Abel Malcolm
2004-06-13 07:56:41 UTC
It was 37 years ago on this day that Thurgood Marshall was nominated
to be the first African American Justice to the Supreme Court of the
United States. He was known for his Liberal and pro-Civil rights
positions. It was President Lyndon B. Johnson who appointed Marshall
to the Supreme Court in 1967, saying that this was "the right thing to
do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place."
Marshall then went on to serve with honor and distinction in the U.S.
Supreme Court for the next 24 years, from 1967 to 1991, after which he
retired due to ill health.
Thurgood Marshall led the civil rights revolution of the 20th century
that forever changed the landscape of American society. He did this
by working within the system, through the courts, to eradicate the
legacy of slavery and to destroy the racist segregation system of Jim
Crow
Thurgood Marshall can be credited with doing more to end legal
segregation in our country than anyone else. He won Supreme Court
victories that broke the color line in housing, transportation and
voting, in effect overturning the 'Separate-but-Equal' apartheid of
American life that plagued us in the earlier part of 20th century
America.
It was Marshall who won the most important legal cases of the century,
such as Brown v. Board of Education, which effectively ended the legal
separation of black and white children in public schools. The success
of the Brown case also sparked the 1960s civil rights movement, and
led to a dramatic increase in the number of black high school and
college graduates and to the incredible rise of the black middle-class
in both numbers and political power in the second half of the century.
And it was Marshall, as the nation's first African-American Supreme
Court justice, who promoted affirmative action -- preferences,
set-asides and other race conscious policies -- as the remedy for the
damage remaining from the nation's history of slavery and racial bias.
Justice Marshall gave a clear signal that while legal discrimination
had ended, there was more to be done to advance educational
opportunity for people who had been locked out and to bridge the wide
canyon of economic inequity between blacks and whites.
He worked on behalf of black Americans, but built a structure of
individual rights that became the cornerstone of protections for ALL
Americans, not just blacks. He succeeded in creating new protections
under the law for women, children, prisoners, and the homeless. Their
greater claim to full citizenship in the republic over the last
century can be directly traced to Thurgood Marshall. Even the
American press had Marshall to thank for an expansion of its liberties
during the century.
Marshall's lifework, then, literally defined the movement of race
relations through the century. He rejected King's peaceful protest as
rhetorical fluff that accomplished no permanent change in society.
And he rejected Malcolm X's talk of violent revolution and a separate
black nation as racist craziness in a multi-racial society.
The key to Marshall's work was his conviction that integration -- and
only integration -- would allow equal rights under the law to take
hold. Once individual rights were accepted, in Marshall's mind, then
blacks and whites could rise or fall based on their own ability.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, Thurgood Marshall was the
grandson of a slave. His father, William Marshall, instilled in him
from youth an appreciation for the United States Constitution and the
rule of law.
In 1930, Thurgood Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law
School, but was denied admission because he was Black. This was an
event that was to haunt him and direct his future professional life.
Paramount in Marshall's outlook was the need to overturn the 1898
Supreme Court ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson which established the legal
doctrine called, "separate but equal." Marshall's first major court
case came in 1933 when he successfully sued the University of Maryland
to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named
Donald Gaines Murray. Applauding Marshall's victory, author H.L.
Mencken wrote that the decision of denial by the University of
Maryland Law School was "brutal and absurd," and they should not
object to the "presence among them of a self-respecting and ambitious
young Afro-American well prepared for his studies by four years of
hard work in a class A college."
After amassing an impressive record of Supreme Court challenges to
state-sponsored discrimination, including the landmark Brown v. Board
decision in 1954, President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood
Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In this
capacity, he wrote over 150 decisions including support for the rights
of immigrants, limiting government intrusion in cases involving
illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and right to privacy
issues. Biographers Michael Davis and Hunter Clark note that, "none
of his (Marshall's) 98 majority decisions was ever reversed by the
Supreme Court."
In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson appointed Judge Marshall to the
office of U.S. Solicitor General. Before his subsequent nomination to
the United States Supreme Court in 1967, Thurgood Marshall won 14 of
the 19 cases he argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the
government. Indeed, Thurgood Marshall represented and won more cases
before the United States Supreme Court than any other American.
Until his retirement from the highest court in the land, Justice
Marshall established the record for giving a voice to the voiceless.
Having honed his skills since the case against the University of
Maryland, he developed a profound sensitivity to injustice by way of
the crucible of racial discrimination in this country. Justice
Marshall died on January 24, 1993.
Thurgood Marshall timeline:
1930
Mr. Marshall graduates with honors from Lincoln U. (cum laude)
1933
Receives law degree from Howard U. (magna cum laude); begins private
practice in Baltimore
1934
Begins to work for Baltimore branch of NAACP
1935
With Charles Houston, wins first major civil rights case, Murray v.
Pearson
1936
Becomes assistant special counsel for NAACP in New York
1940
Wins first of 29 Supreme Court victories (Chambers v. Florida)
1944
Successfully argues Smith v. Allwright, overthrowing the South's
"white primary"
1948
Wins Shelley v. Kraemer, in which Supreme Court strikes down legality
of racially restrictive covenants
1950
Wins Supreme Court victories in two graduate-school integration
cases, Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents
1951
Visits South Korea and Japan to investigate charges of racism in U.S.
armed forces. He reported that the general practice was one of "rigid
segregation".
1954
Wins Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, landmark case that
demolishes legal basis for segregation in America
1961
Defends civil rights demonstrators, winning Supreme Circuit Court
victory in Garner v. Louisiana; nominated to Second Court of Appeals
by President J.F. Kennedy
1961
Appointed circuit judge, makes 112 rulings, all of them later upheld
by Supreme Court (1961-1965)
1965
Appointed U.S. solicitor general by President Lyndon Johnson; wins 14
of the 19 cases he argues for the government (1965-1967)
1967
Becomes first African American elevated to U.S. Supreme Court
(1967-1991)
1991
Retires from the Supreme Court
1993
Dies at 84
Sources:
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Thurgood-Marshall &
http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/home.htm &
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm
to be the first African American Justice to the Supreme Court of the
United States. He was known for his Liberal and pro-Civil rights
positions. It was President Lyndon B. Johnson who appointed Marshall
to the Supreme Court in 1967, saying that this was "the right thing to
do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place."
Marshall then went on to serve with honor and distinction in the U.S.
Supreme Court for the next 24 years, from 1967 to 1991, after which he
retired due to ill health.
Thurgood Marshall led the civil rights revolution of the 20th century
that forever changed the landscape of American society. He did this
by working within the system, through the courts, to eradicate the
legacy of slavery and to destroy the racist segregation system of Jim
Crow
Thurgood Marshall can be credited with doing more to end legal
segregation in our country than anyone else. He won Supreme Court
victories that broke the color line in housing, transportation and
voting, in effect overturning the 'Separate-but-Equal' apartheid of
American life that plagued us in the earlier part of 20th century
America.
It was Marshall who won the most important legal cases of the century,
such as Brown v. Board of Education, which effectively ended the legal
separation of black and white children in public schools. The success
of the Brown case also sparked the 1960s civil rights movement, and
led to a dramatic increase in the number of black high school and
college graduates and to the incredible rise of the black middle-class
in both numbers and political power in the second half of the century.
And it was Marshall, as the nation's first African-American Supreme
Court justice, who promoted affirmative action -- preferences,
set-asides and other race conscious policies -- as the remedy for the
damage remaining from the nation's history of slavery and racial bias.
Justice Marshall gave a clear signal that while legal discrimination
had ended, there was more to be done to advance educational
opportunity for people who had been locked out and to bridge the wide
canyon of economic inequity between blacks and whites.
He worked on behalf of black Americans, but built a structure of
individual rights that became the cornerstone of protections for ALL
Americans, not just blacks. He succeeded in creating new protections
under the law for women, children, prisoners, and the homeless. Their
greater claim to full citizenship in the republic over the last
century can be directly traced to Thurgood Marshall. Even the
American press had Marshall to thank for an expansion of its liberties
during the century.
Marshall's lifework, then, literally defined the movement of race
relations through the century. He rejected King's peaceful protest as
rhetorical fluff that accomplished no permanent change in society.
And he rejected Malcolm X's talk of violent revolution and a separate
black nation as racist craziness in a multi-racial society.
The key to Marshall's work was his conviction that integration -- and
only integration -- would allow equal rights under the law to take
hold. Once individual rights were accepted, in Marshall's mind, then
blacks and whites could rise or fall based on their own ability.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, Thurgood Marshall was the
grandson of a slave. His father, William Marshall, instilled in him
from youth an appreciation for the United States Constitution and the
rule of law.
In 1930, Thurgood Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law
School, but was denied admission because he was Black. This was an
event that was to haunt him and direct his future professional life.
Paramount in Marshall's outlook was the need to overturn the 1898
Supreme Court ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson which established the legal
doctrine called, "separate but equal." Marshall's first major court
case came in 1933 when he successfully sued the University of Maryland
to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named
Donald Gaines Murray. Applauding Marshall's victory, author H.L.
Mencken wrote that the decision of denial by the University of
Maryland Law School was "brutal and absurd," and they should not
object to the "presence among them of a self-respecting and ambitious
young Afro-American well prepared for his studies by four years of
hard work in a class A college."
After amassing an impressive record of Supreme Court challenges to
state-sponsored discrimination, including the landmark Brown v. Board
decision in 1954, President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood
Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In this
capacity, he wrote over 150 decisions including support for the rights
of immigrants, limiting government intrusion in cases involving
illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and right to privacy
issues. Biographers Michael Davis and Hunter Clark note that, "none
of his (Marshall's) 98 majority decisions was ever reversed by the
Supreme Court."
In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson appointed Judge Marshall to the
office of U.S. Solicitor General. Before his subsequent nomination to
the United States Supreme Court in 1967, Thurgood Marshall won 14 of
the 19 cases he argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the
government. Indeed, Thurgood Marshall represented and won more cases
before the United States Supreme Court than any other American.
Until his retirement from the highest court in the land, Justice
Marshall established the record for giving a voice to the voiceless.
Having honed his skills since the case against the University of
Maryland, he developed a profound sensitivity to injustice by way of
the crucible of racial discrimination in this country. Justice
Marshall died on January 24, 1993.
Thurgood Marshall timeline:
1930
Mr. Marshall graduates with honors from Lincoln U. (cum laude)
1933
Receives law degree from Howard U. (magna cum laude); begins private
practice in Baltimore
1934
Begins to work for Baltimore branch of NAACP
1935
With Charles Houston, wins first major civil rights case, Murray v.
Pearson
1936
Becomes assistant special counsel for NAACP in New York
1940
Wins first of 29 Supreme Court victories (Chambers v. Florida)
1944
Successfully argues Smith v. Allwright, overthrowing the South's
"white primary"
1948
Wins Shelley v. Kraemer, in which Supreme Court strikes down legality
of racially restrictive covenants
1950
Wins Supreme Court victories in two graduate-school integration
cases, Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents
1951
Visits South Korea and Japan to investigate charges of racism in U.S.
armed forces. He reported that the general practice was one of "rigid
segregation".
1954
Wins Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, landmark case that
demolishes legal basis for segregation in America
1961
Defends civil rights demonstrators, winning Supreme Circuit Court
victory in Garner v. Louisiana; nominated to Second Court of Appeals
by President J.F. Kennedy
1961
Appointed circuit judge, makes 112 rulings, all of them later upheld
by Supreme Court (1961-1965)
1965
Appointed U.S. solicitor general by President Lyndon Johnson; wins 14
of the 19 cases he argues for the government (1965-1967)
1967
Becomes first African American elevated to U.S. Supreme Court
(1967-1991)
1991
Retires from the Supreme Court
1993
Dies at 84
Sources:
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Thurgood-Marshall &
http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/home.htm &
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm