Thurgood Marshall

After graduating
from high school in
1926. He went to
Lincoln University,
a historically black
college in
Pennsylvania.

Born on
July 2, 1908

He began
working for the
Baltimore branch
of National
Association for
Advancement of
Colored People.

After graduating with

honors in 1930. He
applied to University of
Maryland Law School.
He was rejected for his
race. He attended law
school in Washington
D.C. at Howard
University.

Marshall won
Murray v.
Pearson in
January 1936,
the first in a
long string of
cases.

Murray V. Pearson
Marshalls First Case
was to defend another
well-qualified
undergraduate, Donald
Murray, who was
denied entrance to the
University of Maryland
Law.

First victory before

the Supreme Court
came in Chambers v.
Florida, which he
defended four black
men who had been
convicted of murder
on the basis of
confession coerced
from them by police.
1936, Marshall
moved to New
York City to
work full time as
legal counsel for
the NAACP.

May 17, 1954, the

Supreme Court
unanimously ruled
that separate
educational facilities
are inherently
unequal, Therefore
racial segregation of
public schools
violated the equal
protection clause of
the 14th Amendment
Brown v. Board of
Education
in which Marshall
challenged head-on
the legal
underpinning of
racial segregation,
the doctrine of
separate but equal.

Johnson
appointed
Marshall to serve
as the first black
U.S. solicitor
general, the
attorney
designated to
argue on behalf
of the federal
government
before the
Supreme Court.

John F.
Kennedy
appointed
Marshall as a
judge for the
U.S. Second
Circuit Court of
Appeals.

Retired in
1991, and
passed
away on
January
24, 1993,
at the age
of 84.

Finally, in 1967,
Marshall was
sworn in as a
Supreme Court
justice, becoming
the first African
American to serve
on the nations
highest court.