ABSTRACT
The Supreme Court of the United States is a political institution. A principal responsibility of the Supreme Court in the post–civil rights era is to decide cases involving implementation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act's prohibition on employment discrimination. Although African American leaders lauded Obama for his record number of appointees to the lower courts, some were critical because no blacks were among the half dozen or so names on the highly publicized short lists for the two Supreme Court appointments. For African Americans and their quest for universal freedom, the debate on how the Constitution should be interpreted depends on the context and the times. Justice Marshall in his years on the Court became one of the most liberal justices in the Court's history, forging a jurisprudence of activism in which the Court would seek to resolve racial and other social problems.
