When you think about the history of civil rights in the United States, if you think about the subject at all, the setting that probably comes to mind is the American South.  To be more specific, it is the parts of the country that seceded from the Union during the Civil War.  This is where many of the significant events of the movement took place, like the Montgomery, Alabama, Bus Boycott of 1955, or the Freedom Rides of 1961.  Not all of the key milestones in the struggle for racial equality happened on public transport, or in the states south of the Mason Dixon Line.  Indeed, one of the biggest, the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision of 1954, widely credited with beginning the process of desegregating schools, demonstrates that racism was not a sectional issue.  Speaking of that United States Supreme Court ruling, many people look at it as having launched the career of the future first African American justice to serve at the highest level of our Judicial Branch, Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman).  As the film Marshall (2017) suggests, the 1954 case was actually one of many feathers in the cap of an already storied career by that time.

Though the movie is named for Thurgood Marshall, who we see first arguing a trial in Oklahoma in 1941, at the same time we are introduced to Sam Friedman (Josh Gad).  Sam is an insurance lawyer in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Both are successful in their early endeavors, though it is on the considerably more brash Thurgood that we devote the most attention.  He is recalled to the headquarters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) in Harlem, New York City, in order to be given a new assignment.  In Bridgeport, Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), an African American employee of the Strubing family, has been arrested.  He is accused of raping and attempting to murder socialite Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson).  According to reports, after the sexual assault, he brought her to a bridge over a local reservoir and pushed her in, throwing rocks at her to finish her off.  She survives the ordeal, flags down a passing truck, and later tells the police of Joseph’s supposed impropriety.  The NAACP specializes in defending non-white peoples who they believe are wrongly incarcerated, and Thurgood is one of the lawyers they often send to provide legal counsel for that person.  However, because he is not local to Bridgeport, he needs to have one who lives in the area work with him.  This is how he gets attached to Sam, who is initially reluctant to be a part of the case.  Sam, though, acquiesces to Thurgood’s forceful nature, and they go to interview Joseph.  The accused maintains his innocence.  That may be true, but the defense has to contend with prejudice from nearly every corner of society.  This is on display when the lawyers first appear before Judge Carl Foster (James Cromwell), the man at the bench hearing the trial.  Judge Foster thinks little of Thurgood, so much so that while he allows the out-of-town attorney to remain in the courtroom, Thurgood is not allowed to speak.  This means that Sam must be the one to do all the in-court work during the trial, which is a difficult proposition for Thurgood to manage.  It turns out to be less than ideal for Sam, too, because Thurgood sees his counterpart as not being on equal footing in terms of their skills at practicing law.  Their differences continue to surface during the jury selection process until they get to Mrs. Eugenia Richmond (Ahna O’Reilly).  As a woman from North Carolina, Sam believes she should be dismissed because he assumes she would be racist.  Thurgood, though, sees in her an imperious woman who will not be cowed, and who seems to have taken a liking to Sam.  Sam is a happily married man, by the way, but the smirk she gives him convinces him of the veracity of Thurgood’s instincts.  Though they begin to work better together, Sam and Thurgood face many challenges during the trial, not the least of which is the institutional racism.  For example, the medical witness, Dr. Maurice Sayer (Jeffrey DeMunn), brought in to testify to physical evidence on Eleanor that pointed to rape, changes on the stand an element of his previous affidavit.  Though it was not listed before, he avers that African American skin had been found under Eleanor’s fingernails, which could be evidence of fighting off an assault.  Yet, the biggest twist in the case comes when the prosecution, led by Lorin Willis (Dan Stevens), demonstrates that Eleanor had been aware that Joseph had been pulled over by the police.  That had been Joseph’s alibi since the officer had not noted her presence in the car.  It shows Sam and Thurgood that something has been wrong all along with their assumptions.  As it turns out, Eleanor and Joseph had consensual sex, she being dissatisfied with her husband’s, John Strubing (Jeremy Bobb), constant beatings and often being away on business.  When Joseph came to her room to ask for money, she sought his comfort.  After the act, she became paranoid that someone would find out about the affair, and this is what led to them taking a ride.  Her plunge into the water had been a half-hearted suicide attempt, thwarted when her skills as a swimmer took over.  When this is first brought up with Eleanor on the stand, she, naturally, vehemently denies any infidelity.  What convinces the jury are a number of doubts laid out by Sam in his closing arguments, including the fact that she did not scream and other inconsistencies in her own testimony.  As for Joseph, when asked why he did not admit to all this upon being arrested, he reminds those gathered as to what happens to people of his color involved in such affairs.  Let us just say that they usually do not get to trial.  Thurgood, though, is not present for the reading of the verdict of innocence.  Instead, he is once more on the road, learning about the result on a staticky payphone in Mississippi, which is where the film ends.

What I described in the synopsis does not do justice to Thurgood Marshall, no pun intended.  Still, I am not sure the movie does, either.  It focuses on a court case early in his law career, yet I would argue that it is just as much about Sam as the future Supreme Court Justice.  To underscore this, we see them both face racial violence, with Sam probably getting the worse beating for being Jewish and working with a black man.  Still, it is Thurgood that has the most at stake in the case, being the representative of a growing national movement that many evidently did not want to see succeed.  What one can appreciate about his character as a Catholic and Christian is his unwavering approach to injustice.  At one point, he talks of his belief that if one wants freedom, one has to be willing to fight for it.  This comes as Joseph is contemplating a plea bargain that would see him admit guilt in exchange for a short prison sentence.  Such attitudes are apparently how Thurgood was raised.  Later, he talks about how his father taught the young Thurgood to brawl anyone who called him a derogatory name.  This is not something Jesus would do, but one should not mistake His passivity for being cowed.  In Luke 22:36, even Jesus says there is a time for the sword, though, admittedly, such a line is taken out of its proper context.  The Scripture I was reminded of while watching the film is Matthew 21:12-13 when Jesus overturns the moneychangers’ tables in the temple.  He does this after re-entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, calling these peddlers in verse thirteen “a den of thieves.”  The tendency for us when we see something so outrageously wrong is to take up a literal sword, and perhaps even lash out violently.  As the film, and Matthew 21:12-13 suggest, there are different approaches to such situations.  It takes a special kind of person to pursue those alternatives, as their lives attest.

Marshall is a good movie, and another one about which I am unsure as to why I did not see it in the theaters.  I have to confess to getting excited about the kinds of speeches you see in this movie because they are evidence of the best of us when facing the worst of us.  For these reasons, I give it my full recommendation.