(1908–1993)
Marshall
Opening Hearts and Minds
By President Bill Clinton
wo things stand out in my memory about
the year 1957, when I was 11 years old. The
first is the death of my beloved grandfa-
ther, James Eldridge Cassidy. I had lived with
my grandparents in Hope, Arkansas, for a time
as a small child, and got to help my grandfather
around his little grocery store which, unusual for that
time and place, served both black and white custom-
ers. Nineteen fifty-seven was also the year President
Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the National Guard
to enforce the Supreme Court’s order to desegregate Lit-
tle Rock Central High School—the direct result of the
landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, argued for
the plaintiffs by the masterful NAACP lawyer Thur-
good Marshall; one of the 29 cases he would win before
the high court, while losing only three.
In 1963, seven years after the Little Rock Nine, the
high school I graduated from in Hot Springs was still
segregated. When I participated in a mock congressio-
nal session at the American Legion Boys Nation con-
ference that summer in Washington DC, I was one of
only a few delegates from the southern states to vote
for a civil rights plank. I knew then that the influence
and wisdom of men like my grandfather would not
be enough. The opening of our hearts and minds, and
the changing of our ways, would not happen without
pressure—the pressure of court decisions, legislation,
executive action—the kind brought to bear by gifted
lawyers and jurists like Marshall, who was as brilliant
in the pursuit of justice as he was relentless.
GABE PALACIO/IMAGEDIREC T/GE T T Y (CLIN TON)
Attorney Thurgood Marshall in
New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, February 1, 1960 (left).
President Bill Clinton receives
the Thurgood Marshall
Lifetime Achievement Award
from Elaine R. Jones, president
and director-counsel of the
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., New York
City, November 1, 2001.
PHOTOGRAPH ARNOLD NEWMAN/GETTY
Americas Quarterly SPRING 2012
49
