Read Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America for Free Online

with people twice their age, and with Charlie Houston holed up at the YMCA, neither Buster nor Thurgood was complaining, even though money would be tighter. To make ends meet, Buster realized she’d have to contribute. Light-skinned, with wavy hair and soft brown eyes, she’d been a student at the University of Pennsylvania when she met Thurgood at a restaurant in Washington. Marshall claimed it was love at first sight, but eighteen-year-old Vivian Burey disagreed, claiming that the Lincoln University student and self-avowed ladies’ man “was so busy arguing and debating with everybody at the table that [he] didn’t even give me a second glance.” The daughter of a Philadelphia caterer, Vivian had an ample chest that had earned her the nickname Buster in her teen years—a nickname that she maintained throughout her life. She had pluck and a radiant smile, and her intelligence and outgoing personality helped her to acclimate to New York as easily as her husband did.
    Soon after they arrived in New York, Buster became involved with the Harlem cooperative grocery markets that had been sprouting up after the Great Depression to develop black economic power. Her work with the co-op helped lower the couple’s food bills each week and added a few extra dollars to their cash flow. Despite the excitement and prestige that Marshall’s work for the NAACP added to both his and Buster’s lives, financially they remained strapped. Still, the young couple had to laugh as they looked forward to better days and a bright future together. In the midst of helping Charles Houston prepare briefs for the NAACP’s first test case on educational segregation before the U.S. Supreme Court, Thurgood and Buster found themselves delivering groceries around Harlem and Washington Heights for extra cash.
    Soon Houston was lessening his workload in New York and preparing to return to Washington. Marshall was proving himself more than competent and hardworking, and Houston had no qualms about handing more responsibilities to his protégé. With Houston set to leave in July 1938, Marshall was about to be handed control of the NAACP’s legal office. He’d receive a $200 raise, so he’d now be earning $2,600 per year. “How much is that a week?” a frugal Buster wanted to know.
    In the days before Houston departed, he and Marshall went for a walk outside the office. The two could not have been more different. Houston was serious and tightly wound, whereas Marshall was folksy, familiar, and always laughing. But they shared a commitment to hard work and thorough preparation, and Houston wanted Marshall to know that he’d continue to counsel and support his former student. Houston warned Thurgood about the difficulties of working under Walter White, the executive secretary of the NAACP. White wasn’t a lawyer, but he liked to think he was at times, and he didn’t shy away from voicing opinions on legal strategies. White also had an ego, and Houston wanted Marshall to know that it would probably take some time before he’d see a reasonable salary that was worthy of the work he’d be doing. “You know how much money you’re making,” Houston said. Marshall just nodded.
    “And you can imagine how much money I make. And I still say you have more goddamn fun than I do.”
    With that, Marshall let out one of his hearty, high-pitched laughs. “Ain’t no question about that!” he said.
    Not long after Marshall’s promotion, Buster realized that the tiny flat on 149th Street wasn’t going to do for the couple anymore—not with her husband’s newfound social status. She began asking around, talking to some of the other NAACP wives, and before long she had her sights set high on the bluff.

    O N THE WAY home from Penn Station after another grueling trip south, Marshall sat in the DeSoto, eyeing the wide sidewalks in front of the Super Food Markets and Harlem tenements with “To Be Demolished” signs posted by the New York City Housing