We can have only one Black hero now? Did we meet some kind of quota?
One of the reasons that Thurgood Marshall is a hero of mine is his retirement plans as given to reporters. When asked what his plans were now upon announcing his retirement, he said to the best of my recollection, that he would “sit on my fat black ass.”
Dr. King was a leader. He inspired people to do something, and he inspired them to do something other than violence. His persistance untainted by a call to arms, shed light on the justness of his cause. I am certainly grateful that he did what he did. He deserves a holiday, holidays seem to be for leaders of men anyway.
But, the service of Thurgood Marshall as Justice of the Supreme Court United States touches me far more deeply. It is never easy to be first in anything, first black Justice of SCOTUS is no exception. It must gall the pride to know that some will say that color over merit mattered. His contribution affects our lives extensively, and I am glad of his influence. He deserved his rest, and our respect.
Most posters have mentioned the work that Thurgood Marshall did while on the Supreme Court, but in my opinion, his best (and most courageous) work was while he was a lawyer for the NAACP. Of course, everyone knows about his work on Brown vs. Board of Education, but Marshall also travelled into the Deep South in the early 1950s to interview people and gather evidence for NAACP lawsuits. Being an African-American NAACP lawyer in the Deep South in the early 1950s was not the easiest thing to be. (Sort of like a Rabbi showing up at a Nuremberg rally in the 1930s.)
It’s an interesting debate if you ask me. I’ll agree that both men did a lot of good in their lifetimes and that they worked in different ways. Marshall worked against specific targets like racist laws while King took on the broader role of raising public awareness.
I guess is I had to pick one of the two as being “bigger” I’d choose King. In the long run the change in attitudes he sought would have resulted in the legal changes Marshall sought, but the reverse isn’t necessarily true. I’d also credit King with greater courage for waging his struggle in the “street” rather than the courts (which while often racially hostile maintained at least a veneer of courtesy).