Proceedings instanted before the annual meeting of the Association for the cogitation of African American Life and History.

Proceedings instanted before the annual meeting of the Association for the cogitation of African American Life and History, Inc., September 29 2000 Washington, DC

This paper argues for the principles of Thurgood Marshall's aspiration for a moral society. The principles for a moral society require the nation to accept the historical and original reality that African Americans are as to a great degree a part of the heritage of America as whites because they fought and died in the American Revolution. This act allowed a agriculture and heritage of a nation to vesture for all. Thus, the tie that binds the nation is a used by all mission, one that assures justice for all in subordination to the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment.

greatly has been written about Thurgood Marshall. He was a genius. He was totally dedicated to the lordship of law. One could ask, what if Marshall had applied his considerable talents to enterprises that brought upheaval to the world? What if Marshall was known not for upright but for evil. We are fortunate that Marshall's core values were directed to moral enterprises. We are fortunate that Marshall was more than a lawyer. He was a philosopher that understood the forces of history and importance of a just and moral society for which he fought (1)

For Marshall, to live in a moral society was to live in a society of freedom for all its citizens. Marshall believed in a released society as a natural right, confirmed as democratic by way of choice of a republican form of restraint cemented in the Constitution. He could not tolerate a promiscuous racist society. History and experience had taught Marshall that internal fabrics that insult individuals because of race, dashed human spirit, crippled imagination, lynched human pulp denied the right to ballot and allowed for unequal education was unwelcome ways (2)

Law and society must have appeared at unevens to Marshall as he stepp into the hands of his teachers at Howard University sect of Law in 1930. At the law instruct he realized that reliance forward history by the courts frequently diminished the value of black the public based on tradition, the application of methodology and interpretation of history that to repeatedly relegated black people to opprobrious classifications. (3)

smooth when vigorous judicial dissents challenged decisions rejecting the applicability of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, regard to history and tradition appear to influence the decision. For example, in Plessy v Ferguson, decided in 1896 the lauded dissent at Justice John Marshall Harlan states that "[o]ur constitution is colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In regard to civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the equal of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed through the supreme law of the land are involved. in addition Harlan's dissent made an interesting statement in history. The dissent implies that the domination of population of color could be a condition of permanency. In Justice Harlan's dissent he stated: "The white race supposes itself to be the dominate race in this land And so it is, in prestige, in achievement, in education, in wealth and in power. to such a degree I doubt not, it will continue for all time, if it remains constant to its great heritage and keep possession ofs fast to the principles of constitutional liberty." (4)

Justice Brown writing for the majority of the Court in Plessy could easily have written the words quot above in the next to the first part of the Harlan dissent. Justice Brown did not believe that discrimination would be overthrow by legislation, that social prejudice would to the end of time be reversed by the law, if it be not that only by natural forces of choice. Justice Brown made clear, however, that should the black race rise in power and influence as it had during the Reconstruction era "and should enact a law in precisely similar terms" that would separate the races and empower folks of color, he assumed that the white race "would not acquiesce." (5)

Hence, the pair the majority and dissenting opinions of Justices Brown and Harlan assert that the power of the white society would remain faithful to it heritage. For Thurgood Marshall, the heir of Charles Hamilton Houston, the question for one as well as the other men was could white heritage dismiss the sacrifice of black nation who fought in the American Revolution? Could white heritage disavow to black citizens equal treatment below the law and economic influence shared by means of immigrants never in slavery?

Marshall and the lawyers who strive to overturn Plessy dedicated themselves to a moral mission to establish that they too had a enrobeed heritage in America the same as whites. the pair groups fought in the Revolutionary War to immovable this nation. The moral question for whites was whether they could accept and share the moral claim of "heritage" with blacks onward an equal basis. Black the public answered the question in the affirmative determined not to relinquished the claim of American heritage believing that it was not exclusive to whites. It might be said that Houston and Marshall and the Civil Rights motion was a moral effort to harbor the rich heritage that Justice Harlan insinuateed was within the dominion in the white population.