Thurgood Marshall by Chris Crowe

Author:Chris Crowe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

His wife had good reason to be worried. In November 1946, after successfully defending two African American men in Columbia, Tennessee, Marshall and a local black lawyer named Alexander Looby got into a car to drive to Nashville. They soon realized that they were being followed by caravan of cars—a Tennessee Highway Patrol car, a squad car from the Columbia Police, and one or two more, filled with angry white men—a mob Marshall said was “com-posed

Signs like this one were common in the South during the Jim Crow era.

equally of state troopers and city police.” After following them for a few miles, the police stopped Marshall and Looby and searched the car. Finding nothing, the officers allowed the car to continue its journey—with the caravan following close behind. About a mile down the road, the police ordered Marshall to pull over again. After questioning Marshall and Looby about who had been driving the car, a member of the mob yelled out, “That’s the one! The tall yaller nigger!” Several men grabbed Marshall and put him in the backseat of the squad car and told Looby to drive off in the opposite direction. The squad car then drove down to the river, and as they approached the riverbank, Marshall saw a mob of angry white men waiting for him, and he thought that his luck had finally run out.

That very well could have been the end for Marshall, but despite the orders to drive away, Looby had followed the group down to the river, and when the mob saw him, they realized they wouldn’t be able to kill Marshall without being witnessed. With their murderous opportunity lost, the local deputy driving Marshall turned his car around and headed back to Columbia. Undaunted by threats from the mob, Looby followed the squad car into town. The car stopped in front of the courthouse in the town square, and with policemen on both sides of him, Marshall went inside to meet the judge. “What’s this guy charged with?” asked the judge.

As Marshall related the story later, one of the policeman replied, “Drunken driving.”

The magistrate turned to me and said, “Look, I’m a teetotaler. I’ve never had a drink in my life. If you’re willing to take my test, I’ll decide your guilt or innocence.”

“What’s your test?” I asked.

“Blow your breath in my face,” he said. So I blew my breath, and the magistrate rocked back a little bit and looked at the cop and said, “You’re crazy. This man hasn’t even had a drink. He’s certainly not drunk.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.