From The Law and Politics Book Review

Vol. 9 No. 4 (April 1999) pp. 183-185.

 

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams. Times Books, 1998. 459 pp. Cloth $27.50. ISBN 0-8129-2028-7.

 

Reviewed by Barbara L. Graham, Department of Political Science, University of Missouri-St. Louis. Email: barbara.graham@umsl.edu.

 

 Juan Williams, Washington Post national correspondent and author of the prominent work on the civil rights movement, EYES ON THE PRIZE, has written a readable and engaging biographical account of the great civil rights lawyer and first African American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993). His objective was to write an authoritative, thorough account of Marshall’s life and impact of his work and to inform audiences about the critical role Marshall played in history. Williams’ impressive journalistic skills are evident throughout the biography. Over an eight year period, he conducted interviews with Marshall, Marshall’s friends, schoolmates, LDF lawyers and colleagues. He also examined Marshall’s papers, FBI files, archival materials and newspapers. Interestingly, Williams notes in the Introduction that the Legal Defense Fund refused to open its files to him because of his defense of the Clarence Thomas nomination to the Supreme Court. It should be stated at the outset that Williams does not present a scholarly examination of Marshall’s contributions to civil rights law. In this sense, the book may be of limited use for those readers interested in doctrinal analysis or explanations of litigation strategy. My general impression of Williams’ work is positive in the sense that it provides some semblance of balance that is missing in prior biographical works on Marshall.

Williams devotes thirty-three chapters to Marshall’s life and career. Although the book is written in a narrative style without unifying themes, the chapters can be roughly broken down into four parts. Chapters 1-6 cover Marshall’s childhood years in Baltimore, his struggle to attend college and law school and his brief legal practice as a solo practitioner. Chapters 7-21 chronicle Marshall’s years with the Legal Defense Fund and a description of its litigation strategy to eradicate de jure segregation. Chapters 22-29 deal with the aftermath of BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION, Marshall’s role in the civil rights movement, his relationship and reactions to militants and Communists in the movement, his secret ties to the FBI, his appointment to the appeals court and his Supreme Court confirmation battle. The final four chapters are devoted to Marshall’s tenure on the Court.

The thesis of Williams’ book is that Thurgood Marshall was an American revolutionary and that his life’s work made him one of America’s leading radicals. Williams argues that Marshall was one of three leading black liberators of the twentieth-century, along with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Although Marshall was the least known, he had the biggest impact in American race relations according to Williams. Marshall was the leading actor in ending legal segregation in the United States and fighting for equality. His victory in BROWN was the pinnacle of his success and as a Supreme Court Justice, Marshall was a strong advocate for racial equality. I would not quarrel with Williams about Marshall’s impact on legal change in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s. It is indeed truly remarkable. However, Marshall was neither a radical nor a revolutionary. Williams contradicts his own characterization of Marshall by portraying him as a highly skilled attorney who strongly believed in the rule of law and worked tirelessly within the legal system to bring about social change.

I found that the chapters on Marshall’s years with the Legal Defense Fund and its campaign to dismantle de jure segregation were the most fascinating and revealing parts of Marshall’s early career as an advocate for civil rights. Here, Williams focuses on Marshall’s strategy in first-generation lawsuits involving segregated education, transportation, voting and housing. He also describes Marshall’s adroit political maneuvering surrounding his ascendancy at the Legal Defense Fund and his subsequent strained relationship with the NAACP.

The book succeeds in illuminating Marshall’s secret relationship with J. Edgar Hoover. Marshall openly criticized civil rights protests and the nonviolence strategy of Martin Luther King, Jr. He cared little for King and even less for Malcolm X. Marshall was sensitive to criticism of his reliance on the more deliberative approach of litigation in achieving social justice. Marshall was an integrationist who repudiated black radicalism, boycotts and "street theater."

The final four chapters of the book are devoted to Marshall’s tenure on the Court. Williams exposes Marshall’s increasing frustration and isolation on the Court as it became more conservative on equality issues. It was the BAKKE case, according to Williams, that signaled Marshall’s waning influence on the nation’s legal approach to race relations. His health problems plagued him constantly which contributed to the rumors that he would retire. Often unyielding in his decisionmaking propensities, Marshall was resigned to writing dissents. Williams makes a weak attempt to address the portrait of Marshall as lazy, inattentive and an intellectual lightweight as found in Woodward and Armstrong’s THE BRETHREN. Marshall was deeply hurt and offended by this characterization and felt betrayed by those Justices who cooperated with Woodward and Armstrong. To the contrary, Williams’ earlier accounts of Marshall’s long hours and tireless efforts provided strong evidence to repudiate the negative characterization. In addition, Marshall considered the Court his "family" and would not betray its confidences. During the latter part of his tenure on the Supreme Court, Marshall had harsh words for the Court’s shift to the right and at times aired his views in public.

Williams does not hesitate to reveal Marshall’s personal shortcomings--his heavy drinking, womanizing and raconteurship; but he is overly cautious about the probable impact his reckless behavior had on his personal life and career. And as one would expect, there is plenty of drama in the book in instances where Marshall was confronted with the indignities of Jim Crow segregation, when he tried cases before hostile courtrooms, and narrowly escaped lynch mobs in the South.

One of the major shortcomings of the book is that Williams devotes only four chapters to Marshall’s tenure on the Supreme Court. There is very little legal analysis of his major doctrinal contributions to various areas of the law. Also lacking is a good sense of his relationship with the other Justices on the Court with the exception of Justice Brennan. Noticeably absent is the lack of attention paid to Marshall’s personal life during his Court years in sharp contrast to his earlier life. In a sense, Williams’ book supports the assertion that Marshall’s contributions as a civil rights advocate far outweighed his record as an appellate judge and Supreme Court justice.

Despite numerous works that already exist on Marshall’s life and legal contributions, I would recommend this book as an informative and insightful account of Marshall’s life prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court. I think it would be a valuable book for courses on the civil rights movement that highlighted the role of Marshall and the Legal Defense Fund in breaking down legal segregation or courses on law and social change.

 

References

 

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

 

REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA V. BAKKE, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)

 

Williams, Juan. 1987. EYES ON THE PRIZE. New York: Penguin Books.

 

Woodward, Bob and Scott Armstrong. l979. THE BRETHREN. New York: Simon and Schuster.


Copyright 1995