Source: https://www.greatblackheroes.com/government/thurgood-marshall/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 07:52:25+00:00

Document:
Thurgood Marshall is known as the first Black Justice of the United States Supreme Court but he is really defined by his work as a civil rights lawyer which redefined life in the United States.
Thoroughgood Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, the great grandson of a slave born in Congo. His grandfather was also a slave and his father, William, was a railroad porter. He changed his name to Thurgood while in grade school. He attended high school in Baltimore at Frederick Douglas High School. He attended Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania, the first degree-issuing Historically Black College. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and among his classmates were author and poet Langston Hughes, the future President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and musician Cab Calloway. During his senior year, in 1929, he married Vivian “Buster” Burey (their marriage would last until her death from cancer in 1955).
The following year Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law School but was denied entrance on the basis of his race. For Marshall, this would be a life-altering moment as it would help to direct the course of his life. He attended Howard University Law School instead, where he studied under his professor William Hastie and Dean Charles Hamilton Houston. He graduated from Howard Law School in 1933, ranked first in his class.
In 1936, Marshall opened his own private practice but also worked as the lead counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He won his first case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Chamber v. Florida and would argue another 31 in front of the high court. The most famous of these, and perhaps the most important, was the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the case which ended legal segregation within the United States. The case was brought by thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their twenty children and the named plaintiff was Oliver L. Brown on behalf of his daughter Linda. Linda was forced to walk six blocks and through a railway yard to a bus stop in order to catch a bus to take her to a Black school more than a mile away from her home while there was a white school about seven blocks from her home. At the behest of the NAACP, Oliver walked his daughter to the white school and attempted to enroll her in it. His request was denied and he was directed to the Black school, a mile away.
The case was first argued in front of a district court which found that while segregation in public education was detrimental to Black children, the white and Black schools in question were satisfactorily similar in regards to buildings, transportation, curriculum and educational qualifications of teachers to satisfy the standards required by Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was subsequently appealed and would end up being heard by the United States Supreme Court. The Court, in order to decide on the issue once and for all, combined the Brown case with four others: Briggs v. Elliott (originally filed in South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (Virginia), Gebhart v. Belton (Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (Washington D.C.). All of the cases were sponsored by the NAACP so Marshall argued them before the Supreme Court.
While the Brown was his most famous victory in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, he, in fact, won 29 of the 32 cases he argued in front of the Court.
After the death of his first wife, Marshall married Cecilia Suyat in December 1955, The couple would have two sons together.
In 1961, Marshall was appointed by President John Kennedy to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit under a recess appointment (Senator James Eastland of Mississippi and a number of other southern senators attempted to hold up his confirmation). He served in this position until 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson appointed him to serve at the United States Solicitor General. As the Solicitor General, he represented the Federal government of United States in arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was the first Black appointed to the position and would win 14 of the 19 cases he argued in that role.
Finally, on June 13, 1967, President Johnson nominated Marshall to the United States Supreme Court. In nominating Marshall for a position on the highest court in the land, Johnson said that it was “the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.” Marshall was confirmed as an Associate Justice by a Senate vote of 69–11 on August 30, 1967. He served on the Court for 24 years, championing the plights of women and minorities, safeguarding the rights of criminal suspects and working against the death penalty.
Marshall died of heart failure at in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 24, 1993 at the age of 84 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Numerous monuments and memorials were dedicated to his memory including Baltimore International Thurgood Marshall Airport being named after him. More importantly, his legacy as civil rights pioneer and as an advocate for change within the legal system will be remembered for changing the landscape of American culture for years to come.

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