Thurgood Marshall

Early life and education

Thurgood Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908. He graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1930. He then went to Howard University's law school in Washington, D.C., finishing at the top of his class in 1933. At Howard he was mentored by Charles Hamilton Houston, the law school's vice dean, who later led the NAACP's legal work.

Early cases

Back in Baltimore, Marshall opened a law practice and soon took on civil rights work. With Houston, he challenged the University of Maryland's law school, which had turned away a Black applicant, Donald Gaines Murray. In Murray v. Pearson (sources date it to 1935 or 1936), they won, and the school had to admit Murray. It was an early win against segregated graduate education.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund

In 1940 Marshall became the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Over the next two decades he brought case after case meant to take segregation apart piece by piece. The NAACP reports that he won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1940s and 1950s.

His best-known victory was Brown v. Board of Education (1954). He argued that separate public schools for Black and white children could never be equal. The Supreme Court agreed and declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The National Park Service also documents his role in the legal fight that followed over desegregating Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Judge and Solicitor General

In 1961 President John F. Kennedy nominated Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Several Southern senators held up his confirmation for months. In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson asked him to become Solicitor General, the government's lawyer before the Supreme Court. He was the first African American to hold that office, and he served until 1967.

Supreme Court

Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967. The Senate confirmed him on August 30, 1967, by a vote of 69 to 11, making him the first African American justice. He served for 24 years. On the Court he was a steady voice for civil rights and individual liberties. He believed the death penalty was unconstitutional in every case, and he dissented each time the Court upheld a death sentence.

Marshall announced his retirement in June 1991 and left the bench that autumn; Clarence Thomas succeeded him.

Death and legacy

Marshall died of heart failure in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 24, 1993. His body lay in repose in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court, and he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Maryland's state law library is among the places named for him. He is remembered as the lawyer who did more than almost anyone to end legal segregation in the United States.