My mother worked for Thurgood at the NAACP in New York in the late 1950's after graduating from Yale Law school. She worked on many cases one of which was the famous Cooper v. Aaron case. I was studying this case in law school when noticed the date of the argument and mentioned it to my mom.

She related the following story to me: She had worked up that case and was looking forward to the oral argument. Thurgood would be handling it. Before I go further let me mention that my mon was one tough young white jewish woman. Early that week she began to notice that something was up in the office and expecially with Thurgood.

She thought it had to do with the upcoming argument but little did she know it had to do with her. She was very pregnant at the time with her first child, but she had not let that stop her for a minute for the past nine months. Finally, Thurgood came into her office the morning before the argument and said they had to talk.

Thinking it was about the case my mom was off and running with legal arguments and case law when all of the sudden, Thurgood said, "Irmsy (his pet name for Irma), you can't go to the argument." Now you can imagine my mom's surprise but before she could get angry he said, "Irmsy, I am not about to be standing on that marble floor before nine male justices of the Supreme Court of the United States of America arguing another one of these most important cases worrying only about whether your water is going to break all over that marble."

What could my mom say. She humbly accepted the bosses order and did not go to the argument which occurred on August 27, 1958. Since I was born the very next day, I guess Thurgood was an extremely smart man.