A Voice for Those Who Had None

On December 9, 1952, Thurgood Marshall stood before the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and spoke on behalf of children who could not speak for themselves. As lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Marshall argued that Linda Brown — a seven-year-old girl from Topeka, Kansas — should not have to walk past a whites-only school near her home to attend a segregated school across town. Her case, consolidated with four others, would become Brown v. Board of Education.

Marshall did not argue with rage. He argued with reason, evidence, and an unshakable conviction that the Constitution's promise of equal protection meant something. When the Court requested re-argument, he returned in December 1953 and pressed the case again. On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren read the unanimous decision: "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Marshall had opened his mouth for those who could not open theirs. He had judged righteously and pleaded the cause of the vulnerable.

Proverbs 31:8-9 calls every believer to this same holy work: "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." Justice is not an abstract ideal. It is a voice raised in a specific room, on behalf of a specific child, before the powers that hold her future in their hands.