Multicultural Education & Human Diversity

Kathy Henry
Alyza Grant
September 12, 2019

Thurgood Marshall and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Thurgood Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on

July 2, 1908 to Norma Arica Williams and William
Canfield Marshall. His mother was an elementary teacher
and his father was a waiter and country club steward—
both of whom strongly believed in the power of
education. Though Thurgood Marshall enjoyed a middle-
class life (despite the racism that affected his parents’
income), he was also forced to attend Baltimore’s racially
segregated public schools. When he got in trouble as a
young boy, he was often made to memorize sections of
the U.S. Constitution by his teachers.

This primary and secondary education eventually led to

his graduation with a bachelors from Lincoln University
in Pennsylvania (though he’d wanted to attend Maryland
University, which did not accept blacks). He worked
many jobs to be able to support himself as a student, and
later went to Howard University in Washington D.C. and
received a law degree. Notably, Marshall served as
counsel for the Baltimore branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People — specifically, the Legal Defense and Educational Fund) between the years of
1934 and 1961 and during time, presented thirty-two cases involving civil rights to the Supreme
Court — more than anyone else in history. He’d won twenty-nine of these cases before he was
appointed to the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by president Lyndon B.
Johnson in 1967 (at the age of 59). He was the first African American to hold this position and
served for 24 years before retiring in 1991. Thurgood Marshall died at the age of 84 in 1993.

Marshall’s Involvement in the Case of Brown v. Board of Education

Marshall represented Oliver Brown in the case of Brown v. The Board of Education of
Topeka in 1954. Brown had brought to court the case of his daughter, who wasn’t allowed to
attend a school closest to their home and was instead put on a bus to attend a segregated school
further away. Brown and twelve other African American families then filed a class action lawsuit
in the U.S. federal court against the Board of Education of Topeka. (It’s notable that this lawsuit
was eventually combined with four other cases involving segregation and named overall “Brown
v. The Board of Education”.) The argument of Brown and his supporters was that the segregation
policy of their city’s schools was unconstitutional. At this time, the panel of judges presiding
over the case relied upon the verdict cast by the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which had ruled that
although separate, so long as the schools were in fact equal in every other aspect other than race,
it was not a violation of the 14th Amendment (which granted citizenship and equal civil and legal
rights to African Americans and emancipated slaves). When Marshall joined the Brown v. Board
of Education case and appealed to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the
case.

Thurgood Marshall argued that segregation violated individual rights under the 14th
Amendment, and that the only reason for keeping people separated was because they wanted to
keep former slaves and their families “as near that stage as possible”. This case eventually led to
Chief Justice Earl Warren ruling that the “separate but equal” notion was unsuitable and
unconstitutional for American public schools and educational facilities. At the end of the case,
the verdict was that “separate but equal” no longer had a place in America’s public schools, as
segregated schools were “inherently unequal”. This case took place on May 17, 1954 and was
one of the most notable and memorable cases Thurgood Marshall ever won, as well as a major
milestone for the Civil Rights Movement.

Photo Credit: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thurgood-Marshall National Archives,

Washington, D.C. (2803441)

Links to my Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thurgood-Marshall

https://www.notablebiographies.com/Lo-Ma/Marshall-Thurgood.html

https://www.npr.org/2003/12/08/1535826/thurgood-marshall-and-brown-v-board-of-ed

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/thurgood-marshall

http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/brown-v-board-of-education-of-topeka