she represented thurgood marshall, the birmingham children's marchers. she was a colleague to thurgood marshall, who thought very highly of her. i believe it was a sort of historical malpractice to not have her considered one of the greats in the same way that these men are. ms. ulaby: who is fannie lou hamer in that same way, as a person? who was she? ms. larson: i love what you said about motley translated the deprivation that a fannie lou hamer was experiencing, discrimination, the violence, into the courtroom and back to the community. because fannie lou hamer, as i said, was the 20th child of jim and ella townsend. what i discovered is that seven of those children had died before was born. -- before fannie lou was born. her siblings talked about how it seemed fannie lou was the mother's favorite. she was raised and loved and cherished and protected in this really horrific environment as sharecroppers in mississippi. she survives childhood, and has a spotty education. and she grows up to be a very strong child. and taking care of her elderly parents

she represented thurgood marshall, the birmingham children's marchers. she was a colleague of thurgood marshall of course who thought very highly of her. and i believe it was a sort of historical malpractice to not ever considered one of the greats in the same way that these men are. >> who is fannie lou hamer in the same as a person? who was she? >> i love what you said about how motley translated the deprivation that a fannie lou hamer was experiencing the discrimination, the violence intoer the courtroom and back to the community. because fannie lou hamer, as i said, wase the 20th child of jim and alan townsend, and what i discovered in my research is the seven of those children had died before fannie lou was born, and four of of them were babies and the four years before she was born. and fannie lou and her siblings all talked about how it seemed that fannie lou was the mother's favorite. well, now i know why. she lost for babies before that. so she was raised and loved and cherished and protectedra in ths really horrific environment, as cotton share

she praised thurgood marshall for giving her her big break. in fact, she said, had it not been for thurgood marshall, no one ever would have heard of constance baker motley. and so she handled it in the way that she handled everything she kept going. she kept going. she was incredibly and of course the failure to that promotion actually an opportunity for her. she was she went into politics after working at the naacp legal defense fund for more than 20 years and was a barrier there. and of course she was appointed to the u.s. district court. she was not able to make it to the court of appeals. there are many stories there. i'm not sure how much you want me to tell. suffice it to say that, her practice background as a civil rights lawyer was weaponized against her and also there were those who just didn't want a woman on the court of appeals. nevertheless, mottley achieved great things and ultimately she was pleased with the history that she had made. so one of the things i noticed in your book, which was really interesting, is that you discuss

she praised thurgood marshall for giving her her big break. in fact, she said, had it not been for thurgood marshall, no one ever would have heard of constance baker motley. and so she handled it in the way that she handled everything she kept going. she kept going. she was incredibly and of course the failure to that promotion actually an opportunity for her. she was she went into politics after working at the naacp legal defense fund for more than 20 years and was a barrier there. and of course she was appointed to the u.s. district court. she was not able to make it to the court of appeals. there are many stories there. i'm not sure how much you want me to tell. suffice it to say that, her practice background as a civil rights lawyer was weaponized against her and also there were those who just didn't want a woman on the court of appeals. nevertheless, mottley achieved great things and ultimately she was pleased with the history that she had made. so one of the things i noticed in your book, which was really interesting, is that you discuss

let's go back to 1988, thurgood marshall, my favorite justice.e is appointed in 1967 and is a 78-year-old man. he has just hung on through two administrations of ronald reagan and now george bush is in charge and george bush has booked him. he is old and sick and can't do the job anymore at the high level that he has come to expect from his self in the country expected of him. so in an amazing act of putting country first, thurgood marshall fans in his his resignation letter to george h. w. bush knowing full well the person they would replace them was not up to his level. that is what he did for the country. he didn't die in 1988 he died in january 1993, two weeks after bill clinton was inaugurated president. never let them tell you that the justices they have on the court now are --. always fight for the ideals that thurgood marshall had and not the lesser people that have come to take his place. >> give it up for this panel. [applause] i told him, how many people are watching online? >> the reason why owning your stuff matters and a lot of folk

when thurgood marshall said this man is got to be crazy. that is your case. [laughter] it was because of the violence in mississippi, the threats, the absolute stranglehold of white supremacy on people of the states. nevertheless, motley went down to mississippi. she represented james meredith. it was a terribly difficult case for all sorts of reasons. first of all, the fear and the anxiety that was provoked by being a black person. coming down from new york, the antithesis in many ways of mississippi. it was considered when daring to come into a courtroom, a federa court room and stand up as an motleyto 6 feet tall and claimed that a black man should be allowed to enter old miss the university ofte mississippi. and that she did that. she did that despite hostility from her cocounsel who refused to recognize her. he would call her that woman and motley and challenged. she said to the judge, who himself was a segregation list, but the spectrum of segregation even he know that was wrong. so he admonished the opposing counsel that went motley saide e should call

if thurgood marshall was not in the justice department he would -- the letter back.ven if the letter said we are investigating or we are not investigating. the path of that naacp to washington was a letter becomes -- up to walter white. walter white would pass the letter on to marshall. who would pass it to the naacp lawyer and they would figure out how to respond, whether to contact a local branch or whether to contact justice directly or both. watch the files reveal, really for the first time for legal scholars and for others interested, is however government works and the role of organizations like naacp, is what is going on in the department of justice in response to marshall. now we have the doj file with the correspondence between the lawyers at the department of justice including lawyers situated in the south. one case for example, there is a guy prosecuted in the south, his name is parker, who is resistant to pursuing any cases. he lost the case before a federal jury. he doesn't want to try any others and the lawyers in washington keep prodding him to move fo

one of the deepest valleys in her life occurred in 1951 when she passed over for thurgood marshall's job when she was appointed to the federal court. hehe wanted her in counsel and e felt she deserved it. she did get it and it went to jackley and burke who was a terrific lawyer and supporter of the civil rights movement and he also was a man and motley thought both race and gender had to do with why she was passed over. and so there are two sides of the coin they are. and all kinds of gradations and i love this story because it shows the texture of the movement and the differentho experiences and house gender is very relevant to historical memory of the movement and also whom we should understand as leaders of the movement. it wasn't just the man who were giving the speeches and rallying the crowds. as important as it was it wasn't just thurgoodit marshall who famously was extroverted and charming and the alpha male, it was also these women. motley astl i said she was not trying to put herself out in front. she was still in front and it's important to appreciate both parts of the spe

all of the challenges, and consistent with president of course thurgood marshall, naacp. [indiscernible] host: move onto to the race cases. guest: one of the things that concern me of course our constitution is meant to be colorblind but what he meant by that was that it wasn't meant to subordinate blacks in the country. one of the striking things about our jurisprudence, affirmative action, we have moved away from a rationale that says how do we have education systems that remedy past discrimination and assures like are not subordinated? that was an interesting turn created by a republican president in order to try and preserve what was there but thurgood marshall argued the burn case. they stated consistently that was the front decision but held onto it because it was the law of the land. sup the -- subsequently they proved to be workable. they were not necessarily wrong when decided. though i was not a fan of the decision it had been inconsistent with other precedents to date. so the supreme court is going to have to have a russian offer overruling it. when i say it's

the second one was thurgood marshall and they were two people, both who, they helped me anonymously and -- enormously and one of them helped me with recommendations and other jobs more than any other single person in my life but also people who provided a model of what it was to lead. mine was in law and how you could -- and also how you could be a great human being and a great lawyer both and i don't come anywhere near anything that that -- that they showed me in that regard but it was an incredible model for a young lawyer. >> kelly -- president armstrong ran through the biography service in the white house as -- deputy director of domestic policy. the service think you did in law school and i am curious the experience that you had both on the judicial side and the policies -- policy side and i'm curious if you can describe the difference between law policy and politics. >> there should be a dip -- big difference. [laughter] i fear knowing laughter which is not to say there always is. there are times where there are subject matters that -- the legal issues should be understood as dist

the former court of thurgood marshall just took a right from the people, women of america. now extremist, so-called leaders, including some here in pennsylvania are calling for an abortion ban nationwide. apparently, i was watching tv, apparently this fellow running against john fetterman even believes that local politicians believe and -- belong in the examination room when that woman is alone with her doctor. these folks -- they are something else. [laughter] these folks, apparently believe that government should be making decisions about women's bodies. well, we do not. [applause] we trust the women of pennsylvania. we trust the women of america. and recall, there is a hypocrisy upon irony on this. recall, when jobs was decided, the proponents said, we should just send this issues -- issue to the state. it is the same that said that that are making it more difficult to votes in the state. including right here, in philadelphia. undemocratic laws, un-american laws. pennsylvania, the stakes are high. up and down the ballot. here, in the commonwealth, as leaders are undermin

they would be prominent in the future and he grew up to be a supreme court justice at the time thurgood marshall was the first supreme court black justice in america and he learned about following those steps and he had big dreams. as robert says, there's no pathway.ay it seems there's no pathway out of the projects that he could see anyone would have made it out essentially through sports and he had this big body and athletic gift t yet he was steed away from the idea that he might be able to make it out. the schools were underfunded and he focused on because the academics were so shaky that he wasn't eligible and he left college knowing that his family reliedth on him and he was realy broken. it's a sign things may be going well for you but that closed quickly on him and he had to find a way to survive. that did lead him into the economic trade in the neighborhood at the time, the drug trade unfortunately, and led to getting caught up in the mass incarceration taking place. you don't know what toyo say whn you're interrogated you take the plea deal because the state is going to throw you behin

when i found striking is in your final authored this end, you quote from justice thurgood marshall's dissent in 1931, where he said power, not reason is the new currency of this court's decision making. >> i do not know what judge wisdom would have thought about that. i got nervous about that one. [laughter] nonetheless, if you compare it to other dissents, the three of us, for me and justice kagan and joe's -- justice so my aura -- i withdrew that conclusion from some of the language in it. what is more important is the reasoning and the reasoning in that dissent goes in great length into why it is a mistake under the law to depart from 50 years of precedent. there are other parts, the human resolve and so forth. i think that legal part is an important part. the majority spent some time trying to say, but there are lots of instances in which the court has not followed an earlier case and is overruled in an earlier case, which is true. so, i spent in my -- and my poor law clerk spent -- i love it -- [laughter] they spent a considerable time looking up every one of those cases and, wh

what i found striking is that you quote from justice thurgood marshall in 1991, where he says, "power, not reason, is the new currency of this court." prof. breyer: i don't know what judge was that would have advised me about that. a little nervous about that one. nonetheless, if you compare it to other dissents, the three of us, me and justice kagan and justice sotomayor, we jointly authored that dissent and felt strongly about it. what is more important is the reasoning and the reasoning in that dissent goes into great length into why it is a mistake under the law to depart from 50 years of precedent. and there are other parts that deal more with the human results and so forth, but that legal part is an important part. and the majority spent some time trying to say, well, there are lots of incidents -- lots of instances where the court has overruled an earlier case, which is true. so, i spent -- we each have four law clerks -- and they spent considerable time looking up every one of those cases. i do what frankfurter used to do, which got him nowhere. i wrote an opinion. you can rea

o the other thing that is so interesting, the first black justice, thurgood marshall was on the courttalked about it at one point in a memo saying i want to address the question of whether negroes, as he put it, have arrived as i put in quotes and even at his own court, there had only been at that point in 1978, only black law clerks. and h and he just wanted to point out the disparities in america. >> which is so important when taking all of that into account to talk about the reality at the time. and the reality now of course. brennan writes about how he tried to get ahead of the negotiations. do you suspect any of that is happening today? >> oh, i definitely do, erica. bill brennan was master strategist on the court or trying to round up five votes. he had a greater chance than the liberals today, because he had five or six who he could sometimes counts on, today we only have three liberal justices. one of the memos from bill brennan found it was just at the end of negotiations that he said with exasperation, all hell broke loose. they resolved that within a couple of days when the

flight 2077 making an emergency landing at baltimore's thurgood marshall airport after an apparent enginejus minutes after it had taken off from that same airport. the airline says, all passengers deplaned safely. >>> and today marks five years since the mass shooting at route 91 harvest country music festival in las vegas. 58 people died, and more than 800 others were wounded in what remains the deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history. memorials are planned throughout the day. >>> we start this half hour with more on those frightening moments on the football field when dolphins quarterback tua tagovailoa was injured during thursday night's game against the bengals. the nfl's chief medical officer promising to be as transparent as possible about the matter amid outcry over whether he should have even been allowed to play that night. abc's andrew dymburt is here with more. andrew, good morning. >> reporter: eva, good morning. when tua went down thursday night, it was the second noticeable injury in as many games on short rest too. a reminder of just how brutal and dangerous football can be

at the time thurgood marshall was the first black supreme court justice and he said he wanted to follow those footsteps. there was a time he was doing academic work and meeting benchmarks and big dreams how to turn education into a real career. now over the course of the next several years he goes to more underfunded public schools and as robert says, you know, there's no pathway. it seems like there's no pathway from that to what his dreams were. and he could see that anyone who made it out had done through essentially through sports and he had this big body and this athletic gift that he was talented with and he was steered away from the idea that he might be able to make it out through academics because the schools were underfunded and he focused on sports. as robert said earlier, he was not able to in college because his academics were so shaky and he was not eligible and he left college knowing that his family relied upon him and he needed to provide. he saw his way out, saw a glimpse of light getting a college scholarship from the third ward a sign you might have potential to go p

. >> i had to play that so that thurgood marshall wouldn't haunt me. elie, answer that question. can a university turn around and say, i can consider that three generations of your family came here and that can be a factor, but i can't consider your background and who you are? >> yeah, they can because the six justices, conservative justices on the supreme court, will let them do it. because they don't actually think that diversity is important. see, the other part of this clarence thomas ridiculousness you played, he got an answer to his question. he got three answers to his question. one, the solicitor general of north carolina, said that diversity is important because students learn better in diverse environment and there are studies showing that. thomas dismissed that. the second saying that there are colleges and universities are pipelines into every institution of the country, and she was specifically talking about the service academies and how if you want a diverse officer corps because it shows leadership is more legitimate if the officer corps looks like the rest of the

and he wrote that he wanted to be a supreme court justice at the time thurgood marshall was the first black supreme court justice in america. and he had learned about him. and he said he wanted to follow in his footsteps. so there was a time in floyd's life where he was doing his academic work, was meeting its benchmarks, and he had big dreams for how to turn an education into a real career. now over the course of the next several years, he goes to more underfunded public schools, and, as robert says, you know, there's no pathway. it seems there's no pathway from that to what his dreams were. the pathway out of the projects that he could that you know anyone who had made it out had done so essentially through sports and he had this big body he had this athletic gift he was talented with. and he was steered away from the idea that he might be able to make it out through academics his schools are underfunded and focused on sports. but robert, earlier, he was not able to see the field in college because its academics were shaky that he was not eligible and he'd left college knowing that

all of the challenges, and consistent with president of course thurgood marshall, naacp.scernible] host: move onto to the race cases. guest: one of the things that concern me of course our constitution is meant to be colorblind but what he meant by that was that it wasn't meant to subordinate blacks in the country. one of the striking things about our jurisprudence, affirmative action, we have moved away from a rationale that says how do we have education systems that remedy past discrimination and assures like are not subordinated? that was an interesting turn created by a republican president in order to try and preserve what was there but thurgood marshall argued the burn case. they stated consistently that was the front decision but held onto it because it was the law of the land. sup the -- subsequently they proved to be workable. they were not necessarily wrong when decided. though i was not a fan of the decision it had been inconsistent with other precedents to date. so the supreme court is going to have to have a russian offer overruling it. when i say it's a publ

person like ketanji brown jackson could be taken through the paces she was taken through when thurgood marshallld go up for confirmation it wasn't that hard and that was during a period of time in this country that it should have been harder for a black person to pass muster, but in the crux of this was racism, anti-racism, what is racism. how did you feel about that? >> i mean, karen, i think i initially first felt horrible about judge jackson. i mean, you know, for her to have to -- for me to something after the fact, i was in something when it was happening, but for her to have to deal with my book or the book of another sort of writing being distorted and weaponized and then for her having to sort of gather herself and who knows what ran through her mind when she was, you know, just -- i think i felt bad for her and i just want to sort of emphasize that because there's been a lot of conversation about it, but that was a very difficult moment for her that senator cruz created, but i think to think that we have senators who think that the existential threat is anti-racism as opposed to racism

from my whipped office, you see wb devoid is, mary mcleod bit thune -- mary mcleod bethune and thurgood marshall. there's a statue i have to explain sometimes called "i am a man." some of you may remember that statue grew out of a protest in memphis, tennessee that led to the death of martin luther king jr. i spend all of my time trying to do what i can to make sure that we preserve history. i don't want to whitewash history. i don't want to revise history. i want us to learn from history and do what -- said to us -- if we fail to learn the lessons of history you are bound to repeat them and you cannot learn history lessons by dealing in false representations of history. it has to be what it is. and so what the state of florida has done is kick started something because after they made this move, she is so proud of it, she talks about it all the time, stops me on the floor with an update. with this -- when the state of virginia decided it would not be outdone, the state of virginia voted to take the statue of robert e. lee out of this building and put in barbara john's who at 15 years old, start

anthony brown jackson could be taken through the paces that she taken through when just when thurgood marshall was going for confirmation. it wasn't that hard. and you think about that was during a period of time in this country where it should have been harder for a black person go through and pass muster, but yet was taken through. and at the crux of this is this battle around race and racism and what is racism and nancy racism. and how did you feel about that? i mean, know, karen, i think i initially first felt horrible about joe jackson. i mean, i you know, for her to have to for her for me to see after fact, i was like in something, right? it was sort of happening for her to have to deal with my book or the book of another sort of writer being destroyed and and weaponized and then for her having to sort of gather and who knows what ran through her mind, you know, when when she was you know, just i think, i felt bad for her. and i just want sort of emphasize that because, you know, there's been a lot of around it. but that was a very difficult moment her that senator cruz created. but i th

that inaugural or glass had bundle in poor accent ashlyn davis and thurgood marshall. younger audience. but also celebrating our trail blazers. people like spike lee, our icon of the year. wanda cooper jones and -- palmer for all the work they've gone to champions for change. and so many others who have continued to push the culture forward. so tonight is kind of an extension of the work we do every day at ebony at honoring black excellence, but we get all these great folks in one room, celebrate them, say, we see you and you're so proud of you. >> i'm very much looking forward to tonight. my colleague, simone sanders, i believe, is also among the honorees. my good friend geo peppers is among the honorees. i'm looking forward to it. my friend jake ivey, friends of the show, will also be there! so, i'm looking forward to seeing you this evening and celebrating the culture and just thank you, mario, for taking time on a busy day for you. thank you, and we look forward to seeing what ebony magazine does in the coming years. it's been a staple in many black households. so,