According to Carl Rowan, writing this impassioned biography of Justice Thurgood Marshall was tantamount to trying to write the social, legal, economic, political, and moral history of this nation over most of the twentieth century. Crucial events in American history, such as the black migration out of the postbellum South, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Depression, and the African-American revolution of the 1960s are magnificently portrayed within the context of Justice Marshall's unrelenting mission to fulfill the promise of equal justice for every American.
