When I heard that University of Maryland law school professor Sherrilyn Ifill had taken the reins of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, I was deep into the reading a new book about the early life of Thurgood Marshall.
A brilliant civil rights lawyer, who founded the fund and later became the first black on the U.S. Supreme Court, Marshall orchestrated the legal battle that desegregated Maryland’s law school,whose library now bears his name. Had it not been for Marshall’s victory in the Maryland case — the first in the nation to force the integration of a white law school — the legal career that has propelled Ifill to the top ranks of the fight for racial justice might never have happened.
And that would have been this nation’s loss.
