Marshall – Extra credit movie
The film, Marshall, is about a trial in the early career of the first Black Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall. He is also well known for having argued the Brown v. Board of Ed., Topeka, KS trial in front of the Supreme Court. This particular case is like a famous novel by Richard Wright, Native Son, in which Bigger Thomas, a poor Black man working for a wealthy white family in Chicago, is accused of killing a young white lady. In the film, it only focuses on one part of his long career as a lawyer for the NAACP, defending Joseph Spell from accusations by Eleanor Strubing of rape.
The power dynamic between Marshall (played by the recently deceased Chadwick Boseman – a.k.a. The Black Panther, also Jackie Robinson in 42) and Sam Friedman (played by Josh Gad) inverts the normal race relations of the time with white on top and black on the bottom. Marshall is an self-possessed, extremely confident alpha male while Sam plays his sidekick (in some regards). One of the things that the movie shows is that racism isn’t limited to or just a product of the South; it’s all over the country, and when a white woman’s integrity is threatened by the dangerous Black man stereotype, the ugly side of American racism comes out.
This is one of my favorite Thurgood Marshall quotes – “None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody — a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns — bent down and helped us pick up our boots.”
Link to History Channel’s website on Thurgood Marshall – https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/thurgood-marshall
Questions:
- How do the Marshall / Friedman dynamic resemble how minorities (Black Americans / Jewish Americans) were treated in 1941? Provide specific examples.
- Why was (and what was) Joseph Spell (Sterling Brown of This is Us and The People vs. O.J.) so afraid that he would admit, under police questioning, to a rape that he didn’t commit?
- Do you believe that the judge in this case was racist? Or extremely grumpy? Something else? Why did he limit Marshall’s scope in this case? Explain w/ specific evidence from the film.
- Why doesn’t Sam Friedman want to join this case? What does he stand to lose? Explain w/ examples from the film.
- How is the systemic racism in the 1940s American justice system shown throughout this case? Explain w/ specific examples from the film.
1) Marshall and Friedman dynamic shows that even in 1941 minorities weren’t treated with full equality rights, but they did show that nothing is impossible. For example, Sam Friedman was a white jew who was defending Joseph Spell in a rape accusation case. When Sam walked out of a building three white men jumped him because he was defending and protecting a black male. Also, these men while beating him were calling him racial slurs like “kike”. Another example was when Marshall was drinking at a bar and two men approached him because he shouldn’t be here and he shouldn’t have been talking to this woman. This also caused a fight. Lastly, when Mr. Spell was driving he got racially profiled. The police officer pulled him over because he thought it was suspicious that a black male could be driving such a nice car.
2) Joseph Spell was too scared to admit a lot of things throughout his life, but specifically in this case he was to scared to tell the truth which was that there were mutual intentions on the idea of having sex with Mrs. Strubing and that he never raped her. He kept this a secret for a long time until Mr. Marshall pressured him to speak the truth. But the reason behind why he was keeping this a secret for a long time was that he was scared that his life would be endangered if people were to know the truth.
5) This whole case shows system racism in the 1940s. This whole case is about a white women falsely accusing a black male of raping her. She accused him of rape because she was scared of her husband or anybody finding out that she had intercourse with an African American. Also, I felt like the judge was unfair at times. I don’t believe that he was truly a racist, but I do believe that he was a bit biased towards the Strubing side. For example, during the cross examination with Mr. Spell the dude asked Mr. Spell such an irrelevant question but the judge says he’s fine with it because it’s cross examination. A couple of times when Mr. Friedman would ask Mrs. Strubing a question the judge would tell the jury not to use that question when coming up with a decision because it was irrelevant, but it really was a fair question. So, I don’t believe that he was racist because they ended up winning, but there was some discrimmination going on.
2. Initially, Joseph Spell refuses to tell the truth about what happened between himself and Eleanor Strubing. He lies under oath because he’s afraid of what will happen to him if he admits that he had consensual sex with a married white woman. In the movie, he explains in court that he lied because he was scared. That in Louisiana, where he’s from, such an act could get him tortured and lynched, no matter if the relationship was consensual or not.
3. It’s clear from the beginning that, before the trial has even started, Judge Foster has already drawn his own conclusions about Joseph Spell’s case. While he was not necessarily racist, he was clearly biased towards the prosecution in this case, which may have been a result of deeper racial prejudices. Foster’s bias becomes apparent in the very beginning of the film, when it’s noted that he’s a friend of the prosecutor’s father. This fact probably should’ve gotten him dismissed from the case, but he remains. Additionally, he refuses to let Marshall speak during trial, stating that he sees no reason why the defense should require counsel from out of state. Refusing to let Marshall be present at all would be an obvious display of racial prejudice, but Foster doesn’t want to take the chance that Spell could walk free, so he limits Marshall’s power as much as possible. He does the same throughout the trial. For example, he’s very conservative in what he allows the defense to bring up in court, and the objections he allows them, but does not give the same treatment to the prosecution.
4. Sam Friedman is a lawyer whose primary practice is insurance litigation, before he is roped into helping Marshall with Joseph Spell’s case by his brother Irwin. Initially, Friedman is very reluctant to get involved any more than is absolutely necessary, due to the high-profile, controversial nature of the case. He fears that, by assisting Marshall, he risks his reputation in town. When the people of Bridgeport find out that he’s legally defending a man who, in their minds, brutally attacked a beloved member of the community, he may be shunned. He could lose his business, and his livelihood. His safety, or that of his family, could be jeopardized. In fact, his fears are realized later in the film, when he’s assaulted by a group of men for being part of Spell’s defense team.
How do the Marshall / Friedman dynamic resemble how minorities (Black Americans / Jewish Americans) were treated in 1941? Provide specific examples.
Marshall and Friedman’s dynamic resembled how minorities (Black Americans/ Jewish Americans) were treated in 1941, by showing discrimination towards both of them. While at first, Friedman’s synagogue members had given him dirty looks and thought he was out of his mind for working on a case involving a black lawyer and a defendant who was a black man accused of rape, in the middle of the film we see Friedman get called a kike by the opposing lawyer for Eleanor Strubing. At first, Friedman thought he was better than Marshall, Friedman thought he was closer to the white people than Marshall. But this idea Friedman had changed when he started being discriminated on due to his religion. Marshall also gets discriminated on, he is called a derogatory term at the beginning of the film when getting on a train. 3 white hillbilly’s try to scare him with a gun, after Marshall was done working on a case. In the case both Friedman and Marshall work on, Marshall is told by the judge that he can’t speak. Both Friedman and Marshall are discriminated on, they come to learn that they can only work together. They are both hated, for either the color of their skin, or for their religion. In 1941, Jews and blacks were discriminated against, Friedman and Marshall working on a case together is very rare, they automatically have the lower hand. They can both relate to hardships they have, that’s why they can work so well together.
Why was (and what was) Joseph Spell (Sterling Brown of This is Us and The People vs. O.J.) so afraid that he would admit, under police questioning, to a rape that he didn’t commit?
Joseph Spell was so afraid that he would admit, under police questioning, to a rape that he didn’t commit. Spell was afraid that if he told the truth about how Strubing and him had an affair and that the sex was consentual, that he would be killed by hanging, and have his manhood cut off. Spell didn’t want to be beat and killed viciously, and he didn’t think anyone would believe his side of the story. Racism in America was everywhere, he didn’t think he had a chance of winning even though he was innocent. Instead of dying and being humiliated because Strubing had made a mistake, he would take jail time. Spell knew that a jury could be biased toward the women, or be full of racist people, and he thought the true story wouldn’t be believed or listened to. He would rather lie and say he committed a crime so he wouldn’t die, be beaten, and be humiliated.
Do you believe that the judge in this case was racist? Or extremely grumpy? Something else? Why did he limit Marshall’s scope in this case? Explain w/ specific evidence from the film.
I don’t think that the judge in this case was not racist, but also not extremely grumpy. I think he was scared of the fact that a white woman had been raped by a black man. I think he was even more scared of Marshall’s reputation. He was a good lawyer, who many times, got justice for the people he had been defending. The judge limited Marshall’s scope in this case because he didn’t think that Friedman could do this case. In the beginning of the movie, Friedman says that he hadn’t practiced the type of law that was needed for this case. When the judge said only Friedman could speak in court during the case, he knew Friedman wasn’t at the same skill level as Marshall. I think the judge felt uncomfortable with black people, which could’ve been another reason that he benched Marshall. I think the judge was uncomfortable around black people because in court, he let Willis talk a lot more, he also never gave a reason for not letting Marshall speak during the trial. I also think the judge was uncomfortable with the case topic, a black man raping a white woman. Many people in the 1940s would not believe that a white women would consensually have sex with a black man, especially their worker. Views on blacks in the 1940s was that they were disgusting people who didn’t deserve to be treated equally. The judge may have been biased in the beginning, which can be shown by not letting Marshall speak, even though originally it was his case, and by being friends with Willis’s father.
1) One thing in the time period 1846-1861 that I think impacted the start of the war was the rising tension between the north and the south over the issue of the legality of slavery. Some of the main issues were the northern half of the united states was anti slavery and the southern half was pro slavery. This caused many disagreements and put the United states into a political war. This created two sides and the political conflicts slowly turned into small fights and eventually, the civil war.
2) The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven southern states to form the Confederate States of America, four more states soon joined them. The War Between the States, known as the Civil War, was a war between the confederates and the Union. I believe that this did make the Civil war inevitable because this set two sides and confirmed that there was going to be a battle of some sort.
2. The systemic racism in the 1940’s American justice system scared Joseph Spell to the point that he was willing to admit to a rape that he did not commit. Throughout the movie as Marshall and Friedman inch closer to proving Joseph Spell innocent, the lawyers for Eleanor Strubing, who accused Spell of rape, began to offer deals to Spell. If Spell denied the deals he had the chance of being prosecuted guilty and being sent to death row. If Spell accepted the deals and admitted to rape, he would serve a lessened sentence and be released after around 5 years. With both of these outcomes realistic and him thinking that the jury finding him not-guilty unlikely because of the racism within the court system, Spell was willing to admit to a rape he did not commit. If it weren’t for the persuasion of Marshall, I would have found it very probable that Spell accept the deal and confess to a rape he did not commit.
3. I believe that the judge in this case was racist in that he would not help and rather try to hold back Marshal and his client because of their race, but at the same time he felt strong about justice and putting the right man away. This is why I believe that in the beginning he said that Marshall could not speak in court, and later why he would tell the jury to disregard some questions and information. Although, his duty as a judge and I think his deep down feeling of justice later led to less restrictions for Marshall and Friedman, and less benefits of Eleanor Strubing’s lawyer. Another reason I think he limited Marshall’s scope on the case other than him being racist, was that he knew Strubing’s lawyer personally, and wanted to give him advantages. He also probably knew how great of a lawyer Marshall was and wanted to lessen his impact on the case.
4. Sam Friedman doesn’t want to join the case because he has a winning record that he wants to keep. He doesn’t think Spell has a good chance at being proven not guilty. Also, the case would bring a lot of negative attention that he did not want to bring to his family because they were Jewish and WW2 was happening. Sam Friedman stands to lose the respect of his neighbors and the safety of his family. In the movie Sam Friedman gets beat up and called horrible names after his routine swim at his pool.
1. The Marshall and Friedman duo shows how minorities were treated poorly in 1941. We see this in multiple situations. First, we see this when Sam Friedman gets jumped on the streets. His attackers called him derogatory terms, and proceeded to beat him because he is Jewish. They did not get in trouble with the police, which shows how minorities could be treated poorly and nobody would care. We also see this when Thurgood is in the bar, and gets attacked by other people in there. The only reason for their attack was that Thurgood was black, and they didn’t like him because of this. These two examples show how minorities were attacked simply because they were different from the majority during that time, and the attackers weren’t punished.
3. I think the judge was racist during this case. He was disrespectful to Thurgood Marshall, and looked for excuses to not let him defend Joseph Spell. He tried everything to not let Marshall defend Spell, which I believe his decision was influenced by racism. I believe that the judge didn’t want a black many to speak in his courtroom simply because of the color of his skin. He wouldn’t even let him talk out loud at all during the case. I also believe he was racist because of the way he treated both sides. When Sam Friedman is cracking down on Mrs. Strubing’s story, her lawyer would object, and the judge would grant the objection. However, when Joseph Spell was being questioned, every time Sam Friedman objected, it was overruled by the judge, which I believe is due to the color of Spell’s skin. He may have only been biased towards the prosecutors, but I believe he was racist.
5. This film shows how minorities had a lower chance than majorities in the court of law. Going into the case, Mrs. Strubing was believed by many, purely because she was white. However, the opposite was correct for Joseph Spell. Going into this case, nobody believed him, and it took everything that they had to keep him free. Throughout the case, Sam Friedman would ask a reasonable question, and the prosecution would object. The judge would accept the objection and tell the jury to disregard the question. However, when the same was done by the defense, the judge would let the question stand. This shows racism because the justice system favored majorities over minorities for no reason other than the fact that they were a majority.
3. I believe the judge in this case was racist because he did not let Thurgood Marshall speak to the people on the stand and did not seem to put up with Marshall. He would disregard the discrimination in the court room and he kept Friedman and Marshall to a very strict schedule even when they only asked for five minutes to talk to each other since the judge would not let Marshall speak. When they asked for five minutes, he said that they could only take exactly five minutes and kept it very strict. Of course, this could just be the way he ran the courtroom, but as it was seen before in the movie, the judge was discriminating against Marshall by not allowing him to talk in the courtroom so it is very unlikely that he was being strict just because that is the way he ran the courtroom. The judge limited Marshall’s scope because he knew Marshall was good at what he did and did not believe that Spell was innocent. Although at the end of the film, the judge disagreed with the man arguing for the other side and he did seem to change his mind about Marshall and the case.
4. Sam Friedman did not want to join the case because he was worried about his reputation being ruined because he was defending a black man. He is afraid of what people may think of him once he is a part of this case. He could have lost his own social life, which he cherished very much. He was afraid of losing his wife and his status in society. Many times in the film, Friedman attempts to get himself out of this case. He says he does not want to lose his job. In the scene where Friedman and his wife are in a temple, many people are looking at him and seem to be judging him. When Sam Friedman first took the case, his wife stopped talking to him. He claimed he could not get out of the case, though he tried every chance he got to not have anything to do with the case.
5. There are many instances in this case where there is systemic racism. The first instance of systemic racism is when Marshall is told he cannot speak for his side and instead has to have Friedman speak. This is one of the first instances of systemic racism in this case and it doesn’t even have to do with Spell himself. This shows that any Black American in a courtroom in 1940 will somehow be silenced or discriminated against in some way. There is also systemic racism when the jury is first being appointed and a man comes to the stand and says that he does not like colored people and does not particularly like Jewish people either. Friedman and Marshall claim he has a bias. The judge asks him if the bias will affect his beliefs in the courtroom about the case and he says it will not. The judge then decides that he is fine and it should not matter that he is biased.
2. Joseph Spell was scared of admitting that he raped Eleanor Strubing, even though he didn’t, because of the consequences that could turn against him in his home state of Louisiana. In fact, he confessed himself that, over there, he could be killed for having sex with a white woman, even if it was consensual. In Louisiana, a relationship between a white individual and a black individual was just not thought to be possible.
4. Sam Friedman doesn’t have experience in criminal cases. He is a young lawyer in a small town, and he is scared that his practice, reputation, and family will suffer if he fails to succeed in this case. For example, when Friedman went to church with his family, all of the people there started to look at him with a judging eye, and one woman even asked Sam Friedman’s wife why the promising lawyer chose to take part in this case, thus putting her criticizing thoughts out loud. Friedman’s reputation was starting to get down, and his family was being involved in this, without having their saying in the matter. Also, the viewer can see that Friedman wasn’t familiar with criminal cases as, when he was determined as the lawyer to defend Joseph Spell, he was given three big books to read by Thurgood Marshall, in order to get more knowledgeable about criminal cases.
5. Systematic racism was present in the 1940s American justice system, and it is visible in the movie Marshall.
First of all, Thurgood Marshall was not recognized as the lawyer in the case, when he asked the judge for permission (he had to do that because he came from a different state than Connecticut). The judge refused to give Marshall this position of lawyer in the case, saying that the state of Connecticut already had some greatly capable people in that profession. According to me, this was an example of an act done because of Marshall’s color, and to try to weaken Joseph Spell’s defense.
Secondly, during the case, the judge often said that the comments made by Friedman in favor of Joseph Spell’s defense would be dismissed, and thus not taken into account. This is another way that the judge made the case go in favor of Eleanor Strubing, the white woman accusing Joseph Spell of raping her. This is a different example of racism in this case, as the colored man that was Joseph Spell was being adjudicated by an impartial and biased judge.
3. Yes, I think that the judge was racist. While I don’t think that he was any more racist than anyone else at that time period, I think that he was still racist. He clearly didn’t want Marshall to win the case, hence why he wasn’t allowed to talk, but he also wanted to say true to the law. He wanted to hold a fair trial. We see this when spell says that he lied about what had happened because if the truth got out he’d be killed. When Willis tried to get the answer stricken, the judge let it stand. He didn’t want to let it stand, but he knew that it was the only way to hold the trial in a fair and legal way.
4. Sam doesn’t want to join the case because he knows that black people of the time were not very likely to win trials, especially ones in which it is the word of a black man against that of a white woman. He didn’t want to have to put that loss on his record. On top of that, he tried civil cases, many of which for rich white people who wanted nothing to do with a lawyer who fights for African Americans. He was scared that when Marshall left town, he would have a tattered reputation and nobody to fall on.
5. It is shown with the obstacles that Marshall and Friedmen had to go through. The judge did everything that he could to tilt the case. Marshall wasn’t allowed to speak. To me, this is symbolic of the struggle in the African American community of the course of this country, because all if the people who struggle with discrimination and racism are silenced. They cant talk. This movie also shows that against all odds, those who struggle with racism have won/are winning these battles. It is happening slowly, but the fight against racism is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We can start to picture a day in which racism is a thing of the past, something that we only see in movies.
1. And 4.)
I believe that the dynamic between Thurgood Marshall and Sam(uel) Friedman was representative of the anti-Semitism and racism in 1941. For a little historical context, the Holocaust started in around 1941, contributing to widespread antisemitism. Also, segregation wouldn’t be outlawed in the United States until 1964 with The Civil Rights Act, which in itself wouldn’t even end racism. Because of these two discriminatory things that were taking place, Jewish Americans and Black Americans were not treated with the respect that their white counterparts were. This is reflected in their relationship in two ways. Firstly, outward influences, such as the judge who refused to allow Thurgood Marshall to speak for Joseph Spell, influenced their relationship by showing the discrimination they faced. This was one of the reasons that Sam Freidman initially didn’t want to join the case. He understood that his faith was something he could hide, and although he seemed to be proud of his faith, he was in a different situation than Friedman, because his ‘differentness’ was something that wasn’t as ‘obvious’ per se, as the color of Marshall’s skin. I think that he tried to stay out of controversial things like the Spell case because he knew that he would be scrutinized with more intensity. In the beginning, he was scared to lose his reputation and the business of the white people in his town. A good example of that was when he confronted Marshall with the fact that Marshall could say what he wanted because he would be eventually leaving the town, but that Friedman would be stuck with the consequences for the both of them. Secondly, I believe that inward influences, like Marshall’s devotion to the NAACP, and the advancement of equality, rubbed off onto Freidman, as is shown at the end of the film when they reveal that Freidman would go on to become more involved with future Civil Rights cases, which stands in stark contrast to his initial hesitation in that area. Also, an important thing to note is that they both eventually do get attacked, although it’s not explicitly stated that it’s because of their race/faith.
2.) Joseph Spell was afraid to admit under police questioning that he had consensual intercourse with Eleanor Strubing, a white woman. He was afraid to admit it because he feared that he would be treated like other black men at the time in Louisiana who slept with white women. He said that they would be lynched after possible dismemberment. He then stated that he lied because the truth would kill him. This fear of what could possibly happen to him if he admitted this to the police outweighed his fear of what could happen if his testimony was disproven in the beginning, before he was eventually proven otherwise and forced to come clean.
1.The Marshall/Friedman dynamic resembled how minorities were treated in 1941 because they had many challenges that were thrown in their path simply because of their race or religion. They were also treated differently and suffered many injustices. Systemic racism in the justice system going unchecked was very prevalent during that time period, even more so than now. One of the examples from the movie where this was demonstrated was when the judge did not let Thurgood Marshall represent Joseph Spell. Everything he wanted to achieve in the courtroom had to be done through Sam Friedman. Another example of this in the movie was the fact that Joseph Spell was presumed guilty until proven innocent. At the beginning of the movie when Thurgood Marshall wanted to meet him, he was locked away in a jail cell. Anti-Semitism was shown towards Jewish people during that time as well and it was much worse than it is now. Sam Friedman was treated differently in the courtroom by the judge and oftentimes not allowed to finish his point. He was also called a k*ke which is a very offensive term to Jewish people. Both Thurgood Marshall and Sam Friedman were jumped by large groups of white men because they wanted to scare them away from the case and the people of the town didn’t want to see Joseph Spell walk free.
2. Joseph Spell was so afraid that he admitted to rape he didn’t commit because he didn’t want anyone to find out that the sexual relationship between him and Mrs. Strubing was consensual. He knew that even if he told the truth in court and he was able to walk free, he would be in danger of getting lynched by an angry lynch mob who thought that race mixing was an abomination. Another thing that he was worried about was the fact that Mrs. Strubing was married. Her husband was a mean man and also happened to be his former boss. He would have been admitting to participating in a cheating scandal.
4.Sam Friedman didn’t want to join this case because he already knew about all the backlash he would receive for defending a black man who was already perceived to be guilty by the public and for working with the NAACP. He was very hesitant at first because by joining this case, Sam Friedman risked losing his practice(he was the sole provider for his family). He also risked ruining his reputation in the town. Freidman didn’t want Marshall to do anything or say anything too drastic to the press because he knew that he would have to continue his life and practice with the same people once the case was over and Marshall left town. Another thing that Friedman came to worry about overtime and risked by working on the Spell case was his safety. Sam Friedman wasn’t worried about his safety until he was jumped by a group of men who were angry that he was working on the Spell case. He became very cautious and even worried about the safety of his home.