Did Thurgood Marshall understand the benefit of guns to blacks?

With the death of Cecilia Marshall, Thurgood Marshall’s wife, the New York Times has an article on her life. Here is one interesting tidbit about blacks carrying guns for protection.

She also accompanied defense lawyers on sometimes harrowing assignments to the segregated South during the civil rights movement.

“I remember riding in one car with Thurgood, and one of the branch members says, ‘Judge, open up that glove compartment,’” she recalled in the oral history. “And he opened it up. He says, ‘You see? There’s a Bible there, and there’s a gun there.’ He says, ‘We use the Bible first. If that doesn’t work, we use the gun.’”

Sam Roberts, “Cecilia Marshall, Rights Advocate and Widow of Justice, Dies at 94,” The New York TImes, November 24, 2022.