Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) was a U.S. Supreme Court justice and civil rights advocate.

Marshall was
born in Baltimore, Maryland, attended that city’s racially segregated public schools, and graduated from
Lincoln University. He attended Howard University where he received his degree in law.

Between 1934 and 1961, as an attorney for the NAACP, Marshall traveled throughout the United States,
whenever a dispute involved questions of racial justice–earning him the nickname “Mr. Civil Rights.” He
argued thirty-two cases before the Supreme Court, more than anyone else in history.

prevailing in twenty-nine of them. These cases include Smith v. Allwright (1944), which invalidated the so-called
white primary (the practice of barring blacks from the Democratic party primary in a state where that party
controlled state government), Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), which prohibited state courts from enforcing racially
restrictive real estate covenants, and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which invalidated state-enforced
racial segregation in the public schools.

Did you know? Thurgood Marshall argued thirty-two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, more
than anyone else in history.

The next stage in Marshall’s career consisted of a series of high -level appointments. In 1961, President John F.
Kennedy appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him
solicitor general, another racial “first.” And in 1967, President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court,
declaring that it was “the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.”

Justice Marshall was an outspoken liberalon a Court dominated by conservatives. In his twenty-four year tenure, he
voted to uphold gender and racial affirmative action policies in every case in which they were challenged. He
dissented in every case in which the Supreme Court failed to overturn a death sentence and opposed all efforts to
narrow or burden the right of women to obtain abortions. No justice has been more libertarian in terms of opposing
government regulation of speech or private sexual conduct. Nor has any justice been m ore egalitarian in terms of
advancing a view of the Constitution that imposes positive duties on government to provide certain important
benefits to people–education, legal services, access to courts–regardless of their ability to pay for them.