The James Logan Courier

By Cary Darling
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

Every decade or so it happens.

African music, often exiled by the pop mainstream into the land of world-music exotica, threatens to make a broader incursion into American consciousness.

The '60s: South Africans Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba scored breakthroughs while the New York group the Tokens went to No. 1 with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," their take on a Zulu song written in 1939.

The '70s: Cameroon's Manu Dibango comes up with a global hit in 1972, the sweaty, sax-drenched instrumental Soul Makossa, considered by some to be the first disco track.

Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Before becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education. He was nominated to the court by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, the great-grandson of a slave. His original name was Thoroughgood, but he shortened it to Thurgood in second grade because he disliked spelling it. His father, William Marshall, who was a railroad porter, instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law. Additionally, as a child in Baltimore, he was punished for his school misbehavior by being forced to write copies of the Constitution, which he later said piqued his interest in the document.