Thurgood Marshall

The first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court , Thurgood Marshall is also remembered as the greatest civil rights lawyer of his time. During the 1940s and 1950s, he won almost every civil rights case he argued before the Supreme Court in his fight for justice and equality for African Americans.

Marshall was born on July 2, 1908. He grew up in a middle-class neighborhood. Both parents worked, his mother as a teacher and his father at a variety of jobs. Marshall was a poor student who frequently misbehaved in class. After high school, Marshall attended Lincoln University, hoping to become a dentist. His study habits did not improve in college. He failed a class and was expelled twice.

In 1929, Marshall's life turned around. He married Vivian Burey and returned to Lincoln to graduate with honors in 1930. Marshall then went to law school at Howard University. Howard was a major center for black scholars, and Marshall studied with the best teachers. Three years later, he graduated at the top of his class.

Becomes lawyer for the NAACP

In 1933, Marshall opened up his own law office in Baltimore, Maryland . In the fall of 1934, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the major national civil rights organization, had begun a legal battle to attack racial segregation (the separation of people of different races). Marshall offered at once to help the organization, and he took on a major civil rights case within a few months. In Murray v. Pearson (1935), Marshall argued before a Maryland court that the University of Maryland Law School could not prevent a black student from enrolling. The court agreed. Over the next few years, Marshall became known as a lawyer who studied carefully for his cases and argued them with common sense.

In 1936, Marshall joined the NAACP's legal office in New York. Two years later, at age thirty, he was named the organization's chief counsel, or top lawyer. In his new position, Marshall had to travel around the country arguing cases. This was especially dangerous in the South, where Marshall's life was threatened many times because he tried to end discrimination. Of the thirty-two cases he argued for the NAACP before the Supreme Court, he won twenty-nine.

Fights for equal education

The NAACP's main goal was to end racial segregation in public schools. (See Desegregation of Public Schools .) In 1896, the Supreme Court had decided in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” public schools for blacks and whites were legal under the U.S. Constitution . In practice, however, the separate schools maintained for blacks and whites were rarely equal. Black children often received a poorer education, especially in the South. Marshall and the NAACP fought against this inequality. In the early 1950s, Marshall won a number of cases that ended racial discrimination in colleges and universities. But his greatest victory came in 1954 when he argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court. The court ruled that separate public schools were harmful to black children and that this violated the constitutional rights of black children.

Mr. Civil Rights

Marshall became known as “Mr. Civil Rights” for his heroic court battles against racism and segregation. But he did not agree with the methods of the new civil rights movement that emerged in the mid-1950s. African Americans had become tired of waiting for the courts to rule, and they had seen that the courts did not have the power to enforce their rulings. Civil rights leaders began to take their struggle to the streets, using methods of civil disobedience and nonviolent protest. Marshall feared that the new methods would result in white violence and the oppression of blacks. He believed firmly that the law could bring about racial integration (mixing of the races), and he continued to press case after case through the courts toward that goal.

Becomes a Supreme Court justice

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) selected Marshall to serve as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, an important court just below the Supreme Court. There was a great stir over the appointment of an African American to the federal appeals bench. Southern Democrats in Congress fought against Marshall's appointment, but after nearly a year of delay and attacks he was confirmed. He held this post until 1965.

President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973; served 1963–69) then named him solicitor general (assistant to the attorney general, the chief lawyer for the federal government). He was the first African American to be placed in this position. Two years later, Johnson nominated Marshall to become a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Marshall served honorably on the high court for almost twenty-four years. He believed that a task of judges was to try to ensure that all persons have the possibility of living in a “just and humane society.” He believed that all persons have the right to be free of discrimination and that everyone should have access to decent education, housing, and jobs. He also believed that, in order to maintain and protect these valued liberties, the courts had to be available to all persons, regardless of their financial status. He was very critical in cases in which he felt the Supreme Court ignored the circumstances of the impoverished.

Marshall retired in June 1991 at the age of eighty-two. He died on January 24, 1993, in Bethesda, Maryland.