I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband.

.......They used it in the script and Fishburne gave it that wicked but jovial inflection that was exactly right. Interestingly, the show ends with him saying that he would not want to be replaced by another man simply "because he was a Negro".......a line delivered with a beautiful side glance as if we all get the pathetic joke that Clarence Thomas is and tailed with the words of his father: "My Daddy taught me there was no difference between a white snake and a black snake---they both bite."

He leaves the stage with the words of former classmate Langston Hughes ringing loudly....."America will be.!" They used an excerpt from Hughes' long poem but it is exactly right for the ending of the show.

Just before that, Thurgood says he will only stop being involved in the fight "when the following happens:"

A commuter train is coming down through Connecticut picking up passengers and somewhere around Fairfield a well dressed Negro gets on. He's wearing his Brooks Brothers suit, derby hat, attache case with just the right amount of wear, and a Wall Street Journal under his arm. He boards and takes a seat. A few stops along and the car is almost filled when an obviously rich woman gets on and realizes the only seat left is by the Negro. She sits down and after awhile she simply can stand it no more and shouts out, "NIGGER--NIGGER--NIGGER!!!" The black guy leaps to his feet and screams, "WHERE--WHERE--WHERE???"

This is just a wonderful "warts, truth, and all" of a great man who lived on the front line of the American Civil Rights movement. Without a Thurgood Marshall there wouldn't have been a Civil Rights movement.   You'll get a charge out of his remarks about MLK....trust me.


Spaw