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.