Featured Speeches:
The Spirituality of Thurgood Marshall-St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, May 16,2010
An Open Letter to HU Undergraduate Students-February 23,2009
Concerned Black Men Banquet-Philadelphia, October 2008
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The Spirituality of Thurgood Marshall
Spoken before the congregation of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church,Sunday,May 16,2010
Remarks St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church
Washington, D.C.
Thurgood Marshall Sunday
God of our weary years
God of our silent tears
Thou who has brought us thus far on our way
Thy who has by thy might
Led us into the light
Keep us forever in thy path we pray
Lest our feet, stray from the places
Our God where we met thee
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world
We forget thee
Shadowed beneath thy hand
May we forever stand
True to our God
True to our native land.
Good morning Mrs. Marshall, Pastor, and members of this Church, I am honored and humbled to speak here at St. Augustine’s, Justice Marshall’s home church, on this celebrated “Thurgood Marshall” Sunday and the Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. This is truly a cherished moment.
In these few minutes, I have been asked to capture the work of Thurgood Marshall from a spiritual perspective, a proposition that requires deep thought.
How does one even begin to stick his toe in the water of Thurgood’s spirituality except perhaps, as here, through his work. In that respect, it has been said that “Words are wonderful, but deeds are divine.” I would like to briefly talk about Thurgood from this perspective: “Thurgood: taking us to a place in the law where God dwells.”
Where is that place? Where is the place in the law where God Dwells?
Fundamentally, in the deep religious convictions of world religions, all men and women are children of God. And God’s love, at least theoretically, knows no color line. As children of God we too espouse color blindness in our own spiritual and Christian life journeys.
In Galatians 3.28 it is written: “ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
It was probably this thinking that gave birth to those proverbial words in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Against this backdrop, enter the institution of slavery, a deeply rooted, human contradiction. Slavery! American slavery, a commonly accepted way of life sanctioned by American law, tested the spiritual essence of both perpetrator and victim.
Far too many gloss over this chapter in American history and would rather avoid it, but not Thurgood Marshall. Marshall etched his reflections on the subject in stone in his 1978 dissenting opinion in Bakke v. University of California writing in part:
“Three hundred and fifty years ago, the Negro was dragged to this country in chains to be sold into slavery. Uprooted from his homeland and thrust into bondage for forced labor, the slave was deprived of all legal rights. It was unlawful to teach him to read; he could be sold away from his family and friends at the whim of his master; and killing or maiming him was not a crime. The system of slavery brutalized and dehumanized both master and slave.”
Marshall understood the significance of people being treated as mere property, with as much value as this candelabra.
Marshall honed into this notion further:
“The position of the Negro slave as mere property was confirmed by this Court in the 1857 Dred Scott decision The Court declared that under the Constitution a slave was property, and "[the] right to traffic in it, like an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guarantied to the citizens of the United States . . . .". The Court further concluded that Negroes were not intended to be included as citizens under the Constitution but were "regarded as beings of an inferior order . . . altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect . . . ."
Citing the 1873 Slaughterhouse cases, he reminded us that racial segregation did not end in 1865. Marshall penned: “The status of the Negro as property was officially erased by his emancipation at the end of the Civil War. But the long-awaited emancipation, while freeing the Negro from slavery, did not bring him citizenship or equality in any meaningful way. Slavery was replaced by a system of ‘laws which imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value.’”
Marshall chillingly noted: “Despite the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the Negro was systematically denied the rights those Amendments were supposed to secure. The combined actions and inactions of the State and Federal Governments maintained Negroes in a position of legal inferiority for another century after the Civil War.”
The state of American law between 1619 and 1954 and its cruel, divisive and dehumanizing implications had a profound effect on Thurgood. They crystallized his evolution and the integration of his mind, heart and soul on the question of race. His connection to this American crisis became far from theoretical and rhetorical.
He saw wretched poverty and the effects of centuries of discrimination close and up front. There was a distinct black world and a white world, separate and unequal called “Jim Crow”. It was an era where an ounce of black blood made a person racially inferior and another superior, a line to be crossed at one’s own peril.
He realized that racial superiority was not the stuff of God! And his deep conviction ran through the blood of his veins.
He thus fearlessly confronted post-slavery racism in the face of dangerous life threatening risks and against unimaginable white resistance. On any given moment, his life could have been snatched away. Medger Evers. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and those four little girls in that Birmingham Church is proof certain of that.
Pray tell, what could one man do?
His teacher and mentor, the late Charles Hamilton Houston, pioneered and charted a course for Marshall’s navigation. The institutional and psychologically effective racial barriers in education, housing, voting, public accommodations, exacerbated by lynchings, beatings and pervasive violence and chilling, stenched second-class citizenship status inspired their nearly thirty years of gut wrenching litigation during the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s.
Two black lawyers in a sunami of American apartheid where race defined status, rights, privilege and opportunity. And yes, without the influence and inspiration of the late Charles Houston, there would not have been a Thurgood Marshall. Guided by Houston’s intellectual push and tug, Marshall emerged as the century’s foremost legal warrior. He began to systematically challenge and dismantle America’s foremost constitutional and spiritual contradiction.
Greatest among Marshall’s gifts was his fortitude, his faith and conviction. For a trial lawyer, the litigation of a single case is an engaging and demanding experience from the inception of a case to its conclusion. To travel to the American South and to litigate case after case against a backdrop of violence and racial hatred had to be equally engaging. To take case after case to a Courts of Appeal and to the United States Supreme was most engaging.
Rarely, does a private bar lawyer get to argue a case before the Supreme Court nonetheless win most of their cases.
Marshall took landmark cases to the Supreme Court and slowly but surely dismantled America’s institutional racism in electoral politics, real estate and education: Chambers v. Florida, Smith v. Allwright, Shelley v. Kraemer, Sweatt v. Painter, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a case that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson’s "separate but equal" pronuncement. Tragically, Charles Houston didn’t live to experience the much celebrated Brown decision.
During his sojourn, Marshal inevitably experienced the pain of denial and suffering, insufficient financial support, fear for his wife and family, and hopelessness among his clients and the people he attempted to help, He invariably experienced self-doubt and consternation about his own ability to persuade courts to adopt his then unprecedented relief.
These repeated experiences surely tested his faith in God. I am confident that Thurgood had to have had some incredible conversations with God to firm up his convictions. I am equally confident that his victories were inspired by his faith in God and the faith of the people he cared so deeply about.
As a young lawyer I was privileged to meet then Justice Marshall and to hear him speak here in Washington. His passion for justice and thirst for equality were unquenchable. I was particularly intrigued with his probing sense and understanding of law and human behavior from his years of practice and experience at the highest levels of our justice system. Thurgood Marshall saw an America that too few of us see and a history that too few of us remember.
Marshall deeply understood the fragility of mankind on the issue of race. He realized that despite our faith and fundamental morality, the simple fact of a person’s complexion, nationality, gender or religion could create a life altering societal wedge. He understood that racial bias is an individual contaminant that can pollute and destroy a society. He was very clear about what white supremacy in Germany did with Nazism and in South Africa with Apartheid. He spent his life challenging, changing and warning America of our vulnerability to this contaminant.
As early as 1935, when Marshall and Houston broke down the barrier of discrimination at the University of Maryland School of Law, the same school that rejected his law school application, Marshall hoped for a much different society and world.
Ladies and gentlemen, to Thurgood Marshall’s credit, we have come a long way as a nation and a people. Through his faith in God, Marshall breathed new life into our American legal system for each and every one of us and for future generations. It is now our responsibility to borrow from his strength, courage and vision and to carry on his legacy in our daily lives.
We are not quite where we need to be. But 145 years after the passage of the 13th Amendment, we are much closer to becoming a society with a system of law and equality where God dwells than we have ever been.
Thank you Thurgood Marshall, and thank you Mrs. Marshall.
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An Open Letter to HU Undergraduate Students
by Donald Temple, Esq.
Delivered at Howard University
February 23,2009
Sponsored by Howard University Alumni Association
HU Student Center
My Dear HU Students:
I write this letter in retrospection as an alumnus of almost 35 years; I am a member of the celebrated class of 1975. I came to Howard in the fall of 1971 as a slender, inquisitive, white Chuck Taylor (Sneakers) wearing, inner city freshman from the city of Brotherly Love.
Richard Nixon was President of the United States. Frank Rizzo was Police Commissioner and soon to be Mayor of Philadelphia. Dr. James Cheek was President of Howard University. Dr. King and Robert Kennedy had only been assassinated three years earlier. Civil rights protections and affirmative action were in their early stages. A war was raging in Vietnam and Howard University was vibrant and vocal. Black Power was still the order of the day. Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael, had by then etched the words “Black power” into the nation’s protest psyche. Soledad Brother, George Jackson, recently had been killed in San Quentin prison. Superfly and Shaft were hot movies. Hot pants and big Afros were in style. Afro-centered attire and rhetoric characterized an unprecedented black pride movement. A colorful portrait of Malcolm X was prominently displayed on the side of Cramton, the Mecca’s concert center.
The music of Isaac Hayes, Earth Wind and Fire, Mandrill, Gil Scott Heron, Rufus (Chaka Khan), Isley Brothers, Bob Marley, Osibisa, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, the Dramatics, Commodores, and Smokey Robinson echoed throughout dormitory rooms, the Quad and the Punch Out.
There were awesome professors who generously inspired our minds: Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti), Sam Yvette, Dean Evans Crawford, Charles Frye, Sharon Banks, Dr. Andrea Sullivan, Dr. Ron Walters, Ted Cooper, Oliver Killens, Dr. Russell Adams and so many others. Guest speakers like Benjamin Mays, Kwame Toure and Dick Gregory intentionally provoked our curiosity and sense of purpose.
Students’ minds were on fire. We challenged each other, our teachers and the Administration. Many student leaders routinely engaged in highly nationalist and Pan-Africanist thinking. They read Fanon, Friere, Cruise, Frazier, and Dubois; analyzed Nkrumah and Nyere; protested against Mobil Oil operations in Angola and Apartheid in South Africa and attempted to comprehend principles of change. As much as we debated and advocated, we found plenty of time to party in Bison tradition.
While at Howard, I was an active and curious student. Little did I appreciate the extent to which my undergraduate years would influence my thinking, life relationships and world view. Til this day, my closest circle of friends includes my eighth floor buddies from Meridian Hill.
I can assure you that very few schools experience the progressive professors, lectures, programs and learning opportunities that Howard offers. I attribute my consciousness, sense of collective self largely to the values that I learned at the Mecca.
Since graduating from Howard and graduate school, I have practiced law for over thirty years, taught for the same time period, and engaged in many life struggles. I have also traveled extensively and experienced many life lessons. I have visited China, the Caribbean, Central America, and Eastern and Western Europe. But my most significant and extensive visits have been to the Motherland: Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinee, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. I have seen first hand the slave castles, which embody the decadence of humanity and the fruit of colonialism and economic exploitation. This exposure has helped me to better understand the heart and soul of Garvey, Dubois, Robeson and Malcolm and myself.
As the world order rapidly changes, we see war in the Middle East and Iraq, the emergence of India and China as world economic powers, a global warming and ensuing water and food problems, an Aids epidemic, more than one million black men in American prisons, the deterioration of the black family, and lamentably, an inferior public education system. African-Americans, despite academic, political and economic accomplishments, I would argue, are still vulnerable. We have yet to harness our wealth, maximize cooperative economic empowerment or develop a productive and mutually beneficial relationship with our African brothers and sisters. We remain overly dependent on government to save us from our ills and government leaders to determine our fate. The present global economic crisis exacerbates our crisis.
I will try to share a few insights that I hope will help you in some small way and assist you in maximizing this priceless Howard experience.
First and foremost, time flies. Today you are 19 or 20. Before you know it you will be 25, 30, then 35, 40 and 50. There are 168 hours in the week, all jewels from God. Use them wisely. Half the day is over at 12 noon. Thomas Edison once said “Time is really the only capital that any human being has and the thing that he can least afford to waste or lose.”
Think, learn, study and lead. We all know that there is such a thing as “miseducation”, which Historian Carter G. Woodson wrote eloquently about in his book, “Mis-Education of the Negro.” Don’t be a robot and simply regurgitate analysis. Sort through things and remember that history is instructive. Our history requires us to be highly critical, sensitive and creative. Know yourself. The late South African freedom fighter, Steve Biko, one of my personal heroes, once said that “the greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” Harriet Tubman put it another way when she said that she would have freed more slaves if only they had known they were slaves.
I can’t underscore enough the significance of reading. My classmate, Charles Atkins, used to say that if someone wanted to hide information from Black folk they would simply put it in a newspaper. The point is that while you are young and while you are students, you have time to read and study. You have to sacrifice and prepare yourself for a challenging future. As I tell my daughters, “Nuts don’t come to the squirrel.” In this respect, keep in mind, young brothers and sisters, that immediate gratification and quick solutions won’t work.
As you mature, have vision and think outside of the box. The speed at which information travels is dynamic and will only grow faster and faster. Be sensitive to the digital divide. Many people, especially in our community, are still digitally disenfranchised. Competition will only get tougher. Adjust accordingly. Don’t think in one year increments; think in 10 and even 25 year increments. Ask yourself what will I be doing at age 30 or at age 50 Think globally and strategically. Look at problems through domestic and international lens.
Meet and learn from fellow students. While at Howard, I met students from everywhere. I wanted to know about them and I wanted them to know about me. By my junior year, I appreciated that some of the best and brightest minds on the scene were sitting in the classroom with me, standing in front of the class or lecturing at a campus event. I engaged my peers, broke bread with them, invited them home with me and visited their homes.
I started Ubiquity Service Fellowship, joined other organizations and even acted in Children’s Theater. Howard was one big laboratory where I developed my thinking and identity. And please, don’t make the fatal mistake of associating with, or judging people based upon their exterior or whether they are from the South or North. Talk to people that you haven’t ordinarily talked to and you will see what I mean. Trust me, positive life experiences and people come in all shapes and sizes. Your network for life starts now.
Learn another language. Don’t just study French, Spanish, or Chinese, master it. Language will open doors to education, opportunity and friendships and create unique and invaluable opportunities. An intelligent, bilingual student in today’s world is invaluable. In the same respect, travel as much as you can inside and outside of the United States. You must visit Africa! Reclaim your African heritage and proudly allow it to influence your sense of purpose and destiny.
Howard also taught me courage to challenge traditional paradigms. You have to be courageous in this world. It is easy to become discouraged, to retreat and even quit. Fear, my dear students, is not an option and quitters never win. Harriet Tubman challenged the status quo and had reason to be afraid. Charles Hamilton Houston challenged the status quo and had reason to be afraid. Dr. King challenged the status quo and had reason to be afraid. But they each sacrificially conquered their fears and made massive contributions that improved the quality of life for future generations. I have a little note on my desk at home which says: “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? In your studies and life endeavors fear is not an option!
Visit Washington. Unfortunately, I spent much too much time on the campus and missed exploring one of the richest cultural and political cities in the world. Leave campus. Go to the Library of Congress. Visit the African and Indian museums, the Holocaust Museum, Frederick Douglass’ House, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Vietnam Memorials, Bethune Cookman and Civil War Memorials, the Supreme Court, the Kennedy Center and local churches. Open your minds!
On any given day, Howard fed my mind and stimulated my intellectual curiosity. Don’t forget this is ultimately an intellectual training ground. Here are a few books that you might consider reading. The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria; Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams; How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney; In the Matter of Color by A. Leon Higginbotham; Groundwork: the life of Charles Hamilton Houston by Genna Rae McNeil; Mirror to America by John Hope Franklin; World’s Greatest Speeches; Oriana Fallachi: Interview with History; The Japanese Samurai Code: As a Man Thinketh by James Allen; Classic Strategies for Success; The 48 laws of Power by Robert Green; Waiting ‘til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America by Penniel Joseph; The Black Power Imperative by Theodore Cross; Powernomics by Claude Anderson; African Origins of Civilization by Cheik Anta Diop; Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere; Claiming the Earth by Haki Madhubuti, With Heart in Hand by Dr. Howard Thurman, and the Politics of Jesus by Obery Hendricks.
In closing, if life has taught me anything, I have learned to be compassionate and passionate and to know the difference between the two. I am extremely grateful for God’s many blessings, sometimes learned the hard way. “But for the grace of God goeth I.” I can truthfully say that my experience at Howard taught me to love my people and to respect humanity through service.
Life is as much, if not more about the soul as it is the mind and the body. Faith in your self and faith in God will guide us through life’s storm. Pray. Prayer works. It always has. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. I still embrace late Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell’s mantra: “Keep the Faith baby!” Keep God in your space.
Please know that the world truly belongs to you and there can be no self-imposed boundaries. You are our future. After all, if you, our best and brightest, don’t read, think original thoughts, challenge the status quo or lead us to brighter tomorrows, then who will?
Do great things in the Howard tradition.
With Much Bison Love,
Donald M. Temple, Esq.
Class of 1975
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Temple Speaks at Concerned Black Men 2008 Banquet in Philadelphia
Links to Other Speeches/Lectures:
NELA:Ending With A Bang:
Closing Arguments, from the 2008 Seminar, Trial Advocacy For The Plaintiff's Employment Lawyer,
2008
An Introduction to the National Bar Association Resolution IV:
Empowerment Through Law and Justice Agenda ("ETLJA") By Donald Temple,Esq. January 26,2004
Empowerment Through Law and Justice Agenda ("ETLJA") By Donald Temple,Esq. January 26,2004
The Black Commentator-
Temple Speaks- Rally Sets Stage on Affirmative Action Cases-April 2003(Washington Post,April 1,2003)
"Tomorrow's case can take us back to Plessy v. Ferguson," a century-old ruling that approved racial segregation under the separate-but-equal doctrine, said Washington lawyer Donald Temple.
"There are people before you who didn't have anywhere near the comfort you do," Temple told the crowd. ". . . They were not afraid of the cold, the dogs, the police."
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