Thurgood Marshall
By: Trevor Hicks, Madeline Finken, Julia Stephenson
Define
Detail
Thurgood Marshall graduated from Baltimore’s Colored high (later renamed to Frederick Douglass High School) and was an above-average student, an amazing star in the debate team, and a trouble maker. He later went to Lincoln University and graduated and applied to University of Maryland Law School but was rejected because of race. This made a lasting impression on him and he applied and attended Howard University Law School and received a degree in law.
Characteristics:
1908- Marshall is born in Maryland to a club worker and a school teacher
1920- Marshall recalls debating local court cases at dinner with his father, which unknowingly prepared him for his future profession
1930- Marshall graduates with honors from Lincoln University
1934- Marshall graduates from law school at Howard University, where he first began working with the NAACP and practicing law
1943- Began work towards the integration of New York schools
1946- NAACP rewarded Marshall an award for his service
1951- Took a trip to North Korea to see if racism was being practiced in the military
1954- Won the court case that made segregation illegal in the United States
1956- Marshall assists the ending of the Birmingham bus boycott
1957- Opens non-profit NAACP law firm to try NAACP cases
1961- Appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the circuit court
1967- Marshall becomes a supreme court justice
1991- Retires from the Supreme Court
1992- Awarded "Liberty Medal" for many years of protecting people's rights
1993- Marshall dies at 84 in Maryland
Significance:
Thurgood was the first African American justice of the Supreme Court system and an instrument in undermining the social descrimination through court cases such as Murray vs. Pearson, Chambers vs. Florida, and Smith vs. Allwright. However his greatest win in the courts was the Brown vs Board of Education case. He won the case and saw that the racial discrimination of public places could be undermined and continued to press forward to destory segregation.