Commemorating Thurgood Marshall

Not many baby boys are named Thoroughgood, but that is the name William and Norma Marshall gave their son after his birth in 1908. As a second-grader, though, Thoroughgood decided he wanted a shorter, quicker-to-spell name, so he changed it to Thurgood.

The boy’s grandfather was a slave who had only one name, Marshall. When he was freed during the Civil War, he chose Thoroughgood as his first name—so now we know where Thurgood got his too-long name.

Thurgood Marshall, went on to become one of the most respected names in the United States. And his name lives on as the airport on the Maryland side of Washington, D.C., is officially the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. 

Marshall has also been in the public media this past month. Wil Haygood’s 400-page book Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America was published the middle of last month—and many substantial reviews have appeared in newspapers and magazines.

(Haygood is also the author of the book that became the basis of “The Butler,” a popular 2013 movie.)

Marshall came to be known as Mr. Civil Rights. As the NAACP’s top attorney from 1938 to 1961, much of his career was dedicated to the long, difficult struggle for the civil rights of African-Americans.

During those years he argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29 of them—the most famous being in 1954. Marshall’s biggest challenge was seeking to overturn “Plessy v. Ferguson,” the 1896 decision ruling that state laws may enforce separation of races as long as all citizens receive equal treatment.

Earlier this year, June and I enjoyed watching the 1991 television movie “Separate but Equal.” Starring Sidney Poitier as Marshall, that fine film primarily depicts “Briggs v. Elliott,” the 1951 case that Marshall initially lost.

Later that case was merged with “Brown v. Board of Education” and two other cases which Marshall successfully argued before the Supreme Court in 1954. That landmark decision outlawed legal segregation in this country.

The new interpretation of the law triggered strong negative response, of course, especially by the Ku Klux Klan. Referring to the Klan in a February 1956 speech, Marshall declared, “We’ve got the law, religion and God on our side, and the devil is on the other side” (cited in Carl Rowen, Dream Makers, Dream Breakers, p. 281).

In August 1965 Marshall was appointed as the first African-American to be United States Solicitor General, the fourth-highest ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice. Then after being nominated to the Supreme Court by President Johnson—and after a difficult period obtaining congressional confirmation—48 years ago this month, in October 1967, Marshall became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.

He served admirably in that position for almost 24 years. Current Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who at the beginning of her career clerked for Marshall, has called him “the greatest lawyer of the 20th century.”

Marshall retired from the Supreme Court on October 1, 1991, and died less than 16 months later at the age of 84.

2003 Commemorative Stamp

There was considerable pressure for the first President Bush to appoint another American-American as Marshall’s successor—and he did. After acrimonious confirmation hearings, Clarence Thomas was confirmed by a 52–48 vote on October 15, 1991.

It soon became clear, though, that Justice Thomas, one of the most conservative members of the SCOTUS, is no Marshall. For many, he has been and continues to be a great disappointment.

But Thurgood Marshall, while maybe not thoroughly good, was a great man, lawyer, and Supreme Court Justice.

Is Becoming Inclusive Even Remotely Possible?

After posting my previous blog article, I expected to hear from one or more people saying that the idea of doing away with us/them divisions was fuzzy idealism and not at all possible.

Alas, no one made such comments, so I have to do it myself! How can we possibly become completely inclusive in October, the peak of the baseball season? Right now it is us (Go Royals!) against them (the Blue Jays, which is not even a U.S. team, for Pete’s sake).

Competitive sports is based on a strong us/them dichotomy. True, there is a type of volleyball in which rotation occurs from one side to the other. While that can still be fun to play, I’m afraid it is never going to be included in the Olympic Games.

Several days ago I saw the following image on Facebook:

This is a nice thought—but, no, I can’t really imagine it. There is so little love and respect for so many people even in our own neighborhoods and cities I, can’t imagine most of us are going to be able in any meaningful way to love and respect the more than 7,000,000,000 people in the world.

Here in Tucson where June and I are visiting for several weeks, there are “We Stand with Rosa” signs in many yards I have driven past, including in the yard next to my daughter’s place (pictured).

Rosa Robles is a 41 year old Mexican woman who was originally detained in 2010 after a routine traffic stop revealed she was in the country illegally. In August 2014 she moved into a Presbyterian church here in Tucson for sanctuary after receiving an order of deportation.

Rosa said she came to the U.S. in 1999 to give her kids a better life. They were born in Mexico, but qualify for relief by the President’s executive action. She admits that she did break the law by entering the country illegally—but thinks those with families and clean records should be spared deportation.

Those who are standing with Rosa in Tucson are loving and respecting her and her family. But Rosa is just one out of millions of “illegals” in this country—and many voices cry out for “them” to be deported—and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is trying to do its job by deporting Rosa.

There is widespread clamor for securing the borders—not just against terrorists and criminals, but against all who seek to come into this country without going through the lengthy, and expensive, legal immigration process.

In a world where there is only “us” and no “thems,” there would be no borders, national or otherwise. But, sadly, that is not possible in today’s world. Most of the people in this country would fight rather than have completely open borders.

But what if we all loved and respected each another, if we loved others as we love ourselves, if we practiced the Golden Rule?

In his Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) Freud wrote that the commandment “Love thy neighbour as thyself is impossible to fulfill.” He is probably correct.

Writing five years later in Interpretation of Christian Ethics, Reinhold Niebuhr cites Freud’s words in “The Relevance of an Impossible Ethical Ideal,” the fourth chapter. Then he goes on to insist that “the law of love is an impossible possibility.”

Yes, becoming completely inclusive is, no doubt, not even remotely possible. But becoming more and more inclusive is a real possibility—and a constant challenge for all who seek to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Becoming Inclusive

Edwin Markham was from Oregon and for eight years was the Poet Laureate of that state. Although he published several books of poems, Markham (1852~1940) is now best known for “Outwitted,” a poem with only four lines:

I don’t know when I first heard, and liked, that epigram by Markham, but I’m sure it was more than 50 years ago. It is a good one, and I have seen it posted on Facebook and elsewhere two or three times just this month.

We all grow up with a sense of exclusion: there is us (people in my family, my neighborhood, my school, my church, my nation, etc.) and them (people who we consider different from us, competitors, and others we often consider threatening).

It is important, though, for us to go beyond the usual us/them divisions—such as white/black, rich/poor, man/woman, old/young, straights/LGBTs, Americans/foreigners (or Nihonjin/gaijin), citizens/illegals, and so on.

Recently I happened to see these striking words: “There are no others, there is only us.” (There’s a remarkable video by that name at https://vimeo.com/7792828.) This is the kind of inclusion I am writing about.

(I am not dealing here with the theological/missiological position called inclusivism; I wrote a little about that idea and its rivals in a blog article back in 2010—and may want to address that subject again sometime.)

The inclusive attitude I am writing about is one of loving acceptance of people, of having arms open to welcome and to embrace anyone or everyone, of drawing a circle (as Markham would say) that takes “others” in.

One of my favorite Bible verses is Matthew 11:18, where Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest” (CEB).

And one of my favorite mental images of Jesus as the Christ is him standing with outstretched arms, welcoming everyone. That idea is portrayed in the following painting (which I still like despite Jesus' Nordic face and stylized white robe):

Several years ago, one of the members of Fukuoka International Church, of which I was co-pastor, had many struggles with his faith. He feared that being a follower of Jesus Christ was limiting, necessitating a view of the world he thought was too narrow.

More than once I tried to assure my young friend that a proper understanding of Christ is actually a broadening experience. Following Christ means accepting all people and affirming all truth.

In my book The Limits of Liberalism I wrote briefly about the “Cosmic Christ.” While there are some problems in the way that idea has been used, the assertion that Christ, the Savior, was uniquely present in Jesus of Nazareth but not limited to a first-century Galilean man is quite significant.

Without question, Christianity has often held to an exclusivism that has been divisive and restrictive. But a deeper understanding moves one from exclusion to inclusion and from restriction to expansion.

Maturing in faith impels a person to move from the us/them mentality of childhood to including “others” as a part of an inclusive circle of “we.”

10/10 in Japan: 1905 and Now

The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics was on October 10, 1964. To commemorate that date, 10/10 was observed from 1966 to 1999 as a national holiday called Taiiku no Hi (Health and Sports Day in English).

(Since 2000, Sports Day has been celebrated yearly on the second Monday in October.)

A hundred and ten years ago, 10/10 was significant for another reason: The Treaty of Portsmouth, which was signed on September 5, 1905, was ratified by the Japanese Privy Council on October 10 (and in Russia four days later).

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 was fought between Russia, an international power with one of the largest armies in the world, and Japan, which had only recently emerged from 250 years of isolation. That war is unique in that the warring nations fought over, and only on, the territory of two neutral countries, China and Korea.

That conflict also saw history’s greatest battles between two nations in terms of numbers of troops and ships prior to World War I. (Http://portsmouthpeacetreaty.org/ is an excellent website about the War of 1904-05 and the peace treaty.)

President Theodore Roosevelt helped broker the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the war—and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, the first American to win that prestigious prize.

But the Japanese public was greatly upset. As some historians explain the situation, Japan won the war but lost the peace. Or as James Bradley writes in his book The Imperial Cruise (2009), “For the second war in a row, Japan had won all the battles but afterward was shamed by White Christians” (p. 303).

(Ten years earlier Japan had defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.)

Today, 110 years after the ratification of the Treaty of Portsmouth, is seems that there will not be a lot of peace/anti-war activity going on in Japan. But there were many such protests in August and September.

Last month Japan’s parliament passed a package of eleven bills, dubbed “Peace and Security Preservation Legislation,” allowing the Japanese military (now known as the Self-Defense Forces) to fight on foreign soil, something that has been banned in Japan since World War II.

The upper house of the Japanese parliament gave final approval to the controversial legislation on September 19, despite fierce attempts by opposition politicians to block the move.

Opinion polls show that the vast majority of Japanese are against the changes, and on a scale rarely seen in Japan, before the bills’ passage, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in almost daily rallies showing their strong opposition toward the bills.

August protest in front of Japan's Diet Building

Back in 1968 when I joined the faculty at Seinan Gakuin University, there were many student protests against the Vietnam War, against the upcoming (in 1970) renewal of the United States-Japan Security Treaty, and for the return of Okinawa to Japan.

In Aug. and Sept. this year, the protests on campus at Seinan Gakuin against the “security bills” before the Japanese Diet was mostly by faculty and staff and led by Dr. Ichiro Sudo, Dean of the Department of Theology.

Christians in Japan were among the loudest opponents of what are now enacted “security laws.” Most Christians have also been among the most vocal in opposing suggested changes to Article 9 of the Japanese constitution.

Article 9, in the new Constitution adopted in May 1947 and which Prime Minister Abe now seemingly wants to change, outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes.

As of 10/10/2015 many Japanese fear that Article 9 is headed for the dustbin.

For the Living of These Days

October 5, 1930, was a big day for Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City. It was the first worship service in Riverside’s new church building, one of the most magnificent structures in the United States. 

Although I have attended a Sunday service at Riverside only once, and that was probably around 30 years ago, I still remember being greatly impressed by the size and beauty of the building—as well as by the service itself.

(Sometime I’d like to tell you the story of how I rented a bicycle and peddled through Central Park and then through Harlem on my way to Riverside, near the bank of the beautiful Hudson River.)

Pastor Fosdick wrote a hymn for that dedication service, which was 85 years ago today. Here is the second verse of that hymn, “God of Grace and God of Glory,” which I assume many of you have sung:

Lo! the hosts of evil round us

scorn the Christ, assail his ways!

From the fears that long have bound us

free our hearts to faith and praise.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

for the living of these days,

for the living of these days.

Fosdick, who was born on May 24, 1878, was one of the most influential pastors of the first half of the 1900s. Martin Luther King, Jr., characterized him as “the greatest preacher of the twentieth century.”

In 1922 Fosdick preached a sermon for which he is still widely known: “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” He was one of the first vocal opponents of Christian fundamentalism—and was a primary target of the fundamentalists.

But Fosdick was also an opponent of liberalism, back when it was called “modernism.” In 1935 one of the most significant sermons he preached at Riverside Church was “The Church Must Go Beyond Modernism.”

While rejecting both fundamentalism and extreme liberalism, Fosdick was an advocate of the Social Gospel. Two years before the dedication of the new church building, Fosdick declared that a church

"that pretends to care for the souls of people but is not interested in the slums that damn them, the city government that corrupts them, the economic order that cripples them, and international relationships that, leading to peace or war, determine the spiritual destiny of innumerable souls’’ would receive divine condemnation (Hope of the World, p. 25).

Fosdick died on October 5, 1969, on the 39th anniversary of that notable first Sunday at Riverside Church, where he served as pastor until 1946.

One of Fosdick’s successors was William Sloane Coffin, who was the Senior Minister at Riverside from 1977 to 1987. (See my blog article about him here.) On Oct. 5, 1980, Coffin preached at the 50th anniversary of Riverside Church. Near the end of that sermon he declared, 

“Dearly beloved parishioners, we have no choice, we must work for the redistribution of wealth. We must abridge our luxuries for the sake of others’ necessities, in this city, in this land, and in the world” (The Collected Sermons of William Sloan Coffin: The Riverside Years, 2008, I:358).

Wealth had long been an issue at Riverside, for the new edifice, whose construction began in 1927, was largely funded by business magnate John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The dedication of that magnificent building, though, was almost a year following the beginning of the Great Depression.

So the powerful words of prayer in Fosdick’s hymn had great meaning in 1930: “Give us courage, give us wisdom, for the living of these days.” 

That’s still a good prayer for us today.