THURGOOD (TV)
Summary
This program, recorded live at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., features Laurence Fishburne in George Steven Jr.'s one-man biographical play. The program begins as Marshall discusses about his slave ancestors and his family's long history of unusual names – his own originally being "Thoroughgood" – and personal stubbornness. He explains that his life and career were greatly informed by the 1896 case of Homer Plessy, whose decision to violate Louisiana's segregation rules led to the creation of many "separate but equal" laws throughout the country. Marshall's father William had a keen interest in law and frequently challenged his son to dinner-table debates, and Marshall soon took his father's strong words about fighting back against racism to heart. He studied the Constitution extensively during punitive afternoons at "Colored High," and he soon enrolled in Lincoln College alongside Langston Hughes, who inspired Marshall with his creativity and anti-racism stance. Marshall recalls meeting and marrying Vivien "Buster" Burey before setting his sights on law school, though William roundly scolded him when he tolerated bigoted treatment from a big tipper as he attempted to raise his tuition by waiting tables.
Marshall recalls his anger at being rejected from even applying to the University of Maryland law school because of race, though his mother then pawned her jewelry to help pay his bill at Howard University. Once there, he was inspired by the strict and intelligent dean Charlie Houston, with whom he traveled to the South and learned some sobering lessons about poverty. Marshall and Houston then worked together to sue Maryland U law school for rejecting another black student, Donald Gaines Murray, arguing that the alternate school, Princess Anne, was academically inferior and therefore violated the Fourteenth Amendment's ruling about equal protection. In June 1935, the court ruled in their favor and ordered Maryland to accept Murray, and a satisfied Marshall then took on his first solo case, demanding equal pay for black schoolteachers, including his own mother. Marshall took a job at the NAACP alongside Houston and moved with Buster to New York City, and they scored a significant win for black voters' rights with the 1944 Smith v. Allwright case. He recalls traveling to South Carolina to defend a murder suspect and being falsely accused of drunk driving, only narrowly avoiding a lynching by the local police. He continued to fight against so-called "separate but equal" laws and recruited Dr. Kenneth Clark to help him prove the harmful effects of segregation with his "doll test," in which children were asked their reasons for choosing either a black doll or a white one. Marshall describes his despair at losing the case, but he soon moved on to another group of appeals and new arguments against separate schooling in the case known as Brown v. The Board of Education.
Marshall went up against John W. Davis, "the lawyer's lawyer," and made his argument about the Fourteenth Amendment, recalling that he was interrupted by the Supreme Court justices 43 times during his comments. Buster fell pregnant as they awaited the decision, though Marshall was then sent to Korea to spar with General Douglas MacArthur, who had chosen to ignore President Truman's orders to desegregate the military and court-martialed several black soldiers for "cowardice." Buster soon suffered her third miscarriage, and Marshall admits that he was away from home far too often during their marriage. He and Davis were called to re-argue the Brown case, and Buster ended up selling her jewelry, as Marshall's mother had done, to fund the effort. He notes his displeasure at the appointment of Justice Earl Warren, noted for his work in creating the Japanese-American internment camps, but Marshall's passionate argument about all citizens' right to equal education and treatment was finally a success and the landmark ruling came on May 17, 1954. Several states declared their intentions to fight the integration rules and President Eisenhower seemed unprepared to aggressively enforce it, and Marshall recalls debating with his friend Martin Luther King Jr. about the merits of using the law versus defying it. Marshall was crushed when Buster passed away from cancer at only forty-four years old, but he continued fighting against segregation in other public areas and went on to marry Cecilia Suyat, with whom he had two sons. President Kennedy appointed him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where he wrote 98 unopposed opinions, and President Johnson then firmly "persuaded" him to accept the job of Solicitor General. When Justice Tom C. Clark retired, Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court over the objections of many Southern constituents, and Marshall notes the irony of his being sworn in by a former Klansman.
Marshall describes his various political views, noting that he wrote many dissents about the death penalty and in favor of gun control over his long career on the Court, though the four Nixon-appointed Justices frequently disagreed with him. After briefly taking ill, he pointedly informed Nixon that he was "not yet" leaving the Court and did not retire until 1991, at which point he stated that he had "given fifty years to the law" and was proudest of the Smith v. Allwright and Brown v. Board of Education wins, though the Murray case, through which he had avenged himself against the school that rejected him, was "the sweetest." He observes that the country has made great strides towards equality but still has far to go, and closes with some quotes from his friend Hughes about the need to "let America be America again."
Details
- NETWORK: HBO
- DATE: February 24, 2011 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:45:25
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 110197
- GENRE: Biography
- SUBJECT HEADING: African-American Collection - Drama; Biography; Supreme Court Justices
- SERIES RUN: HBO - TV, 2011
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Bill Haber … Executive Producer
- George Stevens Jr. … Executive Producer, Writer
- Laurence Fishburne … Co-Executive Producer
- Bill Urban … Supervising Producer
- Michael Stevens … Producer, Director
- Aaron B. Cooke … Associate Producer
- Dottie McCarthy … Associate Producer
- Rob Mathes … Music by
- Laurence Fishburne … Cast, Thurgood Marshall