Evening Exchange; Thurgood Marshall

A look into the life and times of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall as seen through the eyes of Carl Roland. Up next an even exchange a. Little. Good evening. I'm cold. Welcome to evening exchange dream makers dream breakers the world of Justice Thurgood Marshall. It's a riveting and authorized biography that chronicles the life and times of the first black justice of the United States Supreme Court. Our guest for this hour and the book's author Carl Rowan sure a special friendship with the latest Sosia justice that spend some 40 years. Mr. Rowan is himself a legend in his own time. He is a former ambassador with some five Emmys under his belt a newspaper man of course 44 honorary degrees and a host of other accolades called One welcome once again to evening exchange.

Always great to come talk with you. First and foremost why is this an authorized biography given the nature of your relationship with Justice Marshall. There were those who might have expected that he would have wanted to put his blessing on this biography and there are those who say this is the closest we've ever come to an autobiography. Well you know when you are doing an authorized book there's some implication that you let the man read what you've written about his life and let him tell you what he wants you to take out and that sort of stuff. Well there was none of this. The marshals got a chance to read the book the same time the public did. And I think it's better when you're a journalist doing a biography to have it arise because it says something to the public about what's in the book. Well it's clear that you are an admirer of Justice Thurgood Marshall and his brilliant career. What did he think about it and his wife. Did he have a chance to read it before he put it

measures Marshall read it. I doubt very much that he did but I'm sure she read him passages. And I know he saw some of the early reviews and she called me to say that she was very pleased with the book. Well we will discuss that later because it deals with some of the escapades shall we say of Thurgood Marshall's all of West not the most exemplary of behavior that you'd expect from a young person. But why did you select this name dream makers dream breakers. Because you can't take the measure of a man by looking at him in a vacuum. Nobody lives in a vacuum. You've got to see what the issues were. Who was helping him and who was trying to hinder him. So we had some dream makers. Earl Warren Harry Truman Eleanor Roosevelt. There were a lot of dream breakers some still around like Strom Thurmond. George Wallace Ronald Reagan

and Justice Marshall rated at the bottom of all the American presidents. Let's talk about that because while he rated Eleanor Roosevelt a dream maker it is arguable that he rated her husband President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a dream breaker he did not have a great deal of affection for president. No he did not. He thought Roosevelt was totally beholden to the southerners who control most of the key committees in the Congress. He believed that war was coming and he had to have their support for the mobilization. So he would not get out on any limb in terms of supporting. Fair Employment Practices are anti-lynching legislation and so forth. But I think the thing that really got to Justice Marshall was that one day he was sitting in the office of attorney general Biddle talking about a murder

case in which a black man was involved. And Biddle wanted to call President Roe have it with a back saluting of a sheriff in VN in Virginia. That is correct. And when he called President Roosevelt up it had Park and mention this case. Well first he said to marshall get on the extension. I want you to hear what the president says we can do. Well the first thing Marshall hears is Roosevelt saying this is the last time I'm going to tell you not to call me about any of Eleanor's niggers and Thurgood Marshall never forgot his mind was made up. You reach for an exclamation marks in the next sentence you say. Eleanor is niggas and then you go on to explain how it is that a first lady while supporting her husband can differ fairly sharply with him on some very important issues and what that meant how was Eleanor Roosevelt different in that regard than her husband.

Well first of all she was a very independent woman and when she believed in something she'd stick her neck out. I mean when they had in Detroit the worst riots this country had have ahead just after World War 2 she went to Detroit to give the speech at the end double ACP Freedom Fund Dinner because she thought that was important for a first lady to do in cooling the racial passions. And when the ladies of The DA R. did not let Marian Anderson sing at Constitution Hall she said she wanted to be the one to go to Richmond to the NWC P. convention and give the spin Garn medal to Marian Anderson. So. She knew that she was doing things that he wouldn't do Ari couldn't do and didn't necessarily approve of. No but he would tell people I can't do anything with her anyhow. And so here was a man he admitting

how little power he had over his wife. Justice Marshall felt that any benefit that black people had as a result of the Roosevelt administration policies were not necessarily intended for us but were incidental. However we now have an administration in which once again we have a Democratic president who is being accused of tending too much towards moderation while his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton is generally perceived as more liberal to the left of her husband more sensitive on issues and social issues. And she has said one of her proudest moment is being compared to Mrs. Roosevelt. Do you see a comparison here. Yes I see a comparison I mean they've already begun to call Mrs. Clinton nasty names just as they called Mrs. Roosevelt Madame gad about the first nuisance of the land. They called her a communist called her a nigger lover everything you could be

called. And I think Mrs. Clinton had better be prepared to hear some bad names for him. Is Mrs. Clinton more openly politically active than Mrs. Roosevelt. In a way. Mrs. Roosevelt for example never was given any monumental task compared with what measures Clinton is trying to do in terms of health care reform in this country. And most of her activities with regard to the government were done behind the scenes I mean she you know when people in the end WCP Thurgood Marshall for example wanted to see that a new housing project in West Virginia was not Jim Crow. He called Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt Saul that some of the first residents in that housing project were black. So she may not have had the kind of official designation that Hillary Rodham Clinton has but she was

able to perform in many respects a similar role. Yes so much for the dream makers and dream breakers for the time being but now back to Justice Marshall's upbringing. You make the point in the book that. If anybody could figure out why a young man who came from a toupee went. Really in terms of the black community upper middle class family should have been as badly behaved and as rambunctious as he would as a young man if anybody could figure that out. Then they'd be able to figure out all of the problems we have with some of the youth in the cities that they were that's right we wouldn't have any juvenile delinquency are really any bad. Well he he admitted that he was kind of a scoundrel. He took advantage of the fact that his mother was a teacher. So he cut up in SKU knowing that they weren't going to throw him out because that would offend his mother too much so. They had to resort to things like sending him down to the basement of the school with a copy of the

constitution and an assignment to memorize it to try to get to him. But he was still at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania the night before exams. Everybody was trying to cram and Thurgood Marshall was going around trying to see who would join him in a game of poker are the knuckle and. One of the stories I like the best that he told me was after he met this young lady Vivian Berry and decided he wanted to marry her. He invited her and her parents to come to Baltimore to meet his relatives. His uncle and their uncle in Maine. Fearless took this young lady Vivian Berry aside and said you seem like a very nice young woman and I've got to tell you something. Thurgood always was a he is a and he always will be a boom.

And Carl Roland asked Justice Marshall he said was your uncle fearless serious what did he respond. He says Hell no. When he died he didn't leave me a penny. He gave thirty six thousand dollars to Catholic Charities and nothing to me. So he was clearly serious about him. Yes but I think Justice Marshall could tell that story with some that he eventually proved uncle fear was wrong. There's another story that you cleared up in this book and there are those biographers who say that there is no hard evidence that Justice Thurgood Marshall ever applied to the University of Maryland Law School. You say yes he did apply and he did receive a response from the president of that school. And he most certainly did and. Then as soon as he got out of Howard Law School he found a young man Donal Murray. And said I applied to that law school. The regents held an emergency meeting and decided not to admit him.

While Marshall was very clever even at that young age he didn't want them to fall back on some excuse that Murray had a lousy grades or he had hallowed ptosis or something. He walked into the Presidents office and demanded to read the minutes of that emergency meeting of the board. They said he couldn't he wouldn't really till they let him read those minutes. He was so in there with a very clear statement that he was of African descent and therefore Murray couldn't be admitted. Marshall and Charlie Houston took those minutes and to court in Baltimore and one day got a writ saying that they had to admit a murder. One of his great oh revenge victories but you mentioned Charlie Houston and that gave me the opportunity to bring up another issue of documents which we are normally not allowed access to which is you with the permission of the Legal Defense Fund where admitted access to which indicates the kind of thing that was going on into the in the end.

When Thurgood Marshall forced thought of joining the CPA we had at that point the secretary of the end he was Walter White and its founder and the editor of a Crisis magazine W E B Dubois Could you tell our viewers the nature of the dispute that was taking place between those two men. Please believe me this is as important today as it was back in 1934. Yes well you know I'd been brought up as most of us have believing that Dubois was a great radical never compromise with evil in any form. And that Booker T Washington was the young etc.. Well I get in these files at the Library of Congress and find out. That Dubois is arguing for a compromise with segregation and Walter White is absolutely against any compromise. Walter White wrote an article for the Crisis magazine. Do you want to send him a letter saying I won't print your

article now nominally. Walter White was do you pause boss except do you what was the kind of guy who never thought anybody could be his boss. But Thurgood Marshall watched this with interest and passion this battle between the two because he'd already made up his mind that the only justice is when everybody gets the same thing in the slain place at the sling. And up until that point I say Dubois the wise of course we've Anglicized his name here time to Dubois But up until that time he like you tended to think of W.B. Dubois as the radical. Yeah but was shocked when he read what he had to say and didn't want to go into the pea under it. Dubois would hold sway in that discussion. His mentor Mr. Houston helped. Oh yes. And Houston and. Don't judge hasty also. In fact hasty wrote about

war one of the most courteous. I'd say nasty articles that I've ever seen. He cold do you boy. Esau Oh the guy who was selling black people I thought for a mess of out of state are a discussion for a second because you say that in what I was writing he represented the intellectual schizophrenia that was current at that time because he was making the argument. And a few people who supported it at the time that if there were not that if they were fully committed to all desegregation then it might result in a losing black colleges and losing black churches and Walter White made the argument that we cannot compromise on these issues. Others were saying that well you know the black intellectual elite of this time is tending towards cultural nationalism wanting to see its own institutions and we have to accommodate that lot of the same discussion that's taking place today.

Well it goes on in every generation. And people need to know that for example the most prominent black in Texas probably was Carter Wesley the publisher of the newspaper in Houston the black newspaper. When Marshall made a move to desegregate the University of Texas. Carter wrote a big editorial suggesting that a bunch of nuts were running the end WCP that they were that they ought to concentrate on trying to get the state to put some money into a college for blacks rather than try to get blacks in the University of Texas. Marshall flew to Texas in a hurry and went to the state convention and took own car to Wesley and won the convention over to an all out frontal assault on segregation. You come up to I was just reading yesterday a 1960 debate between by interest and Malcolm X Malcolm X wanted to say OK white people we've been good slave you owe us something.

Give us two states and we blacks will move into those two states and you can have the rest of the United States. And of course by addressed and was already by then planning the great march on Washington and an assault on segregation through a Public Accommodations Act and so forth. And of course throughout his career Justice Marshall never equivocated on his position in opposition to segregation and for desegregation. But it becomes a little bit complicated nowadays when we see I think it's the maybe US versus Mississippi case. In which now with these southern states are claiming well we have opened admissions to our schools and therefore these black schools no longer necessarily need to exist. They can get in to the major white schools. Well you know it may be complicated but I have always taken the position. That integration must not mean the destruction of everything black. And mailed it into whatever is white.

And they came after a lot of bollocks suits in Tennessee. They finally came to the conclusion that they could close down the white branch of the University of Tennessee and Nashville and put the great computer center at Tennessee State put the School of Nursing at Tennessee State. What the result that all of a sudden a third of the enrollment at Tennessee State is white and that the problem with Mississippi is they got a nut for governor Fordyce who doesn't want a resolution of the problem in that state. In our next segment we will discuss the use of the term nut but before we move on another issue which people today might be a little surprised at is what happened with Walter White who everybody agrees looked more like a white man than he did a black man would have been married to a black woman for 27 years. Tell our viewers about the uproar it caused in the end when Walter White decided to make a difference.

Well one of the interesting things I found in those files in the Library of Congress is that a lot of people wrote letters attacking Walter white people who I'm sure would never want the public to know that they had written some of the things they wrote. The president began surance company writes The white man has been saying all along that all of our efforts are to get black man in in the bed with white women. And Walter White has taken steps to prove they're right. And this was by marrying a white woman. That's correct. And they wanted to throw him out the Norfolk journalling guide ran editorial saying that by marrying a white woman Walter White had lost his usefulness to the NWC. I say that because today so many people think of the end of a city as a moderate organization.

They did their will might not be aware of the level of racist sentiment that existed in the organization that caused then Justice Marshall to have to circulate a memo among the internal staff of the MWC. Tell us about. Yes he he sent a memo. In effect telling the staff keep your mouth closed if anybody calls and asks you anything about Walter White marrying a white woman you don't know anything so shut up and we'll get on with acting staff morale in any way we're people saying that the organization won't be able to be as effective as it used to be and therefore I want to leave. There were a lot of people saying that and there was a lot of bitterness. But again people like Bill Hastie stood up for the principles that the NWC P. had been standing for and some people said you don't marry a race you marry an individual. Big big issue and I say that an evening exchange I don't want to bring up with people issues this personal of the ethnicity is the race of whom the America to not knowing that this was

an explosion within the city so many years ago. More with syndicated columnist and author Carl Roland about his new book dream makers dream breakers. And we return. Welcome back we're talking with a stained columnist and author Carl Roland about his

latest book dream makers dream breakers about the life and times of Justice Thurgood Marshall Mr. Rowan has had a special friendship with Justice Marshall for more than 40 years. Nevertheless he wanted some distance in this biography and so it is not an authorized biography. You mentioned the word not in our previous segment. And I remember that term being used to describe an esteemed psychologist. Who was in the entourage of Justice Thurgood Marshall when he was traveling down south to fight a case. Could you tell our viewers. Oh yes that was a classic moment. The case was Briggs versus Elliott which became Central a central part of what we now know as Brown versus Board of Education. It was a case in which a black family in a rural area Clarendon County was trying to break up the Jim Crow school system. Marshall and a large entourage went to Charleston to argue before a three

judge. Federal panel. As the train arrived in Charleston Marshall was standing there with his friend and fellow your Spottswood Robinson and suddenly they heard this cried Don't let the train leave my dolls are still on. And spots turned around and see this guy this slender black man walk off with a white doll under one arm and a black under the other. And he said a third good Who's that nut with a tooth got under his arm. Marshall said that's Mr. stigmatic injury. That's the guy who's going to prove stigmatic injury he's going to help us prove that when the state says to a black child you may not go to school with white children that that stigmatizes the black child one's that child's heart and mind

for the rest of its life. Well they they finally got the Supreme Court to accept that argument and put stigmatic injury in the vocabulary of the American judiciary in fact recently I was interviewing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and she began to talk about stigmatic injury. It also made the name Kenneth Clark a household word certainly in that community and absolutely because as a boy and a steam psychology is he played a tremendous role in all these battles against Jim Crow. A lot of people have heard and will read about many of the battle of the Justice Marshall fought as a lawyer for the end p and the difficulties he had to go through with it. Let us talk there for a little bit about the period after that the period during which he became a just a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Solicitor General and ultimately a Supreme Court justice. He didn't know this

but you were able to elicit information that indicated that Lyndon Johnson had this plan in mind all along. Oh absolutely this. This was classic Lyndon Johnson. He said to one of his aides Jack Valenti I could put him on the Supreme Court right now. We need to have a negro on the Supreme Court. But I know the Southern senators are going to say he's not qualified. He doesn't know anything but civil rights law. So I'm going to make him solicitor general the government's lawyer before the Supreme Court. And by the time I get ready to name him to the Supreme Court that's some bitch will of argued more cases than anybody in history. And those are Johnson's words. And of course Johnson did just that. And when he got him got ready to name him to the Supreme Court he had all his ducks in a line and

couldn't could control enough southerners that Marshall could be confirmed. Nevertheless there were senators who from the time his name came up for being on the court of appeals were opposed to him and one of them still sits in the Senate today Senator Strom Thurmond How did he attempt to obstruct. Well only Supreme Court appointment. He went into a filibuster. And then when he was questioning Marshall he ask. Hours of absurd questions such as Do you know which day and what time of day they ratified the 13th Amendment. And that sort of stuff and finally got around he said to Marshall what do you know about the black codes. Marshall says I know one thing they for bad blacks to fly kites and this just broke up the hearing room of course. But from the time his name came up to the time he actually was approved to go to the bench some

10 or 11 months later that was for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal you had almost a year. But there's a story behind that too. Mississippi Senator Eastland chaired the Judiciary Committee. He wouldn't let them hold any hearings because he had a man named Cox in Mississippi he wanted President Kennedy to make a district judge. Well Kennedy didn't want to appoint him because he thought Cox was a racist. But one day Bobby Kennedy runs into the Senator on the train going from the capital to one of the office buildings and Eastland said to Bobby Kennedy you tell your brother that when I get Cox he gets the niggers and when President Kennedy named Cox Eastland permitted the hearings and Marshall was confirmed it is simply amazing we're going to get into the discussion of how.

Justice Marshall was evaluated by friend and foe during his tenure on the Supreme Court but hey it's time for us to get a little more democratic here it's time for you to join us in this discussion. It's your turn Caller Thank you for waiting you're on the air go ahead please. I could do you think compare this as a let's get the CHIP program over time I think it does run from I am a member I've even a year at Mr. Brown waiting for my time Saturday on there. Good point because he brushed Washington ratcheting down but I'm I'm curious to know I'm an 84 year old African-American woman and I'm curious could never right she get the facts and write back. And write your own record record after all are different people. Believe me I mean we're you know direct OK. I don't know if they're only going to answer that I have no knowledge whatsoever of who his funeral director was but I would. Think that he would have

thought it the right of his relatives to pick any kind of funeral director they wanted to. Let me raise an issue along that line because someone some who are black and have been critical of Justice Marshall have said that during his tenure on the Supreme Court he only had one black law clerk. Is that true. And B given his history should people have expected more. Well I don't I can't tell you if he had only one and neither can I. And I know one of them Karen Hastie. Well I know that that's not true because another law clerk who worked with me was Crystal nicks and she would bring documents and stuff out to my house when I called the justice's office to ask for them. You know people want to read too much into some of these things is perfectly proper for him to have black and white

Gentile and Jewish law clerks. The I don't think anybody can find any evidence whatsoever that Justice Marshall was putting black people down in any kind of way. There were also those His critics who claimed that he was lazy and that most of his opinions were written by his law clerks you used an interesting exercise in the book where on the one hand you looked at his opinions on various issues that some people will claim were written by law clerks and then you asked him on the record what were his opinions on those issues what did you find. Well what he wrote. In those briefs and what he said to me just in conversation or exactly the same thing. But I thought one of the most compelling bits of evidence that put the ladder that business about his being lazy and lower clerks doing all the work one. One former clerk said to me. That he walked in one day to talk about a very critical case. And he said.

Judge. You have just got to come down on this side. Marshall said. Say what. You said you got to come down on this side he says knucklehead. Come over here where you can hear me. I don't have to do a damn thing except stay black and die. That let the clerk know real fails to result in they carry only the opinions that we saw regardless of what input Clarks had represented Justice Marshall's opinion. Absolutely back to the telephone it's your turn calling you on the air go ahead please. This woman was like you have to speak up a little but play well with Thurgood Marshall's opinions on limiting the terms were how long Supreme Court justices are. Because I love the man at that time like to do the work but I kind of missed if he has stepped down. During the Carter administration we were we wouldn't be in some kind of mess that we're in today and one of things I missed is missing is

that if not earlier maybe you could come over to how we're taught a little bit. Let's shoot a little bit in the past that I would have not because he was so busy fighting the Supreme Court cases against an icon missed out but he didn't get a chance to just teach at a law school or talk to write an autobiography. Well let me let me say that. Obviously he believed in the life term for Supreme Court justices. This insulates them from the political pressures. I'd hate to have seen a situation where Ronald Reagan our George Bush could have put pressure on the members of the Supreme Court we'd have had a lot more terrible decisions than we got during those 12 years. Justice Marshall gave more than 50 years of his life to the struggle and he held on as long as he could. I don't know this but I rather think. That in 1991 if we

pundits had not been saying that George Bush was unbeatable and weren't ready to declare him Emperor for an extra four years Justice Marshall might have been able to hang on. And then of course we never heard of Anita Hill and their job in the Clarence Thomas controversy. We got to talk about that too back to the telephone you're on there call or go ahead please. Yes I would like to know what your opinion about Jesse Jackson. With the in Dibley. What do you think. Has been speculated on to become the next executive director of the MWC. Is that what you're talking about. OK thank you. Well I obviously have no input in to who gets chosen and I have no knowledge. Except that I've read that they're now down to four people. Jesse Jackson is a man of great action.

And there no question but what as executive director he would bring some badly needed energy to the organization. On the other hand I know that there are members of the board who think Jesse would bring too much energy to the organization and that he would not accept control by the board of directors. It will be interesting to see which of those viewpoints prevails when they make their final decision. Last year the board has what has been described as a meeting of controversy in New York which resulted in the stepping down of several members of the board of directors and the resignation of the executive director Ben Hooks who nevertheless claim that it had nothing to do with that incident. However with relationship to Justice Thurgood Marshall and his replacement on the Supreme Court who now as we know is Justice Thomas. Mr. Hooks and the ACP was to some extent out of the loop in that whole discussion that the organization did not come forward with a very strong position for or against Clarence Thomas and

you tell an interesting story about that in the book. Yes well the WCP was absolutely wishy washy in that particular case. I think had they not been so. Clarence Thomas probably would not have been confirmed. The story I mention in the book comes out of the Baltimore Sun where a black writer arch Parsons working for The Baltimore Sun. Some people should know of course that the end of the headquarters are in Baltimore. That's correct. And the story is which arch Parsons admitted that he was at one point a go between. Between bin hooks and some of the members of the Judiciary Committee and Thomas and that he had sort of delivered a pledge that hooks would not attack Clarence Thomas. I have no knowledge as to. The truth of this except that it has not been effectively denied by anybody I've heard.

Do you have any idea whether that incident played a role in Mr. hoaxes resignation from the executive director. I don't know. All I know is that a lot of members of the board were extremely unhappy about it. OK let's take another telephone call it's your caller you're on the air go ahead please. Yes good evening Mr. only. Good evening. This question is with regard to your purpose for writing the book and it. It's dark on America documenting African-Americans in the judicial system. And will you write more historical documents like this. My purpose in writing the book. Was to give people and especially young blacks an opportunity to understand the life of a really great man and to understand that everybody in America knows Thurgood Marshall the dead any woman who aspires to be truly free owes him a debt because nobody worked harder for women's rights than he did. Somebody's

in trouble with the criminal justice system today. I can be thankful to him for making it possible for them to have a lawyer not only in the trial process but the sentencing process. This man got a lot of legislation passed and decisions made that make it a little more difficult for cops to beat a confession out of poor people as so often happens. And that's what I wanted people to understand my writing any more historical details. If I told you I was writing another book tonight that be the end of 42 years of marriage. You got in the house strike as it shakes little the top of her dead in the room tell you well but still got a lot of full of stuff and a lot of rooms. Yes if he writes another one of those you have to write it away from home. Don't go away more with caron plus your telephone calls.

When we meet. Up. You know what. You know what it is one is not connected at the bottom. I don't have a right to. Wait wait wait wait wait. So. Welcome back we're talking with syndicated columnist and author Carl Rowan about his new book dream

makers dream breakers about the life and times of Justice Thurgood Marshall and we will take more of your telephone calls in this segment with Mr. ROWLAND. I was shocked when Justice Marshall told you I am not an honorary member of any club any place. I cannot. I thought it was very difficult for me to imagine a Supreme Court justice who did not have a bunch of honorary memberships and clubs. Well that was his way of emphasizing to me his comment. Everybody quotes Martin Luther King Jr. saying Free at last free at last thank God we're free at last. He said we're not free. I'm not free. And he talked about the Pullman porter who'd been to every city in America and said he'd never been in one or he had to put his hand up in front of his face to see that he was a Negro. He said they let you know. And then he was talking about the clubs by way of saying the whites socialites in the nation's capital area had let him know that he

was still a black man by declining to offer him honorary membership in any club. Back to your telephone calls it's your turn you're on the air Caller go ahead please. Good evening gentlemen. I wanted to get to questions from time to time to some disagreements between you so make them not quite sure of the truthfulness of that. Dialogue really wanted to get exposure to math and secondly But if I can call it your experience with a very prominent journalists would respect the situation and wonder what you think can be resulting to cry the moment the Specter Steve returning to power. First Malcolm X. Well there was no personal disagreement between me and Malcolm X. I of course always disagreed with his talk about separatism are going into two separate states. All of my adult life I have said if they want to give me Beale Street and Georgia Avenue I'll take them. But they got to watch me cause I'm out

for a piece of Wall Street and Madison Avenue too and I haven't wavered in that particular belief. But beyond that particular bit of philosophy there was no disagreement between him and me. Now I have expressed my view that there is the rhetoric of black manhood and there are the deeds of black manhood. I didn't see Malcolm X anywhere around month Gomery or Selma or Birmingham or any of those places where little black girls were getting their heads busted because they tried to drink a Coke Cola and some white soda fountain. But I have heard the rhetoric and I say to people rhetoric is important. We need some of that. But when I pick my heroes I want to pick a guy like Thurgood Marshall who wrote a lot almost lost his life and several cases are of Martin Luther King who wrote one of the greatest pieces of prose you will ever see from a jail in

Birmingham. And as you pointed out there has always been debate and disagreement between those in the black community who favored integration in those in the black community who favored cultural nationalism or some form of separation. And the debate will continue with people taking either side what I find interesting is that it seems and I could be wrong the Justice Marshall despite his lifelong struggle for desegregation maybe there's a distinction to be made here between desegregation and integration in terms of his own personal life socializing and personal friends. Existed most of his life in a predominantly black environment. Is that correct. Well that is correct except I would point out that. When he wanted to buy a nice house in this area he did go out to the lake Barcroft area of Virginia and buy a house. But he fought for. Well that's right I mean so he can go anyplace. Sure he won Shelley v. Kramer one of his great victory is in getting the court to say to white Americans you can put

all the restrictive covenants and you won't but you can't enforce them in the courts of the United States. So he practiced what he preached back to the telephone you're on their corner Go ahead please. Well I don't think pretty and response because you know when I go back less like that in the beginning with both bowing and they're in a race in our old big obligation for rape if I'm going home any day flags that really bad it will be to the black race. Absolutely. I'm not sure I understand what the caller was trying to say but there is an implication that either Thurgood Marshall or call Roland does not see his first obligation being to the black race. I don't understand. Well I don't know what you mean by a first obligation. My for my obligation is to truth and justice and I will fight for it

for anybody whatever their color may be for in this span as quickly as a black man. I don't look at my skin. And treasure that to the point that I become a racist. Back to the telephone you're on the air Caller go ahead please. Caller are you there. No you don't. But I guess my question is I don't know I can't I have my question is What role do you think you would take it's called you and Mr. Roland. What role do you think that black journalists played to the bequest Afy a person in a lot of so-called black journalists they don't want to be accountable to black issue stock to issue to black people as a whole and the African Diaspora. You know people are going to suffer to get it. Bank point is not really that we have you know we should you know. OK thank you

very much. Well I think I'll just let my record of forty two years speak for itself. I don't think you'll ever funded when I shrink away from the fight. I think the truth and integrity are the two most important characteristics of any journalist and I think that a Black Journalists has a historical obligation to follow in the way of our forefathers and make sure that that commitment to truth and integrity allows us to be better than we are expected to be at all times and never to shy away from controversy because we feel that somehow we're going to be accused of not being loyal enough to the race. There are a lot of issues that you will see published in small black newspapers in this country especially in the southern United States that you won't see published in any other newspaper and it is out of that tradition that people like Mr. Roland and I come and we just feel I know I speak for him that we can't let those people down. Let me get back to the telephone

you're on the air Caller go ahead please. I'm on I would rather you actually can get your property under. If you and I insist that we had an article a month where you indicated any article you know is right there on the record you own it and if that was a part of committing it even if it came to me you know I'm Can you comment on the rest of it. Yes you will see this in the book and you will see enough of the writings and old pinions of Justice Marshall to see that some of the phrases the conclusions are going to last as long as we have a judiciary system in this country. You see there always has been a systematic effort to

put down Justice Marshall. There are people who never would walk away from the fact that are their claim that he was really not qualified he was on the court as a black token while those of the same people in my profession of journalism they will always there will always be some second rate white guy out there who says. This black guy Rowan he musta gotten all those things as tokens over all of these years because they don't want to walk away from the reality that there might be some blacks so period to them in intellect and integrity and skill and when Justice Marshall decided to walk away from the Supreme Court despite his denial that anger frustration and bitterness had anything to do with it. The book seems to suggest that yes it did have a lot to do with it. Well yes you know you you look at that press

conference. But beyond that the day before. At the dissent he wrote and which he lashed out angrily at the court saying that the currency of its decision making no longer was reason but only power. And you know this was a man unhappy that over 12 years they changed the court to a point where they were wiping away some of his life work. But let me say one more thing about those people who tried to put him down. I think you got the final answer when 19000 people stood out in the CO to what passes body as it lay in state. Indeed Justice Thurgood Marshall the book is called dream makers dream breakers. We have to take a short break. Don't go away we'll be right there. Welcome back. That's our show for tonight as we said the name of the book dream makers and

dream breakers our thanks to our esteemed colleague Carl Rowland for joining us here this evening and the book is already in its fourth printing and it seems like there's going to be a lot more. Well thank you very much. Pleasure being with you and of course thanks to you for participating in the evening exchange on the 11th of March. We showed you the wonderful artwork of five African-American female artists. However we did not mention where you will be able to see the exhibit. And we of course apologize for that so here are the dates and times of that exhibit from a woman's perspective. The art of African women is on display until March 21 1993 at the Baltimore World Trade Center on the twenty seventh floor for all one East Patt street Baltimore Maryland. For information the number is area code 3 0 1 3 7 2 8 8 1 0 8. That's it from all of us to all of you. If you're still looking at that number then we're done.