"EQUALITY"

"EQUALITY"

            We have been visiting our daughter Susan in Baltimore to see her Submersive Production’s immersive play “See Also,” staged in the library of the Peabody School of Music.  It was a fine production, provocative for its reminder of the freeing nature of libraries as well as the repressive nature of libraries, especially when they seek to limit access to those seeking information.  The title for the play comes from the old card catalogs in libraries, when the reference cards would say at the bottom (or top) “see also” for more information.

            Whenever I am in Baltimore, I think of its power in the human rights movement.  Frederick Douglass was leased out to work here when he was held as a slave, and when he escaped slavery, Baltimore was his point of departure.  Harriet Tubman passed through here, and Nancy Pelosi grew up here.  But, the giant of civil rights from Baltimore is Thurgood Marshall.  He was born here in 1908, born into a long line of activist parents and heritage.  His father was the first black person to serve on a grand jury in Baltimore. 

            Marshall grew up in segregated and regressive Maryland, which had remained in the Union but also had the oppressive approach of the racist South, when it came to people with brown skin.  Baltimore was one of the first cities in the US to adopt a law that prohibited black people from renting or owning property on blocks where white people lived.  Marshall was a rough and ready kid – he was tall and big, but his mother reminded him that if he got out of line: “Boy, you may be tall, but if you get mean, I can always reach you with a chair.”  Despite his wildness, his grades in school were excellent, and he went to Lincoln University for college. Some of his classmates were Langston Hughes, Cab Calloway, and Kwame Nkrumah.

            When he graduated from college, he applied to his state law school, the University of Maryland.  Even though his grades and recommendations were excellent, he was not accepted because the U of M did not accept black applicants.  He decided to enroll at Howard Law School, and if U of M hoped to destroy his spirit by rejecting him, they instead helped to create a powerful force for civil rights.  Marshall’s mother pawned her wedding ring to pay his tuition, and there at Howard, he came under the leadership of Charles Hamilton Houston, who had been empowered by Howard President Mordecai Johnson to build a cadre of lawyers to tear down neo-slavery in the US.  He and Hamilton became lifelong friends and partners in tearing down legal segregation.

            Hamilton hired Marshall tin 1935 o join him on the NAACP’s national team to fight legal segregation.  They took a tour of the South together to see first-hand what they would be going up against – it was Marshall’s first time in the South.  It was appalling, and it was dangerous.  They were chased out of several towns under the threat of lynching and death. It fired them up, especially Marshall.  Health problems forced Hamilton to resign as director of the NAACP program, and Marshall was asked to replace him.  Marshall agreed and created the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, whose purpose it was to abolish legal segregation.  They won many legal victories and then decided to go all out to attack legal segregation in public education.  Five cases were gathered to make the case before the Supreme Court, one being the famous lead case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.  (For the powerful story and history of this case, see the fine book by Richard Kluger “Simple Justice.”)

            On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren announced the decision, which was a unanimous verdict: “We conclude – unanimously – that on the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place.  Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”  That decision joined with the lynching of Emmett Till and the Montgomery bus boycott to launch the modern civil rights movement, which indeed led to the abolition of neo-slavery with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Marshall would later become the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court, and he would help fulfill the mandate of equality, for which he fought so hard.

            As we have seen over these 50+ years, white supremacy still seeks to be supreme.  We are still not sure if we want to follow Plessy v. Ferguson of 1896 or Brown v. Board of 1954.  The Trump presidency rests squarely on this white supremacy, and it will be up to us to guide us in the next steps.  No matter whom the Democrats nominate, turn-out is the key.  So register yourself and get 10 others to get registered for this year’s elections.