The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit – a spirit that demands self-expression .
THURGOOD MARSHALLIt is a historic step toward eliminating the shameful practice of racial discrimination in the selection of juries.
More Thurgood Marshall Quotes
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The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.
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Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.
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Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws.
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Truth is more than a mental exercise.
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We can always stick together when we are losing, but tend to find means of breaking up when we’re winning.
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We must dissent from the fear.
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If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.
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Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place.
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Surely the fact that a uniformed police officer is wearing his hair below his collar will make him no less identifiable as a policeman.
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To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy.
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Some years ago I said in an opinion that if this country is a melting pot, then either the Afro-Americans didn’t get in the pot or he didn’t get melted down.
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In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.
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Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.
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History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
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Today’s Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish.
THURGOOD MARSHALL






