When it comes to the study of history, we have the choice of actively learning from it or being relegated to infamy by it.

Everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people have many s/heroes who have risked life and limb in the pursuit of justice and human rights. More often than not, their true legacies are denigrated, distorted, and/or outright ignored by the institutions of the political and economic systemic power brokers. Thus, it is incumbent upon everyday people themselves / ourselves to be the guardians of the people’s narrative, even as we engage in the present ongoing struggle for justice and human rights.

From Tecumseh to Denmark Vesey, and from Nat Turner to Harriet Tubman, Mother Mary Jones, Joe Hill, Frank Little, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez, Sam Choy, Fred Hampton, George Jackson, Rachel Corrie, and so very, very many others, history calls to us from across the distant and not-so-distant chasm of time. The everyday people’s narrative must still be told. Yet, there were those hidden warriors (sometimes in plain view) whose calling it was to utilize their time and talent in fighting to establish legal precedence on behalf of the struggle for fundamental human rights. One such hidden warrior, though in plain view, was the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, whose impact and legacy is too often skimmed over, distorted, or ignored altogether.

This past Saturday (April 16th)^, I attended a program at Syracuse University College of Law titled, The Equal Justice: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall. The day highlighted not only the past, but also the present and the future, with respect to the legacy of Thurgood Marshall. The event was open to university students and the public at large, and wonderfully, was absolutely free. Speakers at the program were from New York, Texas, and Washington, D.C., etc., and included keynote speaker Theodore M. Shaw, and panelist/speakers Herbert Ruffin, Craig Jackson, Ca rrie Garrow, Jenny Rivera, Sanjay Chhablani, Judge Vanessa E. Bogan, Erica Y. Laster, Paula C. Johnson, and Cedric T. Bolton.

One of the very important aspects of the program was the down-to-earth, straight-forward, plain, non-pretentious language used by the speakers (most of whom are themselves professors of law, judges, and/or legal practitioners). Most importantly, the language of everyday people, combined with critical thought, were used in discussing and disseminating the accomplishments of Justice Thurgood Marshall, with a view towards today’s ongoing human rights struggles in this nation and throughout the world.

Thurgood Marshall’s life was often threatened and in very real peril on several occasions. One such occasion was when then NAACP civil rights attorney Marshall had to sleep in a coffin to keep from being discovered by racist vigilantes, intent upon keeping him from defending a Black client in court the following day.

The keynote speaker poignantly described what he termed as the present day - radical conservatives - of the 21st century who are seeking to distort, disfigure, and discredit the legacy of Thurgood Marshall as they attempt to use rhetorical - code - language in their political efforts to politically and economically disenfranchise poor people in general, and most particularly Black and other people of color.

Paula C. Johnson rounded off the program with her powerful, inspirational, and informative concluding remarks, making it crystal clear that the struggle for human rights today is of the utmost urgency and must be continued and intensified.

In these times of the unconstitutional and degenerate so-called “Patriot Act,” the outrageous and reprehensible U.S. “extraordinary rendition program, bloody U.S. drone missile attacks abroad, combined ongoing and expanded U.S. wars, and furious corporate-government and media attacks upon political dissent and dissenters, the jobless poor, the working poor, and the dwindling middle classes in this nation and throughout the world, it is more relevant than ever to remember the words of the late Thurgood Marshall when he said:

It must be reiterated that when it comes to the study of history we have the choice of actively learning from it or being relegated to infamy by it.

It is for ourselves, humankind collectively, and Mother Earth herself that we must make the correct choices in this continuing people’s struggle, and unrelentingly stick to them. We can not stand still. We shall either move forward collectively or surely be swept backwards to oblivion by the reactionary tide of lethargy and inaction. The choice is ours and ours alone.

There is much work to be done and more struggle to be waged. In the words of Frederick Douglass, - If there is no struggle, there is no progress. - Onward my sisters and brothers! Onward!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book). Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.