Hollywood likes this writer’s work
If a movie is made of his book about Thurgood Marshall, author Wil Haygood knows which actor should play the country’s first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I would love for Forest Whitaker to do it. He would be a great,” said Haygood, who will discuss Hollywood and Marshall next week in Central Florida.
Haygood, 61, had good fortune with Oscar winner Whitaker playing the lead in “The Butler,” a 2013 movie based on an article that Haygood wrote for The Washington Post. Whitaker portrayed a White House butler who served a string of presidents.
A big man, Whitaker would be perfect casting as the towering Marshall, Haygood said. The author explored Marshall’s rise to the court in the 2015 book “Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America.”
Hollywood is taking note of Haygood’s books. “Showdown” has been optioned by a lead “Butler” producer. Haygood’s book on Sugar Ray Robinson, “Sweet Thunder,” is being adapted for the screen, and David Oyelowo (“Selma”) has signed to play the boxer. Haygood’s book on singer Sammy Davis Jr., “In Black and White,” is under option to “Butler” director Lee Daniels.
“I have to pinch myself some mornings,” Haygood said. He worked at the Post for 12 years before leaving last year to accept a visiting professorship at his alma mater, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
But Haygood is on a quest to bring more attention to Marshall, a pivotal figure in U.S. history who died in 1993. “He’s been overlooked,” Haygood said. “He changed the law. The law forces hearts and minds to catch up.”
Haygood points to The Atlantic Monthly review of “Showdown” by Michael O’Donnell. It reads: “If Martin Luther King Jr. was the moral and spiritual leader of the civil-rights movement, Marshall was its general, and he wanted results. Instead of making speeches, he made law. As the NAACP’s top attorney from 1938 to 1961, he argued 32 civil-rights cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29.”
Marshall led the army of warriors who won the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 that overturned racial segregation in public schools.
“He [Marshall] really was a force to be reckoned with,” Haygood said. “He did the work. He didn’t sit in a fancy law firm. He’d be on road 250 days a year, raising money, speaking in churches. Many, many people don’t really appreciate his genuine accomplishments.”
Marshall helped win freedom in the courts by knocking down the walls of segregation, Haygood said, and defeating the best lawyers across the country year after year.
“This man had this dream. He had a dream way before Dr. King had a dream,” Haygood said. “I had to show the reader who he was in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, risking his life to go into Southern towns to file federal lawsuits for voting rights, jobs. His life was often threatened. He couldn’t tell people where he was staying. Often he’d hide.”
When nominated to the Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, Marshall faced Southern senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “They were Southern segre-
gationists who didn’t want Thurgood Marshall to ascend to the high court,” Haygood said. “They loathed him for the Supreme Court victories that enlarged rights.”
Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., debated Marshall in the hearings. Other opponents included Sen. James Eastland, D-Miss., and Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. But LBJ was determined to integrate the Supreme Court, Haygood said, and helped secure Marshall’s confirmation through horse-trading.
JEFF SABO
In researching the book, Haygood found a transcript at the LBJ Library of a conversation between Marshall and the former president. LBJ said he was writing a book about the Marshall confirmation. “There was such love expressed between the two men,” Haygood said. “LBJ never got a chance to write the book. I told my 22-year-old niece [the story]. She told me, ‘Uncle Wil, you wrote the book that LBJ didn’t write.’”