T hurgood Marshall (1908 – 1993) was a civil rights attorney and Supreme Court Justice. As the lead lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, he was dedicated to bringing about the end of racial segregation in American public schools. He won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, most notably the landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education which ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional, thereby reversing the 1896 Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson that established the Separate But Equal doctrine. He was also the first Black justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Marshall was born in Baltimore Maryland, lived briefly in New York—where his parent sought better work opportunities, and moved back to Baltimore when he was six years old. His father enjoyed following legal cases and often took Thurgood with him to observe court proceedings. Along the way, Thurgood fell in love with the law saying of those times with his father,” [he] never told me to become a lawyer, but he turned me into one ... He taught me how to argue and challenged my logic on every point, by making me prove every statement I made, even if we were discussing the weather.”

In 1930, Thurgood Marshall graduated with honors from Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the oldest college for Black Americans in the United States. He attended Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. where he was mentored by Charles Hamilton Houston who championed the idea that his students could be “social engineers” by using the law as a means to fight for civil rights.

President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Marshall as Solicitor General, to which Marshall was confirmed in 1965. In 1967 President Johnson nominated Marshall to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. He was sworn in on October 7, 1967.

During his time on the high court, Justice Marshall ruled for equal protection and civil rights, often being the dissenting voice on cases regarding racial discrimination. He was strong on First Amendment rights, opposed capital punishment, and believed the Constitution guaranteed the right to privacy to all citizens. Thurgood Marshall was a pivotal character in American history, challenging America to be a better place for all.