politicians, the businessmen, and even the civil rights leaders like Walter White could talk and raise money and put stories in the newspapers. But it was up to lawyers, like Houston, to stand up and help a black man with his life on the line. “The lawyer was there to bear the brunt of getting rid of segregation,” Marshall said. “And Houston made public statements that black lawyers he trained at Howard would become social engineers rather than lawyers. That was our purpose in life.”
The
Crawford
case was the highlight of a senior year that was the best of Marshall’s time at Howard. He loved the work, he had a mentor in Houston, and he felt he finally was on the path to achieve his mother’s dream that he would be a lawyer. In June of 1933 Marshall graduated from law school first in his class. There were only six people left in what had started out as a class of thirty-six. The men who remained did not bother to take a class photo: “We decided that we’d been rebellious for three years, so why stop now,” Marshall explained.
Hill, a classmate known for his humor and love of cigars, fondly remembered that after their last examinations, “Thurgood and I decided that we would have a pregraduation celebration, and in the lingo of that day, we went to a ‘nip joint’ and ‘booted up a few.’ ”
After law school Marshall went back to Gibson Island for another summer of work, hoping to save money and consider his plans for the future. There were no law firm internships available for Howard’s graduates. None of the white Baltimore firms hired black lawyers, and the few black lawyers in town ran one-man shops. With time on his hands, Marshall traveled with Houston to look at black elementary schools in the South. The NAACP had done a study—the Margold report—in 1931 proposing a legal challenge to segregation in the public schools. But the association had not settled on a legal strategy. Houston was asked to take a firsthand look at the quality of schools available to black children in the South.
Marshall and Houston traveled in Houston’s car and found abysmal facilities. “Conditions were much worse than we heard they were,” Marshall said. They drove all the way to New Orleans, staying in private homes and eating whatever greasy food they could get since they could not go into Jim Crow restaurants. “That’s why we carried bags of fruit in the car, most of the time we’d just eat the fruit,” said Marshall.
Somewhere in Mississippi Houston stopped one day to look at a dilapidated school building. All around were broken-down wooden shacks that housed black sharecroppers. There was little plumbing, and open drainage ditches, filled with human waste, ran along the roads. The faces of the people showed nothing but defeat. While Houston walked around the drafty old schoolhouse, Marshall began to eat his lunch. A black child saw the young lawyer eating an orange. Marshall thought the child was staring at him or the car; then he realized the boy was fascinated with the fruit. He handed the boy a fresh orange. “The kid did not even take the peeling off. He had never seen an orange before. He just bit right through it and enjoyed it.”
Marshall was shocked. Gone was the contented view of a middle-class kid with white neighbors and mentors who easily accepted Jim Crow. Now his eyes were open to racial injustice. And his mind was open to the thought that a lawyer could reshape society. Marshall did not know exactly what a lawyer could do about racists and poor black kids living in such deprived conditions that an orange was an exotic fruit. But for the first time he wanted to do something, and do it soon.
CHAPTER 6
His Own Man
T HURGOOD M ARSHALL, FRESH OUT OF LAW SCHOOL in 1933, had a choice to make. He could go to Harvard Law School, on a scholarship offered by Dean Roscoe Pound, for an advanced law degree. Or he could open his own law office in Baltimore. Having lived on the thin edge of every
The
Crawford
case was the highlight of a senior year that was the best of Marshall’s time at Howard. He loved the work, he had a mentor in Houston, and he felt he finally was on the path to achieve his mother’s dream that he would be a lawyer. In June of 1933 Marshall graduated from law school first in his class. There were only six people left in what had started out as a class of thirty-six. The men who remained did not bother to take a class photo: “We decided that we’d been rebellious for three years, so why stop now,” Marshall explained.
Hill, a classmate known for his humor and love of cigars, fondly remembered that after their last examinations, “Thurgood and I decided that we would have a pregraduation celebration, and in the lingo of that day, we went to a ‘nip joint’ and ‘booted up a few.’ ”
After law school Marshall went back to Gibson Island for another summer of work, hoping to save money and consider his plans for the future. There were no law firm internships available for Howard’s graduates. None of the white Baltimore firms hired black lawyers, and the few black lawyers in town ran one-man shops. With time on his hands, Marshall traveled with Houston to look at black elementary schools in the South. The NAACP had done a study—the Margold report—in 1931 proposing a legal challenge to segregation in the public schools. But the association had not settled on a legal strategy. Houston was asked to take a firsthand look at the quality of schools available to black children in the South.
Marshall and Houston traveled in Houston’s car and found abysmal facilities. “Conditions were much worse than we heard they were,” Marshall said. They drove all the way to New Orleans, staying in private homes and eating whatever greasy food they could get since they could not go into Jim Crow restaurants. “That’s why we carried bags of fruit in the car, most of the time we’d just eat the fruit,” said Marshall.
Somewhere in Mississippi Houston stopped one day to look at a dilapidated school building. All around were broken-down wooden shacks that housed black sharecroppers. There was little plumbing, and open drainage ditches, filled with human waste, ran along the roads. The faces of the people showed nothing but defeat. While Houston walked around the drafty old schoolhouse, Marshall began to eat his lunch. A black child saw the young lawyer eating an orange. Marshall thought the child was staring at him or the car; then he realized the boy was fascinated with the fruit. He handed the boy a fresh orange. “The kid did not even take the peeling off. He had never seen an orange before. He just bit right through it and enjoyed it.”
Marshall was shocked. Gone was the contented view of a middle-class kid with white neighbors and mentors who easily accepted Jim Crow. Now his eyes were open to racial injustice. And his mind was open to the thought that a lawyer could reshape society. Marshall did not know exactly what a lawyer could do about racists and poor black kids living in such deprived conditions that an orange was an exotic fruit. But for the first time he wanted to do something, and do it soon.
CHAPTER 6
His Own Man
T HURGOOD M ARSHALL, FRESH OUT OF LAW SCHOOL in 1933, had a choice to make. He could go to Harvard Law School, on a scholarship offered by Dean Roscoe Pound, for an advanced law degree. Or he could open his own law office in Baltimore. Having lived on the thin edge of every
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