Product Description

As a civil rights lawyer in the forties and fifties, he turned the floor of the Supreme Court into his personal battleground. As a member of the court, he presided over some of the most influential decisions in American history. Thurgood Marshall grew up with a strong sense of right and wrong, and the courage to fight for his convictions. As a black lawyer in the 1940s and '50s, he traveled the south, a lonely warrior in the fight to end discrimination. He was "Mr. Civil Rights", the embodiment of hope for black Americans. BIOGRAPHY; uses archival footage, period accounts and interviews with family members and colleagues to chronicle the monumental life of the first African-American to sit on the Supreme Court. BIOGRAPHY; proudly presents the stirring story of a man who stood up for his beliefs, and ultimately saw them triumph.

Product Details

• #50492 in VHS
• Released on: 2000-02-08
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 50 minutes

Amazon.com
The A&E Biography of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American United States Supreme Court Justice, paints an inspiring portrait of a true American hero, a man known as "Mr. Civil Rights." Marshall had absolute faith in the power of the U.S. Constitution and worked inside the system (although often at considerable personal risk from racist zealots), systematically changing the law to protect the rights of all citizens. His efforts, culminating in the landmark school desegregation case, Brown v. The Board of Education, went a long way toward fulfilling his goal of eliminating the "separate but equal" statutes which were still the law of the land in mid-20th-century America.

The program features interviews with family, scholars, and NAACP figures who unanimously portray Marshall as a tireless crusader, charismatic leader, and ebullient, fun-loving friend. President Lyndon Johnson, who nominated him to the Supreme Court, admired Marshall mightily and considered him a "great pal." Throughout a lifetime that spanned nearly a century, Marshall achieved social change, decade by decade, until his retirement from the Supreme Court in 1993 at the age of 85. Perhaps the most moving and amusing footage in the film is of Marshall's famous 1966 speech, epitomizing both his philosophy and his personality: "There is very little truth to the old refrain that one cannot legislate equality. Laws not only provide concrete benefits, they can even change the hearts of men--some men anyhow--for good or evil." --Laura Mirsky