“The Long Siege”: Thurgood Marshall’s Other Court Nomination Battle

In 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American to serve as United States Supreme Court Justice. It was a milestone etched in the American memory in part because of the infamous fight to push Marshall’s nomination through a bitterly divided U.S. Senate. But, few people know that the Supreme Court battle was not Marshall’s first run-in with people angered by the idea of a black civil rights lawyer ruling from a federal bench.

By 1961, Marshall was already in the national spotlight as a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was known as an integration advocate – the man who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court in 1954, convincing the nation’s highest court that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. While Marshall continued his legal work for the NAACP, journalist and political adviser Louis Martin (later known as the “Godfather of Black Politics”) was working on a different civil rights approach: encouraging President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to appoint judges of color to rule over federal courts.

Marshall turned down the first job Robert Kennedy offered him – a judgeship in a lower court –but a week later, he bumped into Louis Martin at the airport in New York. The two shared hot dogs at the lunch counter and talked about vacant judgeships in the higher courts, specifically, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, considered to be among the country’s most influential courts. Martin later remembered asking Marshall if he would accept one of these prominent judgeships. Marshall’s replied, “Well, I think it’s a hell of a job. Sure, I’d take it any way I can get it.”

But, many letters expressed support for Marshall’s nomination and disbelief over the publicly-stated reasons for the delays, which included everything from questioning Marshall about the intricacies of judicial ethics, to problems scheduling the subcommittee meetings. Some writers were outraged that the three-person subcommittee was selected by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi and included two similarly notorious segregationists: Olin Johnston of South Carolina and John McClellan of Arkansas.

Letters from the general public urging presidential action to push Thurgood Marshall’s nomination through the subcommittee. [JFKWHCNF-1736-004-p0061]

Letters from the general public urging presidential action to push Thurgood Marshall’s nomination through the subcommittee. [JFKWHCNF-1736-004-p0052]

Letters from the general public urging presidential action to push Thurgood Marshall’s nomination through the subcommittee. [JFKWHCNF-1736-004-p0015]

While the subcommittee delayed, a Supreme Court Justice announced his retirement. Several letters to the White House, including one from Martin Luther King, Jr., suggested that the President forget the Second Circuit judgeship and appoint Marshall to the vacancy at the Supreme Court instead. But the administration quickly nominated Deputy Attorney General Byron White, who was confirmed by Congress about a week later.

The wait finally ended in September 1962, when vocal Marshall supporter Senator Kenneth Keating (New York) and a few of his colleagues pulled off a political maneuver that took control of the nomination away from the subcommittee and brought it to the larger Senate Judiciary Committee. Over the objections of four Committee members, including Johnston, McClellan, and Eastland, the nomination was approved.