Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961

Though this book covers some of the same ground as more popular histories like Richard Kluger's Simple Justice , Tushnet offers a more detailed and nuanced look at the workings of NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers and the internal arguments at the Supreme Court. A professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Tushnet draws on a wealth of materials--including newly available documents and interviews with Marshall himself--to provide a substantial, if dry, account for students and scholars. He explains how Marshall and his team at the NAACP moved from voting rights cases to education cases, and how sociological material crucial to Brown v . Board of Education was employed in restrictive covenant cases. He also provides a thorough account of the ideas and arguments of the individual justices who heard Brown , including the decision to reach the much criticized formulation of desegregation at ``all deliberate speed.'' Marshall, observes Tushnet with judicious admiration, ``constructed the job of civil rights lawyer'' beginning in 1938, but by the late 1950s, he notes, the growth of a larger movement complete with demonstrations and boycotts made litigation less crucial to the civil rights movement. (Feb.)