Jul-31 8:30pm SBS-TV: Biography – Marshall
In the year 1941, as the nation teeters on the brink of entering WWII, a nearly bankrupt NAACP sends its only lawyer, thirty-two-year-old Thurgood Marshall, to conservative Connecticut to defend a black chauffeur against charges of rape and attempted murder brought by his wealthy socialite employer.
It was a trial that quickly became tabloid fodder. In need of a high profile victory, but muzzled by the trial court, Marshall is joined by Samuel Friedman, a young Jewish lawyer who has never before tried a criminal case. Marshall and Friedman struggle against a hostile storm of fear and prejudice, driven to discover the truth in the sensationalized trial which helped set the groundwork for a career that ultimately made Thurgood Marshall America’s first African-American Supreme Court Justice. Marshall is based upon a true story.
