The Making of America: Thurgood Marshall

The Making of America: Thurgood Marshall — page 3

The Making of America: Thurgood Marshall — page 4 — Prologue A Public Enemy The year was 1967 America was in tumult African Americans were protesting in the streets demanding equality Women too were demanding equality and they too were marching A few militants even talked about using violence to secure equal rights for African Americans People were protesting the war in Vietnam Some of the protesters openly flouted the law College campuses and cities Thirty thousand Civil Rights demonstrators gathered outside the Alabama State capitol following their march from Selma to Montgomery 1965 1

The Making of America: Thurgood Marshall — page 5 — A crowd protesting in front of the Capitol 1967 Pictured in the center is Stokely Carmichael a civil rights leader of the 1960s 1969 A women’s liberation march The women are marching for both women’s liberation and black equality 2

The Making of America: Thurgood Marshall — page 6 — like San Francisco were hotbeds of what was called counter culture unrest with young people rejecting what they thought of as restrictive traditional values They rejected the idea that African African Americans were expected to be content with second class citizenship They rejected the notion that women should limit their career ambitions to jobs deemed appropriate like secretary nurse or elementary school teacher It seemed to many that America was unraveling Large swaths of the population mostly in southern suburban and rural communities communities were alarmed and angry about these upheavals Many of them placed the blame on one man Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall was the lawyer who had dedicated his career to ending racial segregation His work culminated in a 1954 Supreme Court decision called Brown v Board of Education Education the case that outlawed racial segregation in schools Brown v Board of Education disrupted the South and became a catalyst catalyst for the civil rights movement which in turn paved the way for the women’s rights movement and the 1960s counterculture revolution In the words of one U S senator Thurgood Marshall was considered a public enemy of the South 3 A Public Enemy

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