Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 4, 1993 TAG: 9302040390
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE STEVENS JR.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CIVIL RIGHTS WAS WORTH A LIFE
I MET Thurgood Marshall for the first time on March 22, 1991, at the Kennedy Center premiere of "Separate But Equal," a film dramatizing Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that outlawed segregation of schools by race.I had tried to arrange meetings with Justice Marshall during the preceding three years when I was working on this film, in which he was the central figure. Despite intervention by friends, he chose to keep his distance.
We were therefore surprised when his secretary called to accept the invitation to the screening, announcing that the justice would be accompanied by his wife, his two sons and his law clerks. That afternoon, the anxiety a film-maker feels before the first showing of a film escalated to a mild form of panic with the realization that Marshall and many of his Legal Defense Fund colleagues who worked on the Brown case in the early '50s would be reacting to actors living their lives on the screen and appraising the film for accuracy. In Marshall's case, the actor was Sidney Poitier, who, bearing little resemblance to him, had set out to capture and reveal his "inner spirit and courage."
The historian Edmund Morris sat directly behind Marshall and his wife, Cissie, during the three-hour screening. Morris wrote to me the next day, saying, "My privilege was more exclusive than most, because I happened to be sitting behind Justice Marshall, and thus had the poignant experience of seeing that great drama on screen playing over and around his dark old head."
The audience gathered for supper in the Kennedy Center Atrium. I was cheered by word that Sandra Day O'Connor announced to the press that she "thought it was a wonderful film." But no word from Marshall. Then I was summoned. He was seated, surrounded by well-wishers, through whom I made my way. He turned to me, his voice rising in pitch. "What's that about booze? And poker games?" He was referring to a scene early in the film where Marshall joins the Legal Defense Fund lawyers in a late-night office poker game.
"Mr. Justice," I said, "your associates I interviewed said you used to love your poker games and whiskey."
"Not in the office," he thundered. But this was followed by a smile, so I decided, even though my research was solid, "to leave it lay where Jesus flung it" - a useful maxim that also came from the research.
Someone asked the justice how he liked Poitier's portrayal. "Sidney was better than I was in the court," he said. "But he got paid more than I did."
Marshall's friends were pleased that he had lived to see his story told. A reporter called his chambers the next day and was told, "I thought it was a great movie. That's the end of the story." His office requested a video copy of "Separate But Equal," and we were cheered by a report that the justice was seen in his chambers huddled over a video recorder making contraband copies for his friends.
When the going got tough at the Legal Defense Fund, Thurgood Marshall used to bolster his lawyers by saying that the struggle for civil rights "was worth a life." Last week, while mourning Thurgood Marshall's death, we celebrated a life of public service devoted to equal rights for all Americans.
Ours is a far better country for his having been part of it, and because he believed that civil rights was worth a life.