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47 Okla. L. Rev. 127 (1994)
A Tribute to Thurgood Marshall: A Man Who Broke with Tradition on Issues of Race and Gender

handle is hein.journals/oklrv47 and id is 137 raw text is: A TRIBUTE TO THURGOOD MARSHALL: A MAN WHO BROKE WITH TRADITION ON ISSUES OF RACE AND GENDER ANTA F. HILL* This colloquium gives me an opportunity to express my own feelings of respect and appreciation for the contributions to principles of equality made by Thurgood Marshall as a judge and, prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court, as an attorney. As well, it gives me an opportunity to learn from my colleagues here at the University of Oklahoma. Their essays on such diverse topics as international business law, the death penalty, and, of course, equal protection jurisprudence greatly inform those of us whose writing and teaching focus on those subjects which rarely receive attention from the Supreme Court, such as contracts and commercial law. Tributes, perhaps, do more for those writing them than for the person being honored, in this case Justice Marshall. Nevertheless, the comments and tributes written for this symposium, as well as the tributes written by others, since the time of Thurgood Marshall's retirement from the Court, illustrate Justice Marshall's monumental impact on American law.' Their commentaries duly note and chronicle the history of the invaluable, individual jurisprudential contributions of Thurgood Marshall in his more than two decades on the bench. In addition to pointing out contributions in specific areas of law, essays in this volume place the contributions of Thurgood Marshall within the framework of constitutional theory in general, making their contribution even more invaluable. The student of constitutional law and jurisprudence will benefit greatly from these writings. For my part I will try to put the work of Thurgood Marshall, as attorney and as judge, within another context. My tribute to Marshall attempts to put his work within the framework of the institutions and the lives which he impacted, directly and indirectly - within the framework of the vast majority of black Americans - and in particular within the framework of the experiences of African American women. The ability of the legal advances made by Justice Marshall to impact the lives of so many may stem from the fact that his jurisprudence was born of his own personal experiences.2 Perhaps Justice Marshall's greatest contribution to law and * Professor of Law, University of Oklahoma. B.S., 1977, Oklahoma State University; J.D., 1980, Yale University. This article is based on remarks given at a faculty colloquium on the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall at the University of Oklahoma Law Center, March 1993. 1. See, for example, A. Leon Higginbotham, A Tribute to Justice Thurgood Marshall, 105 HARV. L. REv. 55 (1991), and J. Clay Smith, Jr., Thurgood Marshall an Heir to Charles Hamilton Houston, 20 HASTINGS CONsr. L.Q. 503 (1993). 2. When Marshall served as legal counsel to his clients in the South, he suffered the same segregation in accommodations as did they. In addition, violence, threats of violence, and other forms

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