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July 2
Marshall grew up in Baltimore and graduated with high honors from Lincoln University in 1930. He studied at Howard University Law School, and graduated first in his class. In 1936, he became a staff lawyer of the (NAACP). For over 20 years, he served as director and chief counsel for its Legal Defense and Education Fund. Marshall was a key strategist in the legal effort to dismantle racial segregation in housing, voting, and education. He won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court. Marshall’s most important victory came in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), a case involving racial segregation in public schools. President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Four years later, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him as solicitor general. Johnson turned to Marshall in 1967 to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Marshall was the first black to serve on the Court. He was an unrepentant liberal whose commitment to equality only expanded during his years of service. He remained true to the values of freedom and equality despite the erosion of the liberal majority on the court that he helped sustain. In one of his last opinions (Dissenting from a conservative majority), Marshall declared that "Power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court's decision making." He retired in 1991 when his health deteriorated. Marshall died of heart failure in January 1993. In four years, Marshall wrote 98 opinions (essays explaining the logic and principles underlying a ruling), none of which was reversed by the Supreme Court. His opinions supported academic freedom, the right to a fair trial, and the right of civil rights demonstrators to picket and protest. Poor health forced him to retire from the Supreme Court in 1991. Thurgood Marshall died of heart failure in Washington, D.C., in January 1993. Reference: Thurgood Marshall, American Revolutionary by Juan Williams Three Rivers Press, copyright 1998 ISBN 0-8129-3299-4 to be a Judge
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