national office was pleased with Marshall’s work. Walter White, the executive director, gained new respect for Marshall and began using him as the NAACP’s point man in Washington in a highly publicized crusade to stop lynching. White made passage of federal antilynching legislation the civil rights group’s major goal. A 1936 NAACP flyer claimed that 5,105 people were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1936.
Marshall was well aware of the barbaric act of angry whites lynching blacks, usually in small southern towns. In 1933 Maryland’s black activists had been shaken by a notorious lynching in Princess Anne. After a retarded black man had grabbed at a white woman and torn her dress, 5,000 whites had burned the man alive in the courthouse square.
Marshall began to lobby Maryland’s senators and representatives. Marshall was ideal for approaching Maryland congressmen. He was a charmer who got along well with whites, and he knew the law. Most important, however, he was persistent. Marshall was already known as a man who would not be brushed aside or intimidated by anyone, including members of Congress.
Marshall wrote a letter to Millard Tydings, a Maryland Democrat, to say NAACP chief Walter White had informed him that the senator had not taken a stand in support of a bill to stop lynchings. “This was indeed as much of a shock to me as I am sure it will be to many of your constituents when they become aware of the fact,” he wrote. 12 Senator Tydings replied that he was concerned that states retain the right to handle their own local crimes. It was a transparent political move. Tydings was really worried that whites in Maryland’s southern counties would not back him in the next election if he had voted for any bill protecting blacks.
Not wanting to alienate either his liberal or his conservative constituents, Tydings scheduled a long trip to the Virgin Islands to avoid having to take a stand on the antilynching bill. When Marshall found out about the planned trip, he sent an urgent, angry telegram to the senator: “Understand you insist on going to Virgin Islands for last two or three months of Congress despite fact you were absent from early part of session. May we urge you to remain in Washington as our representative until bills of such vital importance as the anti-lynching bill are disposed of?” Tydings gave an angry retort in another telegram: “Please couch your telegrams in the future in more genteel language if you want them answered.” 13 Nonetheless, the senator canceled his trip.
White also got Marshall, in his capacity as secretary of the National Bar Association, to write President Roosevelt, urging the White House to flex its muscle in the fight to ban lynchings. Charles Houston, too, wrote the president, asking Roosevelt to speak out against delays in the Senate vote. Roosevelt did nothing.
“We couldn’t get a damned thing through Congress,” Marshall said later. “You can’t name one bill that passed in the Roosevelt administration for Negroes. Nothing. We couldn’t even get the anti-lynch bill through. So you had to go to the courts.”
While he was increasingly engaged in NAACP work, Marshall’s law practice in Baltimore was sinking. He had small cases, but even when he won he had to wait forever to get paid. Although most clients were pleased with the legal work he did, all were not. One black woman filed a complaint with the local bar association charging that Marshall had not earned the twenty-five dollars he charged to represent her in a divorce case. The complaint went before the city’s all-white bar, which ruled in Marshall’s favor. “The judgment of the committee was that she owed me one hundred more dollars,” Marshall said. “And they made her pay it, too.”
Marshall’s work for the NAACP and his rising profile on the pages of the
Afro
led to a small movement to get him to run for the House of Representatives. Having been on his own for a while now,
Marshall was well aware of the barbaric act of angry whites lynching blacks, usually in small southern towns. In 1933 Maryland’s black activists had been shaken by a notorious lynching in Princess Anne. After a retarded black man had grabbed at a white woman and torn her dress, 5,000 whites had burned the man alive in the courthouse square.
Marshall began to lobby Maryland’s senators and representatives. Marshall was ideal for approaching Maryland congressmen. He was a charmer who got along well with whites, and he knew the law. Most important, however, he was persistent. Marshall was already known as a man who would not be brushed aside or intimidated by anyone, including members of Congress.
Marshall wrote a letter to Millard Tydings, a Maryland Democrat, to say NAACP chief Walter White had informed him that the senator had not taken a stand in support of a bill to stop lynchings. “This was indeed as much of a shock to me as I am sure it will be to many of your constituents when they become aware of the fact,” he wrote. 12 Senator Tydings replied that he was concerned that states retain the right to handle their own local crimes. It was a transparent political move. Tydings was really worried that whites in Maryland’s southern counties would not back him in the next election if he had voted for any bill protecting blacks.
Not wanting to alienate either his liberal or his conservative constituents, Tydings scheduled a long trip to the Virgin Islands to avoid having to take a stand on the antilynching bill. When Marshall found out about the planned trip, he sent an urgent, angry telegram to the senator: “Understand you insist on going to Virgin Islands for last two or three months of Congress despite fact you were absent from early part of session. May we urge you to remain in Washington as our representative until bills of such vital importance as the anti-lynching bill are disposed of?” Tydings gave an angry retort in another telegram: “Please couch your telegrams in the future in more genteel language if you want them answered.” 13 Nonetheless, the senator canceled his trip.
White also got Marshall, in his capacity as secretary of the National Bar Association, to write President Roosevelt, urging the White House to flex its muscle in the fight to ban lynchings. Charles Houston, too, wrote the president, asking Roosevelt to speak out against delays in the Senate vote. Roosevelt did nothing.
“We couldn’t get a damned thing through Congress,” Marshall said later. “You can’t name one bill that passed in the Roosevelt administration for Negroes. Nothing. We couldn’t even get the anti-lynch bill through. So you had to go to the courts.”
While he was increasingly engaged in NAACP work, Marshall’s law practice in Baltimore was sinking. He had small cases, but even when he won he had to wait forever to get paid. Although most clients were pleased with the legal work he did, all were not. One black woman filed a complaint with the local bar association charging that Marshall had not earned the twenty-five dollars he charged to represent her in a divorce case. The complaint went before the city’s all-white bar, which ruled in Marshall’s favor. “The judgment of the committee was that she owed me one hundred more dollars,” Marshall said. “And they made her pay it, too.”
Marshall’s work for the NAACP and his rising profile on the pages of the
Afro
led to a small movement to get him to run for the House of Representatives. Having been on his own for a while now,
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