Dr. King and Thurgood Marshall shared a fraternity, but differed on tactics to bring about social change.
Thurgood Marshall and Dr. King were unquestionably two titans of the modern civil rights movement, yet they had profound differences in their views of civil disobedience and the role of law.
For more than two decades before King emerged as the leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, Marshall risked his life and gradually chipped away at the “separate but equal” doctrine articulated in the notorious 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case and quickly codified from practice into law in large parts of the country.
Jeff Kelly Lowenstein's Blog 