Hello friends, welcome. So excited that you're joining me today because this is the first

episode in a special series that we're kicking off. And this series is called Momentum.

The series is months in the making and I hope you are really going to enjoy it.

The concept behind Momentum is that it was a series of sometimes very small events that have changed America.

A series of ordinary people who went on to do extraordinary things. And it was those people and events that created the momentum that propelled a civil rights movement,

that propelled people and their struggle for freedom. So with that said, let's dive in.

I'm Sharon Lefand and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast.

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We cannot start talking about momentum without first introducing you to a couple of people.

And the first person I need to introduce you to was a man born in 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland. And his name at birth was thorough good.

And he got tired of spelling out the word thorough good. And so in second grade, he was like, you know what I'm done. I am done with spelling out thorough good. And he shortened his own name in second grade to Thurgood.

This name was Thurgood Marshall. And I bet that name rings a bell to you. I bet at some point if you have not spent a lot of time learning about the civil rights movement, that names somewhere deep in the recesses of your brain makes you go like, ding, I've heard that name before.

During Thurgood Marshall's childhood, he and his family lived in a very racially diverse middle class neighborhood in Baltimore. He attended segregated schools because those were the schools available to him.

A previous Supreme Court decision created this doctrine of separate, but equal that it was perfectly acceptable for schools to segregate themselves racially, as long as they were providing quote unquote equal accommodations.

And so Thurgood attended segregated schools and he graduated from his city's colored high school. That's what it was called colored high school in 1924 when he was 16 years old. And Thurgood's father William was very interested in court trials. And as a hobby, would take Thurgood with him to observe court trials.

And then they would come home and talk about it. Thurgood Marshall would go on to tell the story about how when he was growing up, his father would ask him to retell everything that happened at the trial that they had just watched. And then he would argue with him about everything.

And Thurgood Marshall said his dad was not an attorney, but he made me into one.

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