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still shot from the documentary, The Strange Demise of Jim Crow
was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1908. The great-grandson of a slave, he graduated as valedictorian from Howard University Law School in 1933 and soon began to represent civil rights activists. In 1938 he became a counsel for the NAACP and over the next 23 years he won 29 of the 32 major cases he undertook for that organization. In 1940 he became chief counsel for the NAACP.
Among the precedent-setting cases he successfully argued were Smith v. Allwright, 1944 in which the court declared unconstitutional Texas' exclusion of black voters from primary elections. Other cases included Sweatt v. Painter, 1950 which declared "separate but equal" facilities for black professionals and graduate students in state universities unconstitutional, and perhaps his most famous case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954, in which racial segregation of American public schools was declared unconstitutional.
President John F. Kennedy nominated Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961. President Lyndon B. Johnson named him U.S. solicitor general in 1965 and nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1967. In 1976, the Texas Southern University School of Law was renamed the Thurgood Marshall School of Law in honor of the distinguished jurist.
Marshall was a steadfast liberal during his tenure on the court. As the court makeup became more conservative, Marshall found himself increasingly isolated and when he was forced by ill health to retire in 1991, he saw his seat taken by the conservative Clarence Thomas. Thurgood Marshall died of heart failure on January 24, 1993.we would be grateful to hear your personal stories, suggestions and comments