Thurgood Marshall: A Legacy of Civil Rights Leadership

Official portrait of the U.S. Supreme Court: Justice Thurgood Marshall

Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

Quick Facts

Significance:

Thurgood Marshall was a lawyer and civil rights activist who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's first African American justice. Prior to his judicial service, he successfully argued several cases before the Supreme Court, including Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Place of Birth:

Baltimore, MD

Date of Birth:

July 2, 1908

Place of Death:

Bethesda, MD

Date of Death:

January 24, 1993

Place of Burial:

Arlington County, VA

Cemetery Name:

Arlington National Cemetery

Thurgood Marshall emerged as a pivotal leader in the early civil rights movement, spearheading key legal battles for racial equality—including the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision—and playing a central role in the Little Rock desegregation crisis.

Born in 1908 in Baltimore, Marshall attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania alongside notable figures like Cab Calloway and Langston Hughes. Denied admission to the segregated University of Maryland Law School, he enrolled at Howard University Law School, graduating as valedictorian. At Howard, he was deeply influenced by Charles Hamilton Houston, the law school dean and his mentor.

After launching a private practice in Baltimore, Marshall joined the NAACP in 1936 as a staff attorney under Houston. He became head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) in 1940. As lead counsel, Marshall successfully argued several major civil rights cases—including Smith v. Allwright, Shelley v. Kraemer, Sweatt v. Painter, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. His most notable victory came in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and declared segregated schools inherently unequal.

In 1957, Marshall traveled to Little Rock to challenge Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus’s efforts to block integration of Central High School. He and attorney Wiley Branton secured an injunction from U.S. District Judge Ronald Davies, enabling the Little Rock Nine to return under federal protection.

In 1958, when the Little Rock School Board sought to delay integration, Marshall represented families opposing the delay in Cooper v. Aaron. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled the delay unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause, reaffirming that Brown was the supreme law of the land under the Supremacy Clause and Marbury v. Madison (1803). The ruling rejected state nullification and interposition doctrines. Despite the ruling, Governor Faubus closed Little Rock's high schools for a year—a period known as the "Lost Year."

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson named him Solicitor General, making him the highest-ranking African American official in U.S. government at the time. In 1967, the Senate confirmed him as the first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice by a vote of 69–11.

Marshall served on the Court for 24 years. In 1987, during the Constitution’s bicentennial, he stirred controversy by calling it “defective from the start” and emphasizing that its promise of individual rights was only realized through amendment, civil war, and social struggle. He described it as a living document shaped by hard-won progress.

Marshall retired in 1991 due to declining health and died in 1993 at age 84. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and survived by his wife Cecilia and their two sons. Known as “Mr. Civil Rights,” Thurgood Marshall’s legacy remains a cornerstone of American legal and social progress.