Sainthood for Thurgood Marshall?????

[ElMariachi]

Episcopalians from a church where the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall worshipped are asking their denomination to name him a saint.

Marshall, who died in 1993, was a towering figure in the civil rights movement and the first black justice to sit on the nation's highest court.


Members of St. Augustine's Church in Washington, D.C., will seek initial approval for the honor Friday from delegates to the convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington


Two consecutive meetings of the denomination's national legislature - which gathers every three years - will then consider the proposal.


"His Christian faith was deep inside his being and it was this faith which was the foundation and source of his energetic pursuit of justice," said the Rev. Thomas Smith, retired rector of St. Augustine's.



If approved, Marshall's name would be added to the Book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, a primary worship book for the New York-based denomination. A feast day in his honor would be celebrated May 17, the anniversary of his victory in Brown v. Board of Education.
In the landmark 1954 case, attorney Marshall argued that the high court should overturn racial segregation in public schools. He was named a Supreme Court justice in 1967.


Criteria for Episcopal sainthood include whether the nominee was an "extraordinary or even heroic" servant of God and whether the person served humanity on behalf of Christ, according to the worship book.


Among other contemporary Episcopal saints are the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Florence Nightingale.



*I think its not a bad way to recognize a true giant in the civil rights movement. Not a hypocrite or charlatan like Sharpton and Jesse Jackson but a true leader and a man who did so much to bring about equality in this nation. I have always respected Thurgood Marshall and have read about him a great deal. He was a true leader in the African American community, something that is greatly lacking nowadays. He didn't go out and blame people, but instead encouraged people to stand up, be strong, to excel and he pursued justice where it was needed.


A very tremendous man, I just feel that he is often underrated in terms of civil rights leaders but he had a major impact on the lives of all Americans, but especially in the African American community.