On this day in 1967, civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first black Justice of the Supreme Court. A decade or so earlier, Marshall appeared on The Mike Wallace Interview television show broadcast on the DuMont television network. (This restored fragment is all that survives.) Marshall’s agile mind and quick wit displayed here might well be a revelation to those whose only memory of him was as a cantankerous, aged Justice.
Even if the guest was less compelling, Wallace’s chain smoking and shilling for sponsors make this worth viewing. We are in debted to Ira H. Gallen for rescuing and restoring this Kinescope.