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Marshall, Thurgood (1908–1993)

Justice Thurgood Marshall was the first African American appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. His service there was the capstone on an already noteworthy legal career in which he led the NAACP's battle against segregation, especially in schools. It was his argument on behalf of the plaintiffs that led to the Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling. Later, as an associate justice himself, he often raised an eloquent voice on behalf of equity.

Early Years

Born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, Thurgood Marshall was the younger of two sons of William Canfield Marshall and Norma A. Marshall. He received his formative education in the public school system of Baltimore, Maryland. After completing public school, Marshall enrolled in Lincoln University, a public, historically Black university in Oxford, Pennsylvania, where he attempted to study dentistry, but it failed to keep his interest. His academic interest soon changed to law, and he graduated with honors from Lincoln University in 1930.

Marshall's first choice of law schools was the University of Maryland; but his application was denied by the state's segregated system of higher education. Instead, he attended Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., where, under the tutelage of law school Dean Charles Hamilton Houston, he graduated in 1933 as class valedictorian.

On graduation, Marshall entered the private practice of law, starting his career as a labor and antitrust lawyer. His early years in Baltimore, Maryland, were arduous and discouraging due to the Depression making profitable cases few and far between. Marshall did not expect to become wealthy in private practice, but did expect to make a modest income. However, during the Depression, even a modest income was difficult to achieve.

The NAACP Years

In 1934, Marshall volunteered his legal services to the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1935, he won his first case for the NAACP by persuading the Maryland Court of Appeals to order the University of Maryland Law School to admit its first African American applicant. By 1936, the national NAACP had taken notice of Marshall, and he joined the organization's national legal staff in the role of assistant special counsel to the NAACP. This began Marshall's series of legal battles to persuade the local, state, and federal courts to overrule the “separate but equal” doctrine that the U.S. Supreme Court had enunciated in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson. Marshall's long association with the NAACP and appointment as assistant special counsel was the beginning of many milestones in his legal career.

Under the direction of Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund adopted a strategy of attrition against the concept of separate but equal facilities in education. Beginning with its attack on segregated public professional schools and colleges and proceeding to elementary and high school education, Marshall and his staff sought to erode the basis of discrimination by advocating for equality not only in tangible facilities, but also in intangible factors. Marshall argued before the Supreme Court that it was impossible for a state to provide equality in such intangible features as the prestige of an institution, the quality of faculty, and the reputation of degrees for African Americans in separate schools.

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