ABSTRACT
Civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall often asked black youngstersin the 1940s what they wanted to do when they grew up. When theyanswered that their ambitions were to become butlers, postmen, or maids, Marshall realized that these children were already defeated psychologically. Marshall blamed segregation for this crippling sense of insecurity and vowed to strike it down in the seventeen states that operated a biracial school system. To do so, he would have to use the white man’s law to win justice in the white man’s court.
