 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.480 contributing to his, you know, excellence in this in this field. 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:47.120 And listening to you lay all this out, I mean, 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.080 it's pretty amazing how all these different little things in 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.320 his life seemed to be working together to sort of 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.360 nudge him along a certain path. And I mean, I 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.800 know we're looking at all this in hindsight and speaking 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.160 in these broad terms, but his family history, his city, 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.640 his school, his dad's interests of course, and now even 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.480 his punishments contributed to this, but you know, when you 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.400 take it all together, it almost seems inevitable that he 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.920 would become a lawyer and fight for civil rights. Yeah, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.240 and I guess They're Good, agreed with you, Because after 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.760 graduating college in ninety he immediately applied to the University 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.320 of Maryland law school. And this is actually where one 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.960 of those nudges down the path comes in, because despite 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.720 a glowing high school transcript, the college ultimately rejected They're 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.320 Good because of the color of his skin. But even 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.079 though this is jumping a little bit ahead, I want 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.840 to give you some instant satisfaction by telling you that 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.960 about five years after he applied, They're Good actually helped 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.439 launch and win the case that brought an end to 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.679 segregation at the very school that rejected him. It's pretty 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.439 sweet vindication. That's that's pretty great and I can only 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.840 imagine how good it must have felt when that verdict 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.560 came in. And I'm curious that, like, where did Marshall 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.040 wind up studying law? So instead of Maryland, Marshall went 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.880 to law school at Howard University, which is obviously historically black, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.880 so segregation wasn't an issue, and at the time the 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.679 dean of the law school was this super well respected 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.559 civil rights lawyer named Charles Houston, and on campus, Houston 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.800 had this reputation for being super strict and demanding, but 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.800 Marshall actually responded well to the style of teaching, and 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.199 in fact, the two hit it off so well that 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.200 Houston became a mentor to Marshall, and years later they 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.800 worked closely together in legal division of the a CP. Yeah, 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.160 Marshall's work with the a CP became the cornerstone of 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.360 his career, so I definitely say he chose the right 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.240 mentor in Houston. So when did Marshall first get involved 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.559 with the a CP. Was Was that straight out of 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.280 law school? No? So, Marshall actually passed the bar exam 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.200 and graduated from Howard with honors. But he spent his 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.760 first few post grad years trying to get this private 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.800 practice going in Baltimore. He landed a few small cases 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.199 every now and then, but none of them paid very much, 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.200 and things got so bad that Thirdgood was forced to 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.760 take a second job at an STD clinic just to 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.960 make rent. In fact, if you remember breakthrough case I 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.240 mentioned earlier, the one where Third Goood got the University 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.240 of Maryland to desegregate. He was working the late shift 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.959 at that clinic the whole time he prepped for the case. 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:11.120 And even when he moved to New York City in 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.480 nineteen thirty six to work full time for the ub 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.640 A CP, Third Good was so concerned that things wouldn't 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.400 pan out as a lawyer that he didn't actually quit 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:21.360 his job at the clinic. He he just requested a 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.280 six month leave of absence. That's how touch and go 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.400 things were for him as a young lawyer. That is 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.720 pretty wild. You mentioned Marshall's mentor was involved with the 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:31.880 Double A CP. Did did he actually have something to 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.520 do with Marshall getting called up to New York? So, 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.360 Charles Houston had actually resigned as dean in nineteen thirty 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.800 five so that he could become the first legal counsel 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.600 for the Double A CP, and by the time Marshall 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.120 joined on a year later, Houston had already become the 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.920 director of the group's legal division and the two worked 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.120 side by side on civil rights cases for the next 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.079 few years. And then when Houston retired from the role 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.960 in nineteen forty, third Good stepped in and he really 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.280 didn't miss a beat. He stayed on as director all 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.240 throughout the forties and the fifties. Yeah, that's probably the 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.079 portion of his career that I feel most familiar with, 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.760 you know, all the landmark cases he tackled, and you know, 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.000 not just as a justice serving on the Supreme Court, 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.720 but as a lawyer arguing in front of the Supreme Court, 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.000 which is perfect because I'll hand you the baton and 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.360 you can walk us through it. But let's take a 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:33.079 quick break first. You're listening to Part Time Genius and 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.439 we're talking about how third Good Marshall earned his seat 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.160 on the highest court in the country. And I feel 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.120 like you were maybe alluding to this answer just before 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.120 the break. You were saying that it was Marshall's time 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.440 with the double A CP that really won him his acclaim. Yeah, 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.800 it's definitely true. I mean, Marshall served as the group's 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.720 top attorney for a little over two decades, and this 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.080 was when he really made a name for himself because 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.600 during that period he argued a record setting thirty two 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.920 cases before the Supreme Court. And get this, so, out 0:11:59.920 --> 0:12:03.480 of those thirty two civil rights cases, Marshal won twenty 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.600 nine of those, not a bad average at all, even today, 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.280 all these decades later, Marshall is still near the top 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.360 of the list for the number of cases argued and 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.560 one before the Supreme Court. I mean, that's stunning. But 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.360 what were some of his biggest wins. Well, his first 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.840 Supreme Court victory was a pretty big one. So this 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.360 was a ninety case. It's called Chambers versus Florida, and 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.360 it dealt with these four black men who had confessed 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.280 to a murder earlier that year and had been sentenced 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.280 to death for it. However, Marshall was able to show 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.920 that their confessions to the crime had been coerced by 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.720 the police. So the four suspects had been held in 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.280 police custody for a full week, never given access to 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.520 legal counsel, and despite this, the men had been questioned 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.080 individually throughout the week, with as many as ten police 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.720 officers and community members present during these interrogations, but again 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.200 no lawyers were present, and because this was all prior 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.440 to the establishment of Miranda rights, no one told the 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.840 men that they had the right to remain silent during 0:12:59.880 --> 0:13:02.880 these interrogations. So in the end, the court ruled that 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.680 the confessions that had led to a conviction had not 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.920 been given voluntarily, which made them inadmissible, so the death 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:14.280 sentence ruling was actually overturned. I mean, it is wild 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:15.880 to think that there was a time when those kinds 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.480 of tactics were actually the norm, you know, holding people 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.800 without charges, denying them counsel, and of course, you know, 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.560 these civil rights violations still happened, but in the era 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.079 we're talking about, it sounds like it was more or 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.559 less acceptable behavior until cases like this were brought to trial. Yeah, 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.319 it would actually be another twenty six years after the 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.560 Chambers case before those tactics would finally be outlawed by 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:38.800 the court, and that's when police actually had to start 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:40.960 telling suspects that they had the right to an attorney 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.040 and the right to remain silent and all that. Yep, 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.800 that was the ruling in the Miranda versus Arizona case 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.920 of nineteen sixty six, which by the way, was also 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.120 a case that Marshall argued, though he was the Solicitor 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.680 General by that point and no longer working for the 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.600 Double A. CP and Marshall had a slew of other 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.000 landmark victories in the years between Chambers and Miranda, but 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.600 the biggest had to be Brown versus the Board of Education, 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.800 the case that brought down school segregation and the whole 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.040 separate but equal doctrine. So there's no question that was 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.600 one of the most important cases of the twentieth century 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.800 and probably the most defining moment of Marshall's whole career. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.840 And this was in the early fifties, right, Yes, was 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.480 nineteen fifty four, so this was really before the civil 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.280 rights movement had gotten into full swing. It was a 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.440 year before Rosa Parks bus ride, three years before the 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.120 Civil Rights Act of nineteen fifty seven, and so the 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.040 Brown Case was kind of a precursor to all of that, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.240 And it may have taken a while for the positive 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.760 ruling to be fully enforced, but right from the outset, 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:41.880 it definitely helped kick off the movement and kind of 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.320 paved the way for more civil rights victories to come. So, 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.520 I know the main takeaways from the Brown case have 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:49.640 been covered pretty well by now, but could you maybe 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.200 run through the basics just for certainly for me, but 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.400 for anyone else who might have forgotten. Sure. So, basically, 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.480 Marshall was representing a group of black parents whose children 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:00.920 had been forced to attend all black schools, and this 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.080 was in Topeka, Kansas, you might remember. And of course 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.720 this was a case that was near Marshall's heart because 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.240 this was something he had experienced himself, first in high 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.280 school and then of course again in college. So in 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.280 the end, Marshall argued that separate educational facilities are inherently 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:22.080 unequal and therefore unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court agreed with 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.720 him unanimously. Actually, So to be clear that positive ruling 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.000 was never guaranteed given the political climate of the era, 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.880 particularly in the South, you know, where Jim Crow laws 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.880 were still very much in effect, but it helped that 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.920 Marshall was so forceful and so clear when exposing the 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.480 hypocrisies of the current laws in court. So, for example, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:43.720 there was one point during the Brown arguments when the 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.600 Attorney General of Virginia complained that bringing the case before 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:49.760 the Court was an assault by the double A C 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:54.600 P on the quote cherished heritage of segregation. Yeah, and 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:56.520 it gets even worse when you hear how the Attorney 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.000 General phrased all this. He said that the d A 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.000 CP was trying to quote, pressed this crown of thorns 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.120 upon our brow and hold the hemlock to our lips. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.560 It's just so bizarre, which I guess is a dual reference, 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.720 likening the fall of segregation to both the crucifixion of 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.440 Christ and the death of Socrates. I'm not, I'm not, 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:21.040 but just like you said it, it's definitely messy and weird. Yeah, 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.560 and you know you'll actually like Marshall's response to this. 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.200 So he told the court, you have heard references to 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.040 one state's greatest and most cherished heritage, and when you 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:32.600 look for it, you find that greatest and most cherished 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.240 heritage is to segregate colored people. I mean, it's just 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.200 stuinny to me that they voted unanimously right with him. 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.480 It's crazy. But I I do want to go back 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.560 to something you mentioned a little earlier. You said Marshall 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.720 became the Solicitor General in the sixties, Right, So, Marshall 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.200 actually received a couple of presidential appointments before finally being 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.560 called up to the Supreme Court. He left the end 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:54.800 of a CP in the early sixties, and this was 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.240 to serve on the U s Court of Appeals, And 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.640 that was after being nominated by President Kennedy. And then 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.680 four years later Kennedy's successor, Linda Johnson, he appointed Marshall 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.199 the first black solicitor general in US history, which is 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.639 obviously important historically, but I feel like I'd appreciate it 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:13.560 a little bit more if I actually knew what a 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.080 solicitor general did? You know? You don't think about this 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.119 every day. That's fair. Well, so, the solicitor General is, 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.399 as you might expect, a legal post, and it's basically 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.439 the attorney who goes before the Supreme Court to argue 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.960 cases on behalf of the federal government. So a lot 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:30.720 like what he had done for twenty years with the 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.800 double A CP, but now with the federal government as 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.840 his client, so I get what he does now. Was 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.560 he still sticking to arguing civil rights cases once he 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.639 started working for the government or did that all change? No, 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.040 he definitely was. And it was during this time on 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.840 the Court of Appeals that Marshall issued over one hundred 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.080 decisions on civil rights battles as well as other hot 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:55.480 button issues like women's rights, police brutality, and amazingly, none 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.040 of these hundred plus decisions were overturned by the Supreme Court, 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.200 and Marshall had a similarly strong record during his two 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.880 years as Solicitor General too. So he argued nineteen cases 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.160 before the Supreme Court during that stint, and one fourteen 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.199 of those. That is really impressive. Yeah, it's true. And 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.399 with a track record like that, it wasn't long before 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.920 President Johnson decided that Marshall belonged on the Supreme Court. 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.320 So there were a couple of wrenches in his plan, though, 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.440 and the chief among them was that there wasn't actually 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.240 a vacancy to appoint him to. So I'm guessing Johnson 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.360 might have played a little dirty and engineered something for him, right, 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:31.359 Some say that he did, Yeah, I mean, the story 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.440 goes that Johnson decided to engineer a vacancy himself by 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.800 creating a conflict of interest for one of the sitting justices, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.879 and this was a fellow Democrat named Tom Clark. So 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:45.320 apparently President Johnson appointed Clark's son as Attorney General, which 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:47.880 prompted his father to step down, so it wouldn't look 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.919 like nepotism. So it's up for debate whether this was 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.159 done to open the seat to Marshall specifically, but he 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.520 is definitely the one who filled it, and there is 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.160 evidence that Johnson and Marshall liked each other and got 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:03.160 along pretty well. So according biographer Juan Williams the two 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.960 men love to drink bourbon and tell stories full of 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.320 lies and watch soapar Rose. Maybe so, But even with 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.879 Johnson on his side, it's not like Marshall's appointment to 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.840 the Supreme Court was a cake wall. I can't imagine. 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:17.880 There was a backlash to trying to get a black 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.359 person on the Supreme Court. Pretty shocking, I know. But 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:21.960 all right, well, let's take a quick break and then 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:38.240 get back into this. Okay, Well, so third good. Marshall 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.440 was sworn into the Supreme Court in October of nineteen seven, 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.000 but that was only after what it sounds like was 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.879 this pretty grueling confirmation process. It took place over the 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:50.920 course of a week that summer, and from what I read, 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.560 Marshall underwent more hours of questioning than any Supreme Court 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.880 nominee before him. Yeah, this was largely because a handful 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.719 of senators from Southern States really had their best to 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.719 torpedo his nomination. To the history of the region has 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.199 left many of these old guard senators with, you know, 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:08.960 an axe to grind and shutting down. The first potential 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.119 black Scotus member definitely fit the bill. So, for instance, 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.359