Known for his earlier work in helping end legal segregation through the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, he once described his judicial approach by simply saying, "You do what you think is right and let the law catch up."
When she was 18, Motley made a speech at local African-American social center that was heard by Clarence W. Blakeslee, a white businessman and philanthropist who sponsored the center. He was impressed and offered to finance her education.
September 28, 2005Constance Baker Motley / Date of death
Clarence Thomas is the second black justice to serve on the Court. As a Supreme Court justice, Thomas is notorious for his lack of questions during oral arguments.
On June 13, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated distinguished civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American justice to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.
From 1964 to 1965 Motley served a full term in New York state's Senate, and in 1965 she became the first woman to serve as a city borough president. While working in that capacity, Motley developed a plan to revitalize the inner city and to improve housing and inner-city schools. In 1966 U.S. Pres. Lyndon B.
LDF's first female attorney, Constance Baker Motley wrote the original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education and pioneered the legal campaigns for several seminal school desegregation cases. She was the first Black woman to argue before the Supreme Court and went on to win nine out of ten cases.
While Ray achieved countless “firsts,” it was Lucy Terry Prince who became the first African-American woman to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Thurgood MarshallThurgood Marshall was the first African American to serve as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He joined the Court in 1967, the year this photo was taken. On October 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall took the judicial oath of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first Black person to serve on the Court.
He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and replaced retiring justice Harry Blackmun. Breyer is generally associated with the liberal wing of the Court.
As a justice of the highest court, Alito continues to rule based solely on the case in front of him, unlike his conservative colleagues' style of ruling based on an overarching theory. Even so, Alito tends to reach the same conclusions as his conservative colleagues.