Thurgood Marshall Memo "Saving the Race"

Author: Thurgood Marshall
Place and Time:November 17, 1941, NAACP Headquarters
Prior Knowledge: Before his nomination to the Court, Thurgood Marshall was the executive director and counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Audience: Members of the NAACP's Legal Department
Reason: In this 1941 memo to the NAACP legal staff, Marshall discusses a voting rights case in Texas.
The Main Idea: He wanted to find a case that would help end segregation and deem it unconstitutional and unjust.
Significance: Thurgood Marshall was later credited for ending segregation in the South with the Ruling of Brown vs. The Board of Education.

Trials of Reconstruction

     The idea of reconstruction is partially questionable. Would a country that had been pushed to the brink of destruction be able to handle the sudden  change? After the war ended, most survivors had returned home to whatever they found was left. They tried to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives, and simultaneously had to deal with the fact that former slaves had now been given freedom. One of the most shocking, and perhaps even unfortunate, details of the reconstruction was that President Johnson had come into power. He was a Southerner at heart, and despite the fact that he had supported Lincoln's ambition of freeing all blacks in the South during the second half of the war, he was not so optimistic about trying to integrate former slaves into American Society. Those who had once kept them in bondage, had been pardoned and free to once again gain power in their respective positions. I also found it shocking that so many Blacks were accepted into American politics so eagerly after the war. He was the first "colored" senator in American history, and despite the relative failure that reconstruction had, it gave hope that people would come generations later and finish what he started.
       So now we fast forward more than one hundred years since Blacks gained their freedom and the country attempted to recover. Have we reached that status of equality that many thought would come after the end of the Civil War? Politically, all citizens, no matter what race or age, have the right to vote, the right to have their rights read to them, the right to a fair and speedy trial. But college students are still dominantly white, 84% of prisoners are colored, and financial levels are lower with Latino and black communities. There is obviously a huge gap between what we would consider to be equal and what we have today.
       That is not to say that things for minorities have not improved at all, quite the contrary, since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, we have seen a flourish of minorities succeed. It seems that we are in the process of achieving Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. There is no doubt in my mind, that we are in the coarse of improving relations between all races in this country.

Henry David Thoreau

        I am an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. But those fancy terms are all used to simply call me a man who believes in change, a man who hoped do many things  in life. In my novel Walden I began to hope that I could find the key to this change by living attuned to nature. Nature changes yearly, it does not hold on to the past with regret, but rather, keeps on going forward with the cycle of life with no remorse. Through my seclusion in the woods, I was able to realize this and suddenly understand social issues better than most. It made me realize that like the different flowers in the field, there was different types of bodies, skin tones, and personalities for each individual, and these differences did not make them any less human. I was  deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time I also advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs. Changes in government do not start until change in the individual occurs first.

          The biggest issue America faces today is its inability to change and realize that there is many things that must be done, and that these changes cannot be stalled for very much longer. When we  ignore those who want a voice, we run the risk of being attacked through violent tactics. Changes that can be done in this American government are purely political, the changes of opinion and ways of thinking will take a lot more time to actually amount to anything. Human nature is a lot like animal nature, we want to live and thrive, and sometimes we do not take the opinions of others into considerations. Legislation cannot change human nature, it can only provide an environment where over time it can be changed and altered, occasionally for the worst, occasionally for the best. Society can only be changed by observation and the realization of our own personal truths, when this is done, then action can take place. A good society is one where we stand up and develop the right to make a change for not only ourselves but those who cannot defend themselves either.

Elizabeth Caty Stanton

        As inconvenient as it may sound, there is no real form of democracy that can appease a whole entire population, often it is the opinion of the majority that matters. So one can imagine how difficult it may be when a democracy is based entirely on the rights of men, white men to be exact. It makes perfect sense, the constitutional convention was written by pure aristocratic males, but woman such as I, Elizabeth Cady Stanton dared to defy this patriarchal legacy. How would the country develop if woman actually had an equal amount of political authority as men? Not only did I ask this question, she described the result in A Declaration of Sentiments, an alteration to the Declaration of Independence. Luckily I was not alone, there was about 32 men who had volunteered to sign the document, and while their support of the suffragist system might be difficult to believe, it is true. Through this document, I proved the function of government and the ability we do have as citizens to change a society and government that we do not feel represent us. I Stanton was able to share her ideals with those who agreed with me, and with my suffragist supporters, they developed a movement that would slowly achieve success. The biggest issues that existed at the time were the abolitionist movements, the suffragist movement, and the temperance movement, all of which I involved myself in. In the end, it was obvious that there were changes that needed to be done for a country that needed to represent every human being.

         Government can change, I truly do believe that this is the truth. One roar may be a little quiet, but the numerous roars of an ignored population can make a difference, the only thing government needs is to be able to hear. As soon as the American government realizes how important our pleas are, they can and will make a change that is available. Government is not like human nature, if anything it does not go hand in hand at all. Human nature is not partial to any kind of moral stand point, it can not be good or bad, I believe that a human nature is based on the purely the need to survive. I do not believe that government can change the way people think immediately, it is a process that takes many generation to form itself completely. Believe me, if my hopes of changing the constitution were to be achieved, there would be plenty of angry people. The only way to change human behavior and society itself is to stand up and take a stand, waiting or be silent only solidifies the backward beliefs of others. What makes a good society is not one where everyone is satisfied, but rather the ability to see these flaws and make a change.

Walden

Author: Henry David Thoreau
Place and Time: 1854
Prior Knowledge: Thoreau wanted to get the most from his life by determining what was really important, and he did that by removing himself somewhat from the normal life of Concord, Massachusetts in the 1840's.
Audience: Other men who were Transcendalist or who wanted to be one with nature as Ralph Waldo Emerson was.
Reason: The simple answer is that Henry wanted to write, and needed a quieter place than the Thoreau household to do this. And he did write both A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and an early draft of Walden in his two years at the pond.
The Main Idea: We realize who exactly we are when we align ourselves with nature and do not try to defy it at all.

A Declaration of Sentiments

Author: Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Place and Time:Woman's Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, 19-20 July 1848
Prior Knowledge: Elizabeth Cady Stanton revised the Declaration Of Independence which she felt catered only to men.
Audience: Woman attending the Woman's Right Convention
Reason: Conditions in the 1830s provoked women to press for suffrage; they were increasingly in the factory labor force, but were not treated equally. Progressive men who struggled for such causes as temperance, abolition and educational reform realized they needed women's support. Suffragists were usually advocates of such change. In return, they were accorded more of a voice in public matters.
The Main Idea: That woman have a voice too!!!!
Significance: One of the first known speeches advocating the rights of a woman being the equally to a man.

Important Supreme Court Rulings

         

                                  Commonwealth Vs. Hunt 1842

          Massachusetts' Lemuel Shaw's views on labor and civil rights decided many cases of the time. In his best known and most praised decision, Shaw cleared the way for labor unions to operate freely in Massachusetts in Commonwealth v Hunt. Before this decision, which was based on a previous case from 1806 called Commonwealth v Pulli, labor unions which attempted to create a unionized workplace would be charged with conspiracy, which is completely unfair. From that case came the labor conspiracy doctrine which said that collective bargaining would interfere with the natural operation of the marketplace, raise wages to high levels, and destroy competition. Most merchants followed this doctrine until 1839, when John Hunt and the Boston Journeymen boot-makers society was charged with conspiracy, many people began to question this doctrine. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled in their favor declaring that as long as the methods used were legal, the formation of labor unions was not criminal conspiracy. Workers tried to reason with their employers and tried to get state legislatures to pass laws to shorten the work days. This Supreme Court ruling basically gave rise to a variety of labor unions that would eventually improve working conditions and raise the importance and essential nature of the average laborer.

                                           Gibbons Vs. Ogden 1824 

         In 1808 the Legislature of the State of New York gave Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton exclusive navigation privileges of all oceans by New York's border, but if only boats were moved by fire or steam, for a term of years. Both men eventually rallied other states s for similar rights, hoping to develop a national network of steamboat lines, but only New Orleans Territory accepted their petition and awarded them a large amount of land on the lower Mississippi. Aaron Ogden filed a complaint in the Court of Chancery of New York asking the court to restrain Thomas Gibbons from operating on these waters when he noticed his business ventures were not working out. Gibbons' lawyer, Daniel Webster, argued that Congress had exclusive national power over interstate commerce to the Constitution and that to argue otherwise would result in confusing policies. The Court of Chancery of New York and the Court of Errors of New York found in favor of Ogden and issued an injunction to restrict Gibbons from operating his boats. This helped place the first restrictions that would eventually lead to businesses overruling the government itself.

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