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[Back to index of May 2008 articles] Diocese Works for Marshall’s Wider Recognition By Paul Donnelly
“As Episcopalians we don’t pray to saints, we pray with them,” the Rev. Frank Wade, retired rector of St. Alban’s, D.C., and deputy to the 2009 General Convention said recently. “What we are saying as a community is that Thurgood Marshall is a guy you ought to know about.” At the 2006 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Washington initiated a resolution to include Marshall, the former Supreme Court Justice and civil right leader in the book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, which is one of three primary worship textbooks of the Episcopal Church. The resolution originated in St. Augustine’s Church in southwest Washington, which Marshall’s widow Cissy still attends. The convention’s Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music, following standard procedure, referred the matter for further study to the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, but not before expressing support for Marshall’s eventual inclusion in the book. His candidacy will be reviewed again at the 2009 Convention which meets next summer in Anaheim, Calif. The diocese has several question to answer in making the case in Marshall’s behalf, Wade said: “Is this too local an observance?” he asks. “Is Marshall just a Washington-Baltimore guy, and not really a model for the rest of the church? Has anybody been observing this day other than the Diocese of Washington?” The Convention’s decision may rest not on the merits of Marshall’s life, but on how widely those merits are recognized, Wade said. One parish that has honored Marshall for years is St. Philip’s in Harlem, where he served as a warden. The parish has long observed a Law Day each May, close to the May 17 date that St. Augustine’s has proposed as Marshall’s feast. That date is also the anniversary of Marshall’s victory in the landmark school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. In Baltimore, supporters of Marshall’s cause have planned a two-day celebration including a theatrical presentation on May 16 (A Lawful Presence, by the Arena Players, 6:30 p.m. at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin) and a dance presentation and panel discussion featuring community leaders on May 17 (9:30 a.m. at St. James' Lafayette Square Parish Center.) Seabury-Western Seminary has also celebrated Marshall’s feast. Linda Freeman of St. Luke’s, Bethesda, a four-time deputy to General Convention, believes the inclusion of people like Marshall is essential to address imbalances in the Church’s calendar. “Lesser Feasts and Fasts is pretty heavy on the clergy, especially bishops, and does not have enough people of color,” she says. As a result, it does not provide ordinary examples of extraordinary faith with whom Episcopalians can identify as models in daily life. “With Thurgood Marshall, we can help correct both, with a lay person of color who is a shining example,” she says. Members of the House of Deputies might consider that Marshall himself was a deputy to the General Convention in St. Louis in 1964. As described in Mary L. Dudziak’s forthcoming book Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey, Marshall walked out when the deputies rejected a resolution endorsing the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s campaign of non-violent civil disobedience in the South, despite his own reservations about King’s tactics. The move attracted widespread and mostly unfavorable attention. The St. Louis-Globe Democrat (where a young Pat Buchanan was an editorial writer) condemned Marshall and the “terrible danger” he posed as a judge and a Christian. But the Convention should know that his legacy is not a local, nor even an exclusively American phenomenon, says Dudziak. “He influenced people all over the world not just in their views of the United States, but of the way societies can change.” Her theme is Marshall’s nearly forgotten achievements in Africa: “In his draft Bill of Rights (for Kenya), which didn’t entirely survive, equality was the central principle. He had to confront the limitations of his vision, but he was proud that groups that had been killing each other now faced across a table, fighting with different kinds of weapons, with Constitutional clauses.” Candidates for inclusion on the church's calendar must receive approval at two successive General Conventions. Readings and suggested prayers can be found at: [Back to index of May 2008 articles]
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