He was considered an unreconstructed bigot at the time. You also agree to receive marketing communications, updates, special offers (including partner offers) and other information from BET and the Paramount family of companies. Thankfully, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and its head lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, represented Spell. According to The New York Times, the FBI agents left Greenwich, unsure if they would invoke The Lindbergh Kidnapping Law with Mrs. Strubing's alleged rape, kidnapping, and attempted murder. He legally changed the spelling of his name at age six from Thoroughgood to Thurgood, because he was tired of being teased by his friends (per US Courts). The story is a bit fictionalized for dramatic effect you can read about what was real and . According to The Guardian, "Of the 455 men executed for rape between 1930 and 1972, 405 were African American." The missing note, in addition to the missing rope supposedly used to bound her, hurt the credibility of Eleanor's story. BRIDGEPORT - In the early-morning hours of Dec. 11, 1940, two truck-drivers found Greenwich socialite Eleanor Strubing wandering near the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County, N.Y. Strubing . And Marshall, who died in 1993, found a lulu in the case of Mrs. Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson), a wealthy, Greenwich, Connecticut socialite who accused her black chauffeur and butler, Joseph . Cookies help us deliver our Services. On his first day of employment with the Strubings, Joseph Spell was arrested for threatening to hurt a former employer when she wouldn't loan him money. According to The Daily News, she tearfully testified that Spell threatened her with a pocketknife, choked her, forced her to write a ransom note, and raped her "while I was helpless with my hands tied." Its not clear when he passed away. In the film "Marshall" Joseph Spell says he went to Eleanor Strubing's room to borrow money to pay back someone he lost money to while playing cards, suggesting he was an irresponsible gambler who made a string of bad choices in life. Spell said that when he went to Strubing'south sleeping room, his employer agreed to the loan, saying, "You lot've been squeamish to me, Joseph, and you lot tin can have anything I've got." However, two African Americans had been on the panel of prospective jurors. "I tin't tell you the things they said." He lived there with Virgis until his death in 1968. According to the Associated Press, the jury deliberated for 13 hours. Burey, portrayed by Keesha Sharp, was married to Marshall from 1929 until her death in 1955. But when Strubing fretted about getting pregnant, the sex stopped, leaving Spell to the devices of his "pocket handkerchief." She was fresh from the shower and wearing just a robe when Spell knocked on her bedroom door and asked if he could borrow some coin. When prosecutors offered a plea bargain, Marshall wrote to Friedman, "The more I think over the possibility suggested yesterday of Spell's accepting a 'plea' the more I am convinced that he cannot have any plea of any kind. Josh Gad portrays Sam Friedman, a Caucasian lawyer who had practiced law since the early 1920s brought in by Bridgeport, Conn.'s NAACP as Joseph Spells attorney to ensure a fair trial. "I can't tell you the things they said." According to Strubing, Spell raped her, made her get dressed, took her downstairs, bound her hands and feet, and raped her again. Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court after being appointed by President Johnson in 1967. Eleanor Paul Strubing of Lyme, Conn., widow of John Kelley Strubing Jr., was married this afternoon to John Williams Barclay of New Haven. "He hated everybody," recalled Friedman. He would file voting rights cases, employment rights cases, criminal justice cases, housing discrimination cases, and all of these victories became the blueprint for the 1964 Civil Rights Bill and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. ", On the second day of trial, Ellie Strubing entered the courthouse in a dark plaid coat and matching pillbox hat, attended by a doctor and a nurse. After deliberating for nearly 13 hours, the superior court jury of six white men and six white women acquitted chauffeur Joseph Spell of the charges. <& /legalaffairscomp/ads_articles.comp &>, Source: https://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2005/feature_sharfstein_marapr05.msp. He said she didn't want to do it in the bedroom for fear of being discovered after her pet schnauzer started barking, so they went down to the garage and had sex in the car. These characterizations from the film certainly add to the creditability of consensual sex, by suggesting Mrs. Strubing was unhappy in her marriage. Du Bois, one of the NAACP'due south founders, thought Northern cases were more than than only fundraisers. BRIDGEPORT, Conn., Jan. 31 (AP) - Joseph Spell, 31-year-old colored servant accused of criminally assaulting his employer, Mrs. Eleanor Strubing, attractive Greenwich socialite, was acquitted . "But not to Mrs. Strubing. Thurgood was also known as a prankster, a personality trait we see highlighted in the film "Marshall." A yr afterwards Spell'south amortization, Greenwich formed its own NAACP chapter. What happened Eleanor strubing? Ha ha. The woman, Eleanor Strubing, then 32, was a former model and the wife of an advertising executive. It would have not been uncommon for him to take such a case, as he was a champion against such injustices throughout his career. After taking fourth dimension off from Princeton to serve as an ambulance commuter on the Western Front in World State of war I, John K. Strubing, Jr. returned habitation and quarterbacked the 1919 Tiger football squad to victory over Yale and a tie with undefeated Harvard. I think he's one of the most underrated heroes in American history." However, white women have historically been at the helm of this terror. Marshall hadn't passed the bar in Connecticut, so the Bridgeport NAACP hired a local lawyer, Sam Friedman (Josh Gad) to induct Marshall, petitioning the court to allow Marshall to represent Spell. Sam was the architect of the case, not Marshall. These debates led Thurgood to join the debate team in high school, where he discovered he had a talent for oration (per Biography). Wendy Williams Announces Shes Formerly Retired And Wants To Be A Guest On This Show. Yes. Michael Koskoff, a trial lawyer from Connecticut who wrote the screenplay with his son Jacob, told Script, "We had some information from Sam Friedman We had notes from Thurgood Marshall that he made during the trial and notes from Sam Friedman. In real life like in the movie, attorney Sam Friedman was hired by the Bridgeport NAACP to work on the case with Thurgood Marshall. In the 2017 book The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy Tyson, Carolyn Bryant reportedly admitted to lying and claimed that she didnt remember what happened that day in the store. Marshall and his co-counsel proved evidence that Strubing lied. Latest news and commentary on Eleanor Strubing including photos, videos, quotations, and a biography. Spell insisted that, contrary to the prosecutor's statements, he had not confessed to rape and kidnapping, but merely to having consensual sex with Strubing. I don't think I could have stood it much longer" (The Helena Independent). On January 1, 1923, 22-year-old Fannie Taylor began screaming outside of her home. Past the time of the verdict, Thurgood Marshall had already left Bridgeport for the Lyons murder trial in Oklahoma. The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. 1955. This was the route that led to the landmark desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. He lives hard, he works hard. In 1941, Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson) accused her black driver of rape and attempted murder. The Bravo couple has been married since 2014. "We stopped [intercourse] and I had a discharge in my pocket handkerchief," Spell said in the deposition with his lawyers. The Hollywood star accepted the Presidents Award alongside her husband and former NBA star Dwyane Wade. In the legal thriller, "Marshall," Joseph Spell is depicted as a man who abandoned his wife and children in Louisiana when he moved to Connecticut. In 1941, a wealthy white woman in Greenwich, Connecticut, Eleanor Strubing, had her chauffeur, Joseph Spell, arrested for rape. Emmett Till would have been 79 years old on July 25 if it wasnt for Carolyn Bryant. The state's closing argument was hardly less offensive, imploring the jury to "salvage the women of Connecticut" from "deposition." The statistics stated above, by The Guardian, depict the disproportionate number of Black men who were executed for rape, revealing the inherent racism in the court system that Marshall dedicated his life's work to eradicate. She thought it was better to accuse a Black man of assault than to take accountability for her actions. Ha ha. In 1952, he died of cancer. "In 1936, Marshall moved to New York City to work full time as legal counsel for the NAACP. Fact-checking the Marshall movie revealed that Eleanor and her husband, New York advertising executive and former Princeton athlete John K. Strubing, Jr, were not in the courtroom on the day of the verdict. In addition, the defense pointed out that she never called the police during periods of time when she was by herself during the ordeal. The 2017 movie Thurgood was based on the Joseph Spell trial. "All I got to tell you is when the story got in the newspaper, all the secretaries, all of 'em, came and said, 'Hey, defend that man. In the film, Marshall and his co-council only learn Spell and Eleanor Strubing had consensual sex during the trial, probably for dramatic effect. Although . When Marshall reached Greenwich, he was met by Samuel Friedman, a white attorney hired by the Bridgeport NAACP. Bound and gagged, she complained that the bonds on her hands were cutting into her skin. Spell stuck to the story he had told Marshall and Friedman, and Greenwich police Sgt. Spell'southward story may not accept seemed closed to Friedman, but he felt confident enough to stand up with Marshall and tell reporters that Spell was innocent. In 1940, Thurgood Marshall defended a black chauffeur charged with raping his white mistressand exposed the racism of the Due north. In reality, they were not in court for the verdict. On December 12, 1940, Eleanor Strubing claimed Joseph Spell forced her to write a ransom note for $5,000, paid in small bills on the night he allegedly raped and abducted her (via The New York Times). Two days after the arrest, Thurgood Marshall, the organization's top lawyer, was on a train to Greenwich, committed to defending Joseph Spell "to the limit of our resources.". lugar, Eleanor Strubing es una mujer infelizmente casada con un hombre rico y violento que ejerce mltiples violencias sobre ella, entre ellas la violencia fsica, como lo demuestran diferentes escenas y sobre todo moretones y heridas que ella tiene en el cuerpo. "First, I knew that this was not a story about Thurgood Marshall that people would know," he said. Although Spell risked xxx years in prison, Friedman agreed. According to Biography, Thurgood credited these debates with sparking his interest in law, saying, "Now you want to know how I got involved in law? He cut them before ordering her out of the car. Yes. #Unboxed Vol. "You should know that he is a supreme court justice, but I knew people did not know this story they did not know the ending of it.". Joseph Spell ultimately was not facing the death penalty but was facing a 30-year sentence, suggesting the FBI ultimately did not invoke the Federal Kidnapping Act in The State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell. Arts & Entertainment Features REVIEW: 'Marshall' relays gripping, necessary plotline. The first grown person book I ever read was at 7 years old my mother bought me [Hughes' short-story collection] The Ways of White Folks so to be able to play him even for a moment is pretty special.. "We have past legal activeness steadied the foundation so that in the futurity, segregation must be by wish and volition and not constabulary," Du Bois wrote, "simply beyond that we take non made the slightest impress on the determination of the overwhelming mass of white Americans non to treat Negroes every bit men.". Friedman also left town, vacationing with his wife to give the neighbors a chance to absurd off. Many people may not know the race massacre began with a 17-year-old named Sarah Page. MARSHALL TOLD HIS CO-COUNSEL THAT HE DID Not BELIEVE A Discussion of Strubing's story. According to The Seattle Times, there wasn't a transcript of the court proceedings of the trial available. Spell was arrested within hours and immediately sent to jail to wait for trial. memorial page for John Kelley Strubing Jr. (29 Jun 1898-28 Jan 1961), Find a Grave Memorial ID 143539076, citing Saint Thomas Episcopal Church Cemetery, Whitemarsh, Montgomery County . -LegalAffairs.org, The true story confirms that if convicted, Spell faced up to 30 years in prison. The examining dr. had been forced to sedate her, they recalled, and when a black truck driver who had stopped to help approached her at the Kensico Reservoir, she had screamed to a police officer, "Protect me! You understand that you can unsubscribe at any time. Fannies fraudulent tears were the excuse these envious hellions needed to purge their rage. The prosecution refused to open its files or make witnesses available to the defence force and it kept Strubing in seclusion in the five weeks between Spell'southward arrest and trial. . 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