35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Super Hero THURGOOD MARSHALL

Thurgood Marshall

The man who would ultimately grow up to become America's first African-American Supreme Court justice was born in Baltimore in 1908. His father was a country club steward and Pullman car porter, and his mother was a teacher. The judge's name was Thurgood Marshall. 

For 25 years prior to joining the high court, Marshall was "the most important advocate for America," said his colleague Justice William J. Brennan, referring to Marshall's 29 winning arguments before the Supreme Court—a record that remains unmatched by any lawyer, Black or white. 

Marshall's mother, who had considerable influence over him, traced her African roots to a 17th-century Congolese slave who caused so much trouble that his slave master finally set him free. Freedom was Thurgood Marshall's driving passion as well. 

Marshall's paternal grandfather was a freeman who enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. He took the first name Thoroughgood in order to satisfy Army regulations that every soldier must have a first and a last name. 

During the Depression, Marshall attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he met his wife, Vivian Burley. Marshall was a dedicated student prankster until settling into marriage with Burley. He graduated cum laude in 1930. 

At Howard University Law School, he learned the benefit of applying the law to social engineering from his mentor, veteran litigator Charles Houston. After Marshall had established a private practice in Baltimore, Maryland, and Houston had begun the NAACP's legal campaign to desegregate schools, Marshall brought the Donald Murray case to Houston. Together, in 1935, the two lawyers were victorious in arguing for Murray's admission to the all-white law school at the University of Maryland. 

As a consequence of the Murray case, many states began allocating more funds to graduate programs at Black colleges in an effort to create some semblance of parity in education. Such meager public actions did not deter the NAACP from its mission to bury the "separate but equal" doctrine and open the doors of all schools to African Americans. 

During those early days as outside legal counsel for the NAACP, Marshall added all of $25 per year for stationery and postage and $5 per day for research and court appearances to the revenues of his practice. Marshall's larger role as special counsel for the NAACP in 1938 meant handling all cases related to constitutional rights. Marshall argued the subtleties of the Fourteenth Amendment, winning a clear majority of cases. 

After Houston officially resigned in 1938, Marshall founded and headed the nonprofit NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. Marshall's success rate rose to 29 out of 32 major cases presented to the highest court in the land. He won the coveted NAACP Spingarn Medal in December 1946 for his distinguished service as a lawyer before the Supreme Court. 

For the decade or so after Marshall took the helm, case after case dealing with segregation moved him closer to his goal of having the U.S. Supreme Court overturn a previous ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson, that declared that separate but equal was constitutional. 

On May 17, 1954, after Marshall presented his side, the Supreme Court handed down its epic decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The ruling stated that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and that separate but equal has no place in American society. Jim Crow segregation was dead. Without a constitutional leg to stand on, Plessy v. Ferguson was eventually toppled by Gayle v. Browder. 

But Marshall didn't just work for justice in the United States. During 1960, Marshall worked for three months to draft the constitution for the soon-to-be independent republic of Kenya.

Marshall was also a proponent of women's rights. For example, Constance Baker Motley had been denied employment by other legal groups. Marshall hired her at the NAACP and encouraged her career. She successfully argued the famous James Meredith case and was appointed to the federal court bench in New York by President Lyndon B. Johnson. 

President Kennedy named Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in September 1961 over the objections of Kennedy's brother Robert, who feared the appointment would upset southern politicos. At that time there were no Blacks working in the courthouse, in either white or blue collar jobs. 

During Marshall's four years of service on the appeals court, none of his over 130 rulings were reversed by a higher court. With this stellar record, President Johnson, in 1965, named Marshall the first African-American solicitor general of the Department of Justice, where he was victorious in 15 of the 19 cases he litigated for the Justice Department. 

Two years later, President Johnson selected Marshall to sit on the Supreme Court. After enduring repeated Congressional hearings, he became the first African American to hold a high court seat. During his tenure on the bench, Marshall wrote the majority opinion on many cases upholding civil rights and constitutional democracy. 

Marshall served with great distinction until his retirement on June 27, 1991. He was replaced on the bench by neo-conservative African-American judge Clarence Thomas. This choice did not sit well with Marshall. Shortly before he died, in 1993, he warned against "picking the wrong Negro," adding "there's no difference between a white snake and a black snake. They'll both bite...."

From Great African Americans.  Copyright, Publications International, Ltd.