Meet a Supreme Justice
On Aug. 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall took a historic oath. He became the first AfricanAmerican appointed as an associate justice to the Supreme Court of the United States.
This week, The Mini Page honors Marshall’s 110th birthday by telling the story of a little boy born in Baltimore who made his way to the highest court in the country.
An interest in law
Thoroughgood Marshall was the second son of a kindergarten teacher and a steward, or headwaiter, at a club. His father’s father was an escaped slave who ran a grocery store in Baltimore.
Born on July 2, 1908, Thoroughgood got tired of his long name as a child and changed it to Thurgood. He convinced his mother to change the name on his birth certificate. He had already started winning arguments!
When Thurgood’s father wasn’t working, he would take his boys to the courthouse to watch trials and arguments. Afterward, they would debate the cases and try to come up with better arguments.
Segregated schools
Thurgood grew up in a neighborhood with both white and black people, but he had to attend a segregated, or all-black, elementary school. Biographers say he was not a good student, and sometimes his eyes would wander to the police station next door to the school.
He noticed that the black prisoners were beaten more than the whites. He felt that the unfair treatment was wrong, and he started to think about becoming a lawyer.
When Thurgood got into trouble at school, teachers would make him read the Constitution of the United States. By the time he graduated, he knew it by heart.
A law degree
In college at Lincoln
University in Pennsylvania, Thurgood started paying more attention to his studies. He wanted to go to law school at the University of Maryland, but it did not accept AfricanAmerican students.
Instead, Marshall went to Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C. When he had time, he would go to the Supreme Court and watch lawyers argue cases before the justices.
After graduating from law school, Marshall and his former professor, Charles Houston, defended a black man who sued the University of Maryland over its discrimination against African-Americans. They won, and the school was forced to integrate, or accept all races, in 1935.
Marshall continued his career and argued many cases, concentrating most on integrating schools. He worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Meet a U. S. icon
Brown v. Board of Ed.
One of Thurgood Marshall’s most famous cases was
Brown v. the Board of
Education of Topeka
(Kansas).
In 1954,
Rev. Oliver
Brown, an African-American, wanted his daughter to go to the school closest to their home, but it was a white school. Thirteen other families joined the lawsuit, and the case made it to the Supreme Court.
Thurgood Marshall argued the case, and the justices ruled unanimously (all in agreement) to end school segregation. Marshall became famous.
Serving his country
President John F. Kennedy offered Marshall a new job in 1961: a federal judgeship on the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson asked him to be solicitor general, or the government’s lawyer in cases before the Supreme Court.
Finally, in 1967, Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court. He served for 24 years, and he continued working for civil rights for all Americans.
• “Thurgood Marshall” by Carla Williams
• “Brown v. Board of Education: A Fight for Simple Justice” by Susan Goldman Rubin