Thurgood Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908.  Upon completion of his formal education, he entered Lincoln University, where he graduated (cum laude) in 1930.  Afterwards, Marshall successfully received his law degree (he graduated magna cum laude) at Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C. in 1933.

In 1936, after three years in private practice, Marshall joins the national legal staff for the Baltimore Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  In 1938, he becomes their Chief Legal Officer.

In 1940, the NAACP creates the Legal Defense and Education Fund, with Thurgood Marshall as its Director and Counsel.  Coincidently, during this same year, Marshall would win the first of his 29 Supreme Court Victories (Chambers v. Florida). For the next twenty years, or more Marshall would coordinate the NAACP’s efforts to end racial segregation in America.

In 1954, Marshall successfully argues and wins the Supreme Court landmark case, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which demolishes the legal basis for segregation in America.  When Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter asked Marshall to define the definition of equal, Marshall replied, “Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place.”

In 1961, Marshall defends civil rights demonstrators, by winning the Supreme Court victory in Garner v. Louisiana.  In the same year, President John F. Kennedy appoints Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.   During his tenure as Circuit Judge, Marshall successfully ruled on 112 cases.  The Supreme Court would later uphold all 112 rulings (1961-1965).

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall as the Solicitor General of the United States.  Marshall wins 14 of the 19 cases that he argues for the government (1965-1967).

On June 13, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Marshall for the Supreme Court of the United States.  The Senate confirms Marshall’s appointment on August 30, 1967.  Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black elevated to the Supreme Court in the history of the United States of America. At the time of Marshall’s appointment, President Lyndon B. Johnson was once asked why he appointed Marshall.  President Johnson merely stated that, “Marshall’s appointment was the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.”

Thurgood Marshall would serve for twenty-three years, as a judge on the Supreme Court.  During his twenty-three years, as a Supreme Court Justice Marshall was often described as silent during most argument sessions.  But there appears to have been an exception, with regards to lawyers struggling through arguments, or sometimes on a fellow Justice.  In 1981, during a death penalty argument, Justice Rehnquist suggested that an inmate’s repeated appeals had cost the state too much money.  Justice Marshall interrupted, “It would have been cheaper to shoot him right after he was arrested, wouldn’t it?”

As a member of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall was often remembered for his dissents.  One of his best known dissents is a sixty-three page opinion in the case of San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez.  The court held, 5-4 that the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection was not violated by the property tax system used in Texas and most other states to finance public education.  Marshall accused the majority of “unsupportable acquiescence in a system which deprives children in their earliest years of the chance to reach their full potential as citizens.”

On June 17, 1991, Thurgood Marshall retires from the Supreme Court at the age of eighty-two.  And then on January 24, 1993, Marshall dies at the age of eighty-four.

Thurgood Marshall is survived by his wife, Cecilia, and their two sons (Thurgood, Jr.and John).  Thurgood Marshall, Jr. was previously a lawyer on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  He is now currently the legislative-affairs coordinator for the Office of Vice President.  John is a member of the Virginia State Police.

A Thurgood Marshall Timeline

• 1930 Mr. Thurgood Marshall graduates with honors from Lincoln University (Cum Laude).
• 1933 Thurgood Marshall receives law degree from Howard University (Magna Cum Laude); Begins private practice in Baltimore, Maryland.
• 1934 Thurgood Marshall begins to work for the Baltimore branch of the NAACP.
• 1935 Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston win their first major civil rights case, in Murray v. Pearson.
• 1936 Thurgood Marshall becomes Assistant Special Council for NAACP in New York.
• 1940 Thurgood Marshall wins first of 29 Supreme Court Victories (Chambers v. Florida).
• 1944 Thurgood Marshall successfully argues the case of Smith v. Allwright, overthrowing the South’s “white primary”.
• 1948 Thurgood Marshall wins the case of Shelley v. Kraemer, in which Supreme Court strikes down legality of racially restrictive covenants.
• 1950 Thurgood Marshall wins Supreme Court victories in two graduate-school integration cases, Sweatt v. Painter, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regent.
• 1951 Thurgood Marshall visits South Korea and Japan to investigate charges of racism in the U.S. Armed Forces.  He reported that the general practice was one of “rigid segregation”.
• 1954 Thurgood Marshall wins the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a landmark case that demolishes legal basis for segregation in America.
• 1961 Thurgood Marshall defends civil rights demonstrators, winning Supreme Circuit Court victory in Garner v. Louisiana; nominated to Second Court of Appeals by President John F. Kennedy.
• 1961 Thurgood Marshall is appointed circuit judge, and makes 112 rulings, all of them later upheld by Supreme Court (1961-1965).
• 1965 Thurgood Marshall is appointed as the U.S. Solicitor General, by President Lyndon B. Johnson; wins 14 of 19 cases he argues for the government (1965-1967).
• 1967 Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American elevated to U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991).
• 1991 Thurgood Marshall retires from the Supreme Court.
• 1993 Thurgood Marshall dies at the age of 84, on January 24. 

***Sources: New York Times, January 25, 1993; 365 Days into Black History; From Slavery To Freedom, John Franklin; "Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court Justice" Black Americans of Achievement Series.