Thursday, February 18, 2021

Celebrate Black History 2021 - Thurgood Marshall

by Dick Mac

Thurgood Marshall was born July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland, and died of heart failure at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 24, 1993. He was 84.

Marshall was a lawyer and civil rights activist who represented the plaintiffs in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education trial. He won the case which declared that public school segregation was unconstitutional. He attended Lincoln University, a historically black university, with classmates poet Langston Hughes and musician Cab Calloway.

He represented the NAACP in the 1934 suit Murray v. Pearson, a law school discrimination case. In this case, a black college student at Amherst College was denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School, despite his excellent grades and credentials. The law school argued that there was a separate-but-equal law school for him to attend, and Marshall successfully argued that the black school did not provide a comparable education. By 1940, Marshall was the Chief Counsel for the NAACP at the age of 32.

President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1961, and he became the first black Supreme Court Justice in 1967.

Thurgood Marshall championed the United States Constitution and worked as a constitutionalist to make the nation a better place for people of color. Despite the obstacles he faced, he met every challenge with dignity, grace, and intelligence. He is the embodiment of an American Hero.


Watch "Thurgood Marshall: Crusading Civil Rights Activist" at YouTube: https://youtu.be/fFsRVZpfjqI

#blackhistorymonth #BlackLivesMatter #WorkForChange


No comments: