Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

Long-Distance Runners of the Civil Rights Movement \\ 133
table. But it was also a matter of necessity, since most Black lawyers, hampered
by segregation and discrimination, lacked the training, influence, and standing
that the Association badly needed. 31
The most prominent of the NAACP lawyers in the 1920s was surely Louis
Marshall. A New Yorker of German Jewish descent, Marshall was widely respected
for his distinction as a constitutional lawyer: he had built a highly successful
legal practice, centered especially in corporate law, but ranging broadly to include
the defense of minority rights; it was said that over the course of his career, he
appeared more frequently in the United States Supreme Court than anyone, save
government attorneys. A founder and longtime president of the American Jewish
Committee, chairman of the board of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and president
of Temple Emanu-El in New York City, he was distinguished, as well, for
his leadership in Jewish communal affairs. 32
The NAACP had been trying for four years to interest Marshall in its work (he
would provide a "tower of strength," they thought) before he agreed in November
1923 to join the legal committee and the board. He was concerned about the
increasingly repressive atmosphere of the 1920s: with the upsurge of lynching
and threats of racial violence, Jews as well as Blacks were especially at risk. As he
wrote in accepting the NAACP's invitation, with "the Ku Klux Klan.. .sowing
the seeds of discord throughout the country, it is the duty of those who believe in
the maintenance of America's best traditions to unite in counteracting that evil
influence." 33
The particular event that piqued Marshall's interest in the NAACP was its
Supreme Court victory in 1923 in the Arkansas peonage case, Moore v. Dempsey.
The case involved a group of Black sharecroppers in Phillips County, Arkansas,
who were trying to organize a union to better their economic situation. Stirred by
rumors that the Black farmers were planning to massacre whites and seize their
property, whites fired into an organizing meeting, killing a number of the participants.
Blacks returned the fire, and at least one of the assailants was killed. As
news of the confrontation spread, armed mobs of whites fanned out across the
countryside, hunting down Blacks and killing them on sight. By the time the violence
subsided, more than 200 Blacks and a small number of whites had lost their
lives. Seventy-nine Blacks were indicted on charges of murder and insurrection.
In a hasty trial, conducted in the presence of an armed mob, twelve of the defendants
were sentenced to death, and the remainder to prison terms ranging from
twenty years to life. Moorfield Storey, arguing the case before the Supreme Court,
persuaded the justices that the "mob spirit" in the Arkansas courtroom had made
it impossible for the defendants to get a fair trial. That was the argument that
Marshall had used unsuccessfully in 1915 in seeking to persuade the Supreme
Court to overturn Leo Frank's conviction. Storey told the Court that its stance in
the Frank case had been a mistake. Now Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had
dissented from the Frank decision, wrote the majority opinion. The Court's reversal
struck Marshall as "a great achievement in constitutional law." He sent the