College President James Freedman gave a sentimental remembrance of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in a speech yesterday in Rockefeller Center.
About 70 people listened as Freedman delivered a complete history of Marshall's life, lauding his untiring defense of Americans' civil liberties and the "extraordinary power" of his character.
Freedman, who clerked for Marshall while the Justice served as judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1962 and 1963, was one of the pallbearers at his funeral last year.
"The force of his moral example changed our lives utterly, and in ways that have made us better citizens and more reflective lawyers," Freedman said of the influence Marshall had on his employees.
When Marshall, one of Freedman's most revered heroes, died a year ago yesterday, Freedman said he sat down to write about Marshall to deal with the loss.
"At that time I was so churned up that I decided to write as much as I could about Justice Marshall, mostly as an exercise in self-discipline," he said.
Yesterday's speech was one of three pieces of writing Freedman produced. Another appeared in The Boston Globe's editorial section yesterday, called "Setting the record straight on Thurgood Marshall."
In the editorial, Freedman defended Marshall against what he called the "shoddy revisionism" which his reputation has undergone recently.
"I was dismayed at hearing these views about a man who had done more than perhaps any other citizen - with the towering exception of Lincoln - to address the American dilemma of relations between the races," Freedman wrote.
Freedman also expressed disillusionment with younger Americans' unfamiliarity with Marshall's legacy.
"I must confess to being chagrined in talking recently to meetings of undergraduates - black and white - about Marshall. Some know of him hardly at all," Freedman wrote.
Freedman's words seemed reinforced by the low number of students who attended yesterday's speech. Of those present, only a handful were students.
The third piece of writing is a speech Freedman will deliver to the American Philosophical Society in April.
Freedman ended his speech by recalling that despite several monumental legal victories for civil rights, Marshall continued to criticize what he perceived as the persistence of bigotry in America.
