# Thurgood Marshall *American lawyer and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1967–1991* Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American lawyer who sat as an associate justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] from 1967 to 1991.[^1] Before his judicial service he led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, he prevailed in 29. Among them was *Brown v. Board of Education* (1954), in which the Court rejected the separate-but-equal doctrine and held segregated public education unconstitutional.[^1] He held two federal posts before reaching the Court. President John F. Kennedy named him to the Second Circuit in 1961, and President Lyndon B. Johnson made him Solicitor General in 1965.[^1] In 1967 Johnson nominated him to the seat vacated by [[Tom C. Clark]]. The Senate confirmed him 69–11.[^1] Marshall announced his retirement on June 27, 1991, and it took effect on October 1 of that year.[^1] On July 1, 1991, President George H. W. Bush nominated [[Clarence Thomas]] to replace him; the Senate's nominations listing records the nomination.[^2] Marshall died on January 24, 1993.[^1] ## Early life and education Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908. His father, William Canfield Marshall, worked as a waiter in hotels, clubs and railroad cars. His mother, Norma, taught elementary school.[^1] He finished the Colored High and Training School in Baltimore, later renamed Frederick Douglass High School, with honors in 1925. He then studied at Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania.[^1] He graduated with honors in 1930, earning a bachelor's degree in American literature and philosophy. Barred from the University of Maryland Law School, which then admitted only white students, he enrolled at the Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. There Charles Hamilton Houston became his mentor.[^1] ## Legal career After law school Marshall opened a practice in Baltimore and volunteered with the city's NAACP branch.[^1] In 1935 he and Houston sued the University of Maryland in *Murray v. Pearson*. Judge Eugene O'Dunne ordered the plaintiff admitted to the law school. The Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed on equal-protection grounds. The case never reached the U.S. Supreme Court, so the ruling did not apply nationwide.[^1] In 1936 Marshall moved to New York City to assist Houston, who had been appointed the NAACP's special counsel. He helped prepare the brief in *Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada* (1938).[^1] When Houston returned to Washington, Marshall succeeded him as special counsel. He later became director-counsel of the newly formed NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.[^1] His Supreme Court cases included: - *Smith v. Allwright* - *Morgan v. Virginia* - *Shelley v. Kraemer* - *McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents* - *Sweatt v. Painter* - *Brown* - *Cooper v. Aaron* In his desegregation cases he relied on sociological data to show that segregation was inherently unequal.[^1] ## Court of Appeals Kennedy nominated Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on September 23, 1961. When Congress adjourned, Kennedy gave him a recess appointment, and he took the oath on October 23.[^1] A three-member Senate Judiciary subcommittee then postponed his confirmation hearing several times; two of its members were pro-segregation Southern Democrats. Senator Kenneth Keating, a New York Republican, charged that the subcommittee was biased and was delaying without justification.[^1] The subcommittee held hearings between May and August 1962. The full Judiciary Committee then bypassed it and endorsed the nomination 11–4 on September 7. After five hours of floor debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall 56–14 on September 11, 1962.[^1] On the Second Circuit he wrote 98 majority opinions, and the Supreme Court reversed none of them. He also wrote 8 concurrences and 12 dissents.[^1] ## Solicitor General A Senate subcommittee hearing on Marshall's nomination as Solicitor General lasted fifteen minutes. The full Senate confirmed him on August 11, 1965.[^1] He argued nineteen cases before the Supreme Court in that office and won fourteen.[^1] - In *Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections* (1966), he argued that making the vote depend on payment of a poll tax was unlawful. - In a companion case to *Miranda v. Arizona* (1966), he argued without success that federal agents did not always have to advise arrested persons of their rights. - He defended the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in *South Carolina v. Katzenbach* and *Katzenbach v. Morgan* (both 1966) and won both.[^1] ## Supreme Court nomination In February 1967 Johnson nominated Ramsey Clark as Attorney General. Clark's father, Justice Tom C. Clark, then announced his resignation from the Court.[^1] Johnson announced Marshall's nomination to the vacancy in the White House Rose Garden on June 13.[^1] The Senate Judiciary Committee held five days of hearings in July. Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi, Sam Ervin Jr. of North Carolina, John McClellan of Arkansas and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina questioned the nominee sharply. Thurmond alone put more than sixty questions to him.[^1] The committee recommended confirmation 11–5 on August 3. After six hours of debate, the Senate voted 69–11 on August 30 to confirm him. Marshall was sworn in on October 2, 1967.[^1] ## Supreme Court Marshall's service on the Court lasted almost twenty-four years and ended with his 1991 retirement.[^1] He joined a Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren that had a consistent liberal majority. Because he lacked seniority in that period, he wrote few major opinions, but he usually voted with the majority.[^1] President Richard Nixon then made four appointments to the Court. On the Burger Court that followed, Marshall's principal contributions to constitutional law were his dissents.[^1] He decided the outcome of cases himself and left much of the drafting of opinions to his law clerks.[^1] His closest colleague on the bench was [[William J. Brennan Jr.]]. The two voted together so often that their clerks privately called them "Justice Brennanmarshall".[^1] ## Personal life Marshall married Vivian Burey on September 4, 1929, while he was a student at Lincoln. She died of cancer in 1955.[^1] Eleven months later he married Cecilia Suyat, a secretary at the NAACP. They had two sons: - Thurgood Jr., an attorney who worked in the Clinton administration. - John, who directed the [[U.S. Marshals Service]] and served as Virginia's secretary of public safety.[^1] Marshall belonged to the Episcopal Church. As a delegate to its 1964 convention, he walked out after delegates voted down a resolution recognizing a right to disobey immoral segregation laws.[^1] He was a Prince Hall Mason. He declined to attend the Court's annual Christmas party, believing it infringed on the separation of church and state.[^1] Justice [[Sandra Day O'Connor]], who sat with him for a decade, wrote that she came to see "a relevant legal point" behind most of his anecdotes in conference.[^1] ## Retirement, later life, and death Brennan retired in 1990. On June 27, 1991, Marshall, then 82, announced his own retirement, which took effect on October 1.[^1] In January 1992 he sat for a week as a visiting judge on the Second Circuit. In August 1992 he received the American Bar Association's highest award.[^1] He died of heart failure at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center on January 24, 1993, at age 84.[^1] He lay in repose in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court. More than four thousand people attended his funeral at the Washington National Cathedral.[^1] In his eulogy, Chief Justice [[William Rehnquist]] said: "Surely no one individual did more to make these words a reality than Thurgood Marshall." The words he referred to were "Equal justice under law", inscribed above the Court's entrance. Marshall was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.[^1] ## Appraisal and legacy Scholars of the Court have generally approved of Marshall's pre-Court legal career. They have ranked his tenure as a justice lower, citing a perception that he had little influence over his colleagues.[^1] The scholar Henry J. Abraham wrote that "he was one of America's greatest public lawyers, but he was not a great Supreme Court justice". A 1993 survey of legal scholars ranked Marshall seventeenth among the Court's justices, higher than an earlier survey had placed him.[^1] Several institutions are named for him: - Baltimore's airport, which the state of Maryland renamed Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in 2005. - The University of Maryland's law library. - The Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in New York, renamed in 2001.[^1] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who - The project's Time Table records President George H. W. Bush as nominating Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court to replace Marshall.[^2] ### When - The Time Table dates the Thomas nomination to July 1, 1991.[^2] ### Where - The Time Table places the nomination in Washington, D.C.[^2] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia, *Thurgood Marshall* (revision 1381597755, retrieved 2026-10-26; CC BY-SA 4.0) — biography, career, confirmation votes, service, death and legacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall [^2]: United States Senate, *Supreme Court Nominations (1789–Present)* (listing) — records President Bush's July 1, 1991 nomination of Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall (Time Table row TL-0560). https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm