[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 130 (Friday, October 7, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2056]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE THURGOOD MARSHALL COMMEMORATIVE COIN ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 7, 2005

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask Congress to please join 
me in cosponsoring H.R. 1433, the Thurgood Marshall Commemorative Coin 
Act to commemorate the life and legacy of the Honorable Thurgood 
Marshall, one of America's distinguished Civil Rights leaders and the 
first black Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
  Like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and many more, Thurgood 
Marshall led a civil rights revolution in the twentieth century that 
forever changed the landscape of American society. Working through the 
courts to eradicate the legacy of slavery and destroying the racist 
segregation system of Jim Crow, he had an even more profound impact on 
race relations than many of his peers in the Movement. As the leader of 
Legal Defense Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of 
Colored People (NAACP), Mr. Marshall won Supreme Court victories 
breaking the color line in housing, transportation and voting, all of 
which overturned the `Separate but Equal' apartheid, which was the 
oppressive reality of American life for Blacks from emancipation to the 
1960's. It was Marshall who was the mastermind behind the strategies 
which won the most important legal case of the century, Brown v. Board 
in 1954, which ended the legal separation of black and white children 
in public schools and initiated the dismantling of the legal framework 
which supported segregation. The success of the Brown case sparked the 
1960's Civil Rights Movement.
  Marshall's first major case in 1933 desegregated the University of 
Maryland and initiated his long and distinguished career as the most 
notable civil rights attorney in American history. Heavily involved 
with the NAACP, Mr. Marshall navigated through the court system a 
series of cases to legally challenge the laws that sought to legitimize 
the denial of constitutionally guaranteed civil rights to African 
Americans. He was even invited by the United Nations and the United 
Kingdom to help draft the constitutions of both newly formed Ghana and 
Tanzania.
  As a result of the success of many of his Supreme Court challenges to 
state sponsored discrimination, President John F. Kennedy appointed Mr. 
Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As a 
Federal Court judge Thurgood Marshall wrote over 150 decisions 
including support for immigrants' rights, limiting government intrusion 
in cases involving illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and 
right to privacy issues. As U.S. Solicitor General, Mr. Marshall won 14 
of the 19 cases he argued in front of the Supreme Court on behalf of 
the government. Through this position he represented and won more cases 
before the Supreme Court than any other American. Therefore it was 
befitting that in 1967 Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the Supreme 
Court, making Thurgood Marshall the first African American to be a 
Supreme Court Justice.

  Throughout his tenure as a Supreme Court Justice, Marshall was a 
strong advocate for equal rights under the law. He strongly believed 
that integration was the only route to achieving equal protection for 
all. Once individual rights were accepted, blacks and whites could rise 
or fall based on their own ability. However, Justice Marshall believed 
that the Constitution was inherently defective in its acceptance of 
slavery, and he made it clear that while legal discrimination had 
ended, there was more to be done to advance educational opportunity for 
people who had been locked out and to bridge the wide canyon of 
economic inequity between blacks and whites. Therefore he was a very 
strong advocate for programs such as Affirmative Action, preferences, 
set-asides and other race conscious policies.
  Although Thurgood Marshall worked most of his life on behalf of the 
rights of African Americans, he built a structure of individual rights 
that became the cornerstone of protections for all Americans. He 
succeeded in creating new protections under law for women, children, 
prisoners, and the homeless. Justice Marshall ``refused to acquiesce in 
outdated notions of `liberty', `justice' and `equality,' '' and worked 
to better them. Therefore, as we now experience the process of 
appointing a new Supreme Court Justice, let us remember the life and 
legacy of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. For his strength and 
struggle has contributed greatly to American history and his impact on 
the Supreme Court fully represents the true essence and purpose of our 
Constitution.
  I believe it is most appropriate at this time in our national history 
to recognize and honor Thurgood Marshall in a special manner. That is 
why I have introduced a bill to authorize the minting of a special coin 
in honor of Thurgood Marshall. I submit the text of my proposal 
legislation for the Congressional Record and ask for the support of its 
early consideration and passage.

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