Thurgood Marshall Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

A native Baltimorean, Thurgood Marshall was born on July 2, 1908. He grew up during a time of segregation and Jim Crow. His father, William Marshall told him that it was important to treat everyone with respect, but to stand up for himself if insulted. It is a philosophy he followed throughout his life.

Thurgood was a good student, so good that he was accepted to Lincoln University without examination. He was also mischievous. In high school this playfulness once earned him detention, where the punishment was to memorize the constitution. This and the regular sight of Blacks being abused by White policemen generated an interest in the law. At 16, he knew he wanted to be a lawyer.

He was on the Lincoln debate team as a principle debater when they traveled to debate Harvard and later the British Union teams, and was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He lost a semester of school after a freak accident and graduated from Lincoln with honors January 1930. He was ready to go to law school.

His mother wanted him to attend the University of Maryland Law School, which was only a few blocks from the family home. At that time only two Black students had ever graduated from there and none had been admitted since the 1890s. He applied to Howard University Law School instead and was accepted. Because he could not afford to live near the school, he commuted each day from Baltimore to Washington.

He worked hard, using his time on the train to study and review his notes. At the end of his first year, he was at the top of his class. This earned him a job at the school law library, which only enhanced his study and understanding of the law. During his senior year, he had an opportunity to work on an important case as a member of the legal team. He assisted his school dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, in the defense of George Crawford, a Black man from Virginia accused of murdering two White women. While Mr. Crawford got sentenced to life in prison, Houston and Marshall saw victory in his escape of the death penalty.

In June 1933, one of six left from a starting group of 36 freshman, Thurgood graduated, first in his class. He passed the Maryland bar exam in one try and opened a law office of his own.

During this time he took fact-finding trips for the NAACP. By 1936 he had joined the national legal staff of the organization. Marshall became chief legal officer in 1938, and director and counsel of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund in 1940. He spent the next 20 years coordinating the groups effort to end racial segregation.

He argued the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954, which declared racial segregation in public education unconstitutional. He is also known for winning 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court.

In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. He was appointed Solicitor General by President Johnson in 1965. In 1967, Thurgood was nominated by President Johnson for the U.S. Supreme Court. He was confirmed by the Senate on Aug. 30, 1967, making him the first African American to serve on the Court.

He served with distinction for 24 years, until he retired June 27, 1991. During that time he was an outspoken voice for the civil and human rights of the people of this country. During the press conference where his retirement was announced, Marshall was asked how he wanted to be remembered. He said, "He did what he could with what he had."

He died Jan. 24, 1993 at the age of 84.