Window Online

[Back to index of Special Issue articles]

By Lucy Chumbley
Washington Window
Vol. 75, No. 3, Special Issue 2006

Deputies to the 111th Diocesan Convention voted Jan. 27 to ask the 2006 General Convention of the Episcopal Church to include the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the church's book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

The legislation, presented by members of Marshall's former congregation - St. Augustine's in Southwest Washington, D.C. - also establishes May 17 as a day to commemorate his Christian witness in the diocese. The date marks the anniversary of Marshall's landmark 1954 civil rights victory; the Brown vs. Board of Education decision that desegregated public schools.

"I think that the effort today to celebrate the life of Justice Marshall adds dignity to his legacy," said St. Augustine's parishioner Julian Tate, who introduced the resolution. "We wish to celebrate the Christian witness of Thurgood Marshall."

Marshall moved his family to Washington, D.C., when he became Solicitor General in 1965, and immediately joined St. Augustine's. A lifelong Episcopalian, he had previously served on the vestry and as a senior warden of St. Philip's, Harlem, and as a deputy to the Episcopal Church's 1964 General Convention.

While Marshall's two sons were raised in St. Augustine's, where his widow, Cissy, is still an active parishioner, Marshall's attendance declined after he became a Supreme Court Justice because of his belief in the constitutional separation of church and state.

Despite his patchy attendance, Marshall retained his faith, as his wife affirms in the resolution's citation: "it was his deep faith in God and the teachings of our church that gave him the strength and courage to seek equal justice for all, always doing the best he could with what he had."

Cissy Marshall was present for the vote and an earlier hearing, with a deputation from St. Augustine's, but did not speak. She was greeted with thunderous applause and a standing ovation when she was introduced after the resolution passed.

Until his death on Jan. 24, 1993, Marshall campaigned tirelessly for equal rights for African Americans. In 1936, he was appointed as deputy to Charles Hamilton Houston, chief counsel for the NAACP, and was named four years later as the first director of the Legal Defense Fund, dedicated to civil rights advocacy.

President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the federal bench in 1961. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson named him Solicitor General and then, in 1967, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Marshall was the first African American to hold either position.

In 1991, shortly before his retirement from the Supreme Court, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church passed a resolution, "offering thanks and profound gratitude to Justice Marshall for his long, courageous, and devoted service to the Constitution of the United States and the cause of equal rights and justice for all persons."

"I think it's very important for our church to raise up faithful members, people who have been informed and inspired by the life of the church,' said Diocesan Council member the Rev. Carleton Hayden. "I think it's very fitting."

Marshall's legacy shows that "it is not only possible to talk the talk, but it is also possible to walk the walk," said the Rev. Martha K. Clark, interim rector of St. Augustine's and a cosponsor of the resolution.

The new legislation also will provide "one more important opportunity to educate our youth about the integrity of his Christian witness," she said.

[Back to index of Special Issue articles]