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What makes Thurgood Marshall's approach to moral challenge all the more remarkable is that he often litigated civil-rights and criminal cases at risk to his own life. He received death threats, was confronted with mobs, and sometimes had to change cars in the middle of the night to avoid those who intended, literally, to string him up. Yet none of these threats turned him bitter, or served to sour him on his fellow human being. I once asked him what kept him going through all the decades of fighting racial oppression. He always believed, he answered, that most people want to do the right thing. And "most people" included the segregationists.

And if Marshall could reach out across the divide of segregation and meet people on the other side with respect and even affection, and so make deals to move the country forward, is it really impossible to imagine the rest of us doing the same?

Imagine that: a politics actually worthy of adults.

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January 2005, Vol. 49, No. 1