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Overview
According to Carl Rowan, writing a book about the life and career of Thurgood Marshall was "tantamount to trying to write the social, legal, economic, political, and moral history of this nation over most of the twentieth century." Dream Makers, Dream Breakers, the impassioned biography of the first African-American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, achieves just that: the violent years of the black migration out of the postbellum South; the frightening rise of the Ku Klux Klan; the Great Depression; two world wars; and the African-American revolution that took place in our courtrooms and in our streets -- are magnificently portrayed within the context of Justice Marshall's unrelenting mission to fulfill the promise of equal justice for every American.Drawing on his 40-year friendship with Thurgood Marshall as well as exclusive access to NAACP Legal Defense Fund files, Rowan brilliantly recreates the life and times of an authentic American hero. "Makes an important contribution to Justics Marshall's career."--New York Times. Photos.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
This richly readable biography of the first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice--a six-week PW bestseller--captures Marshall's irreverent, courageous and uncompromising personality. Photos. (Jan.)Gilbert Taylor
Rowan has interviewed Marshall intermittently since 1953, when the lawyer was on the verge of winning the famed "Brown" v. "Board of Education" decision. Now Rowan, after recording his own battles against segregation in "Breaking Barriers" , ventilates the similar trials of the former Supreme Court justice in confronting and ultimately destroying the reign of Jim Crow. Because of Marshall's position at the NAACP, large portions of this work record the internal history of that eminent organization--for example, periodic wrangling around the "separatist" versus "integrationist" position blacks ought to seek in a predominately white society. Marshall was committed to the latter view, as shown by his litigation in "Brown" and with regard to whites-only elections in South Carolina and Texas, but his courage was apparently not just intellectual: he once personally confronted a would-be lynch mob of unreconstructed racists. As inspiring as his example is to millions, and Rowan holds back no dollop of adulation, coverage of the pinnacle of Marshall's career, the 25 years on the Supreme Court, seems to drift in predictable directions. Not only are Marshall's opinions on abortion, criminal rights, affirmative action, and like social issues uncritically repeated, but Marshall himself refused to reveal to Rowan the inside dope on the Court's secret conferences. Yet the verbatim excerpts from the pair's conversations reflect what an indignation born of injustice can achieve, resulting in an informative tribute few will want to ignore.Book Details
Published
February 25, 1993
Publisher
Boston : Little, Brown & Co., c1993.
Pages
475
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780316759786