The date was May 17, 1954. One Supreme Court justice called it "a day that will live in glory." Another hailed it as "a great day for America and the Court." It was the day the nine justices, handed Thurgood Marshall, chief legal counsel for the plaintiffs, a unanimous victory in Brown v. Board of Education, the historic ruling that outlawed racial segregation in public schools, and set America on track to fulfill the promise engraved above the entrance to the Supreme Court building: "Equal Justice Under Law." Thurgood Marshall: From His Early Years to Brown is Part One of a two-volume biography based on the critically-acclaimed book Thurgood Marshall: Warrior at the Bar, Rebel on the Bench, by Hunter R. Clark and the late Michael D. Davis. It tells the story of Thurgood Marshall, the man who would one day become the first African American Supreme Court justice. Part One explores Marshall's upbringing in Baltimore, through his coming of age under the tutelage of legendary Howard University law dean Charles Hamilton Houston. It follows Marshall and Houston on their harrowing journeys across the country as case-by-case they laid the groundwork, the chain of legal precedents, that paved the way for the ultimate victory in Brown.
Written in plain language for a general audience, this book may be especially useful for teachers as they create writing assignments. For example, students will be able to compare Marshall's education in Jim Crow Baltimore with their own experiences in the public and private schools. The authors make Thurgood Marshall someone the students can care about, rather than a distant historical figure.
