Marshall, Thurgood

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Marshall, Thurgood 1908-1993

In 1967 Thurgood Marshall, who was born in Baltimore on July 2, 1908, became the first African American appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Marshall’s twenty-four-year tenure as a justice was marked by a strong interest in protecting the rights of criminal defendants (e.g., protection against illegal search and seizure) and opposition to the death penalty (Furman v. Georgia, 1972). Marshall’s appointment to the Court was part of a successful career as an advocate for the protection of civil rights. Marshall dedicated his career to enhancing access to every arena of public life, with a particular focus on education, housing, employment, and voting. He believed that promoting equal rights under the law was essential to the proper functioning of democracy. According to Marshall, “equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place” (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). Marshall’s dedication created a lasting legacy that encompasses numerous aspects of American jurisprudence. He died in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 24, 1993.

EDUCATION AND LAW PRACTICE

Thurgood (born Thoroughgood) Marshall developed an early interest in education. A cum laude graduate of Lincoln University, he believed that education is the only assured means of promoting both individual and communal success. To Marshall and his contemporaries, education was a necessary means of reshaping the status of American race relations.

After graduating from Lincoln, Marshall enrolled in Howard University Law School, where he met and worked with his mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston. As dean of Howard’s law school Houston inculcated in his students a commitment to equal justice and a desire to challenge both legal and extralegal segregation. Paramount to that commitment was an emphasis on overturning the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision. That decision was significant because it created a legal doctrine known as separate but equal and provided the legal justification for segregation in many areas, including education and public accommodations. Marshall was influenced deeply by Houston’s belief that he and other Howard graduates could force the United States to live up to its promise of equality for all Americans. Marshall graduated from Howard in 1933 and opened up a practice in Baltimore that focused on civil rights cases involving issues such as police brutality, civil disobedience, and housing discrimination. Marshall later assisted the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in its civil rights efforts.

In 1935 Marshall won his first major desegregation case, Murray v. Pearson. Together with his cocounsel, Charles Hamilton Houston, Marshall represented the African American student Donald Gaines Murray, who had been denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School on the basis of its separate but equal admissions policy. Although Murray was a graduate of Amherst College with an impressive academic record, the state of Maryland defended his exclusion, arguing that black students could attend other schools. Marshall had been denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School for the same reason five years earlier. In ruling against the state of Maryland the court of appeals argued that constitutional compliance could not be left to the will of the state. Marshall helped secure the first state-level victory toward overturning Plessy.

Murray became the first in a long line of successes for Marshall. As legal counsel for the NAACP he launched a comprehensive assault on the legally sanctioned practice of exclusion. In 1940 he won his first Supreme Court case, Chambers v. Florida. Over the course of his career Marshall argued thirty-two cases before the Supreme Court; winning twenty-nine, making him the most successful attorney to argue before the Court. As the U.S. solicitor general, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, Marshall won fourteen of nineteen cases he argued before the Supreme Court.

Marshall successfully argued the 1944 case Smith v. Allwright. The case was significant because it overturned the “white primaries” that were prominent in the South. Marshall helped reduce the gap between the principle and practice of democracy by opening up the political process to all Americans. He continued to attack the separate but equal doctrine in cases such as Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) that struck down racially restrictive covenants. In two cases in particular, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) and Sweatt v. Painter (1950), he fought against segregation in public education. Sweatt found that the state of Texas’s creation of a separate law school for black students (now Texas Southern University) with inadequate facilities failed to meet the standard of substantive equality.

Although Marshall was successful in arguing the cases, he faced criticism from some black leaders who feared that his legal victories would jeopardize state funding for historically black colleges and universities. Marshall responded to the criticism by stating that “we are convinced that it is impossible to have equality in a segregated system, no matter how elaborate we build the Jim Crow citadel and no matter whether we label it the ‘Black University of Texas,’ ‘The Negro University of Texas,’ ‘Prairie View Institute,’ or a more fitting title, ‘An Apology to Negroes for Denying them Their Constitutional Rights to Attend the University of Texas’” (Sweatt v. Painter, 1947).

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

The 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas was the culmination of Marshall’s attack on the separate but equal doctrine. Unlike the prior cases Brown specifically outlawed racial segregation in American primary and secondary schools. Timing was critical for Marshall’s agenda. Armed with his success in integrating institutions of higher education, Marshall and his NAACP colleagues sponsored five cases affirming their view that separate educational facilities were inherently inferior. Led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court reached a 9–0 decision affirming that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954). Although Brown did not result in the immediate desegregation of American public schools (see Brown II [1955], Swann v. CharlotteMecklenburg Board of Education [1971], and Milliken v. Bradley [1974]), it created a firm foundation for judicial support of the civil rights movement and its efforts to integrate all areas of public and private life.

Marshall’s commitment to protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals was not restricted to the United States. He investigated allegations of racism in the U.S. armed forces in Japan and South Korea and later assisted in drafting the constitution of Ghana. Thurgood Marshall fundamentally redefined the relationship between citizens and their government by promoting equal rights under the law.

SEE ALSO Brown v. Board of Education, 1954 ; Brown v. Board of Education, 1955 ; Civil Liberties; Civil Rights Movement, U.S.; Desegregation; Education, USA; Houston, Charles Hamilton; Schooling in the USA; Separate-but-Equal; Supreme Court, U.S.