◆ SpookStack

THURGOOD MARSHALL comm —~—ee, @art Be New York staff never knows when Marshall is likely to a fierce argument or pess something off with a joke. hepad. less Ettle-boy joviality amazes many of his friends eves they realize that without it he might have broken under the severe Pressure of the ast decade. In ‘bis office he occasionally tak over the switchboard while the operator is at lunch takes greet Gelight when callers are surprised at being able to reach im so suddenly. He loves to tease his secretaries. There is al- Most no cowboy picture extant which he has not seen and he has often left his chief secretary, Alice Stovall, standing in the mid- dle of « railroed station while be has gone off to take in another Western. Last fall, when his Harlem neighbor, Ballplayer Willie Mavs, won the National League batting championship, Marshal! gave Willie an orange juice and milk “cocktail” party in the corner drugstore. Able to relax with absolutely everyone, janitor or Supreme Court Justice. Marshall makes himself popular wherever he goes. “I've been all over the country with Thurgood,” remarks Professor James Nabrit of Howard, ‘and I've never known any situation where after two or three days he was not liked by the very people he was opposing. I believe it is almost his most important contribution because everywhere he has gone he bas made friends for us.” Marshall’s winning personality never . but his accent does. His associate lawyers are always am at how his way of talking loudly and boisterously and as much like a caricature of a Negro as possible becomes more and more pronounced the farther he goes below the Mason-Dixon Line. Before the Supreme Court he has no trace of a "Negro accent,” but in his office and among friends he deliberately adopts the most vigorous, crudest jargon as a kind of reassertion of bis own racial identity. Deliberately bid- ing his great respect for the Supreme Court, he has commented after successful appearances before the justices, “I ain't no fool when it comes to those boys.” Marshall's work takes him away from the safe of the courtroom. Sometimes it brings him face tg, in 1946 he went to Columbia, Tenn. to dg cused of atiempied Tupdemdrins oa phere that Marshall 4 miles each day f | apd solemnity pistols bristling. eeney d ded, Mie and was released. A few minutes ee drunk and ing liquor in the car. He assured 7 F not had a drop, and s search of the car produced noth. ing, aod so again he was allowed to proceed. A few minutes later he was stopped for a third time. Accusing Marshall of drunken driving, the officers ordered him to get out of the car and cross the atreet to the magistrate's office. Knowing that colored people often get shot “resisting arrest” in such cases, he refused to go except under police escort. This was ultimately agreed to and the entire throng entered the magistrate’s office. “The magistrate was a short man,” remembers Marshall, “and 1 put my hands on his shoulders and rocked back and forth, breathing just as hard as I could into dhat man’s face.” This was enough to convince the magistrate of Marshall's sobriety, “I really badn’t had anything to drink, but after leaving there we drove to Nashville and then, boy, I read/+ wanted a dnnk.” _o oo