A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Marshall graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1930. He applied to the University of Maryland Law School but was rejected because he was Black. Marshall received his law degree from Howard University Law School in 1933, graduating first in his class. At Howard, he met his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston, who encouraged …
He loved to argue and became a star of the debate team. Marshall's dad enjoyed going to court and listening to law cases. This caused Marshall to want to become a lawyer, even though his parents had hoped he would follow in his older brother's footsteps and become a dentist.
In 1936 Marshall became a staff lawyer under Houston for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); in 1938 he became the lead chair in the legal office of the NAACP, and two years later he was named chief of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
24 yearsThurgood Marshall was an American lawyer who was appointed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1967. He was the first African American to hold the position and served for 24 years, until 1991. Marshall studied law at Howard University.Apr 27, 2017
January 24, 1993Thurgood Marshall / Date of deathDespite the change of currents, Marshall's voice remained strong until his retirement, when he was succeeded by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. Marshall died on January 24, 1993 of heart failure in Bethesda, Maryland.
Thurgood MarshallOn 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.
Constance Baker Motley became the nation's first African American woman to serve as a federal judge in 1966, when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her to the Southern District of New York.Feb 20, 2020
Columbia University Law SchoolMarshall is initially terrified of living in a large city, though he eventually overcomes his fear. He takes several years off, working in a clothing store, before attending Columbia University Law School to receive his Juris Doctor (J.D.).
civil rights activistThurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991.
He served as Associate Justice from 1967-1991 after being nominated by President Johnson. Marshall retired from the bench in 1991 and passed away on January 24, 1993, in Washington D.C. at the age of 84. Civil rights and social change came about through meticulous and persistent litigation efforts, at the forefront of which stood Thurgood Marshall ...
Immediately after graduation, Marshall opened a law office in Baltimore , and in the early 1930s, he represented the local NAACP chapter in a successful lawsuit that challenged the University of Maryland Law School over its segregation policy. In addition, he successfully brought lawsuits that integrated other state universities.
To fail to do so is to ensure that America will forever remain a divided society.”. In particular, Marshall fervently dissented in cases in which the Supreme Court upheld death sentences; he wrote over 150 opinions dissenting from cases in which the Court refused to hear death penalty appeals.
Board of Education, which he argued before the Supreme Court in 1952 and 1953, finally overturning “separate but equal” and acknowledging that segrega tion greatly diminished students’ self-esteem.
Among Marshall’s salient majority opinions for the Supreme Court were: Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza, in 1968, which determined that a mall was “public forum” and unable to exclude picketers; Stanley v. Georgia, in 1969, held that pornography, when owned privately, could not be prosecuted.
On the appointment, President Johnson later said that Marshall’s nomination was “the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.”.
Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland, to William Marshall, railroad porter, who later worked on the staff of Gibson Island Club, a white-only country club and Norma Williams, a school teacher. One of his great-grandfathers had been taken as a slave from the Congo to Maryland where he was eventually freed.
After graduating from Howard, one of Marshall's first legal cases was against the University of Maryland Law School in the 1935 case Murray v. Pearson. Working with his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston, Marshall sued the school for denying admission to Black applicants solely on the basis of race.
A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Marshall graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1930. He applied to the University of Maryland Law School but was rejected because he was Black. Marshall received his law degree from Howard University Law School in 1933, graduating first in his class.
During his nearly 25-year tenure on the Supreme Court, Marshall fought for affirmative action for minorities, held strong against the death penalty, and supported of a woman's right to choose if an abortion was appropriate for her.
His mission was equal justice for all. Marshall used the power of the courts to fight racism and discrimination, tear down Jim Crow segregation, change the status quo, and make life better for the most vulnerable in our nation.
Marshall became one of the nation's leading attorneys. He argued 32 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 29. Some of his notable cases include: Smith v. Allwright (1944), which found that states could not exclude Black voters from primaries. Shelley v.
Marshall's most famous case was the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case in which Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren noted, "in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.".
Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood Marshall was a civil rights lawyer who used the courts to fight Jim Crow and dismantle segregation in the U.S. Marshall was a towering figure who became the nation's first Black United States Supreme Court Justice.
Marshall studied law at Howard University. As counsel to the NAACP, he utilized the judiciary to champion equality for African Americans. In 1954, he won the Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the Supreme Court ended racial segregation in public schools.
Instead of Maryland, Marshall attended law school in Washington, D.C. at Howard University, another historically Black school. The dean of Howard Law School at the time was the pioneering civil rights lawyer Charles Houston.
The great achievement of Marshall's career as a civil-rights lawyer was his victory in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of Black parents in Topeka, Kansas, whose children were forced to attend all-Black segregated schools. Through Brown v. Board, one of the most important cases of the 20th century, Marshall challenged head-on the legal underpinning of racial segregation, the doctrine of "separate but equal" established by the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson.
Another crucial Supreme Court victory for Marshall came in the 1944 case of Smith v. Allwright, in which the Court struck down the Democratic Party's use of white people-only primary elections in various Southern states.
Board, one of the most important cases of the 20th century, Marshall challenged head-on the legal underpinning of racial segregation, the doctrine of "separate but equal" established by the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson.
Over several decades, Marshall argued and won a variety of cases to strike down many forms of legalized racism, helping to inspire the American civil rights movement.
Marshall attended Baltimore's Colored High and Training School (later renamed Frederick Douglass High School), where he was an above-average student and put his finely honed skills of argument to use as a star member of the debate team. The teenage Marshall was also something of a mischievous troublemaker.
His father, William Marshall, was a railroad porter, and his mother, Norma, was a teacher. After he completed high school in 1925, Marshall attended Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Just before he graduated, he married his first wife, ...
Sources. Thurgood Marshall—perhaps best known as the first African American Supreme Court justice—played an instrumental role in promoting racial equality during the civil rights movement. As a practicing attorney, Marshall argued a record-breaking 32 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29 of them.
As a practicing attorney, Marshall argued a record-breaking 32 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29 of them. In fact, Marshall represented and won more cases before the high court than any other person.
Marshall decided to attend Howard University Law School, where he became a protégé of the well-known dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, who encouraged students to use the law as a means for social transformation. In 1933, Marshall received his law degree and was ranked first in his class.
Personally, Marshall suffered a great loss when Vivian, his wife of 25 years, died of cancer in 1955. Shortly after her death, Marshall married Cecilia Suyat, and the couple went on to have two sons together.
Board of Education of Topeka (1954): This landmark case was considered Marshall’s greatest victory as a civil-rights lawyer. A group of Black parents whose children were required to attend segregated schools filed a class-action lawsuit.
Life as a Lawyer. In 1935, Marshall’s first major court victory came in Murray v. Pearson, when he, alongside his mentor Houston, successfully sued the University of Maryland for denying a Black applicant admission to its law school because of his race.
His legacy earned him the nickname "Mr. Civil Rights.". Thurgood Marshall was born Thoroughgood Marshall on June 2, 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland. Tired of having his friends poke fun at his first name, he decided to try to improve the situation and, at the age of six, legally changed it to Thurgood.
Marshall attended the all-black Lincoln University (the oldest African-American institution of higher education in the country) and, after being rejected from the University of Maryland School of Law because of his race, went on to attend law school at Howard University and graduated first in his class. It was at Howard University that Marshall met Charles Hamilton Houston, the vice-dean of the law school. In 1935, Houston directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Marshall was his right-hand man.
Together with Houston, Marshall participated in the cases Murray v. Maryland (1936) and Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada (1938). When Houston returned to private practice in 1938, Marshall took over the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and argued Sweat v. Painter (1950) and McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents of Higher Education (1950). Having won these cases, and thus, establishing precedents for chipping away Jim Crow laws in higher education, Marshall succeeded in having the Supreme Court declare segregated public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Arguably, Marshall's introduction to law came in high school when, as a punishment for a prank he had pulled, the school's principal made him read the U.S. Constitution. Marshall immediately liked the document and set about memorizing various parts of it. He took special interest in Article III and the Bill of Rights.
After Brown, Marshall argued many more court cases in support of civil rights. His zeal for ensuring the rights of all citizens regardless of race caught the attention of President John F. Kennedy, who appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals.
It was at Howard University that Marshall met Charles Hamilton Houston, the vice-dean of the law school. In 1935, Houston directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Marshall was his right-hand man.
Yet, the discrepancy in the caliber of education for whites and blacks was made all too apparent to him when, one day while traveling with Houston, Marshall witnessed a black child biting into an orange. He had received such a poor education that he neither knew what it was nor how to properly eat it.
Thurgood Marshall — perhaps best known as the first African-American Supreme Court justice — played an instrumental role in promoting racial equality during the civil rights movement. As a practicing attorney, Marshall argued a record-breaking 32 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29 of them. Similarly, it is asked, what impact did Thurgood ...
Thurgood Marshall is my hero because he paved the way for me to get as good of an education as everyone else. He didn't just fight for Black rights,he fought for all races. I admire him because he didn't just settle at integrating schools, he went on to become the first African American to be a Supreme Court Justice.
At the age of 32, Marshall won U.S. Supreme Court case Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227 (1940). That same year, he founded and became the executive director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.