Civil Rights Leader: Thurgood Marshall

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I opened my eyes to the grey light that covered the entire sky, so incessant it seemed as if it had been painted. The air was brisk, it nipped at my skin like tiny push pins of ice. To my left there were signs that read a mixture of “whites only” and “colored” with arrows pointing towards a strew of different buildings. I could see the debilitating structures that were meant for “colored” people, yet the “white” buildings were standing tall, so well kept they were practically shining. Beyond that, I could see workers, black workers, which were all hustling to please their white bosses who just sat back and watched leisurely. I could see a black man just simply walking down a sidewalk, and I could see the hatred and disgust that grew on a white man’s face just because this black man existed. I could see fire dotting the entire landscape, the men clad in white garb rejoicing around it. I could see the black men, women, and children, tears flowing heavily from their eyes because they know they will never be able to survive in this world. Everything that I see is the oppression that engulfs the world we live in, the racism that seems to be inescapable. To my right, however, the picture is very different. I see both black and white children walking out of school together, smiles glued to all of their faces. I see a black woman talking to a group of her peers about how they can improve their business she’s the owner of the company. I see a couple at the altar, a woman’s white fingers slipping gently into the palm of her soon-to-be black husband. Everything I see is how the world should be, how it should’ve always been without the unprompted hate that boils beneath the skin of many people in our society. And straight in front of me, I can see everything it took to get from the world on the left to the world on the right. I can see the protests, the speeches, the murders it took for the fight for civil rights. I can see the fighters too, those brave people that stood up for what they knew was right and never backed down from that. I see people like Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Heights, and John F. Kennedy who were the foundation of the civil rights movement.

The civil rights movement was the fight to diminish racial discrimination and prejudice, as well as to gain equal rights for African Americans. It began in the late 1940s and ended in the late 1960s. Countless people joined in this fight, such as the men and women previously named. Another man that played a pivotal role in this movement was Thurgood Marshall. He faced discrimination even at the early stages of his life, but he didn’t allow these setbacks to take away his dreams. The profession of law had his heart, so even when he had been denied from his top choice of law school, the University of Maryland School of Law, he still fought to go somewhere else. In 1930, he began attending Howard University Law School which is where he “became a protégé of the well-known dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, who encouraged students to use the law as a means for social transformation,” (History.com, 2009). After graduating top of his class in 1933, Marshall opened up his own law firm in Baltimore. After practicing for a few years, Marshall landed his first major court case, ​Murray v. Pearson. Ironically, the case was filed against the University of Maryland for denying a black applicant admission to its law school because of his race. Marshall successfully sued the University and shortly after became chief of the NAACP legal defense team.

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Throughout his time as a lawyer, he argued 32 cases in front of the Supreme Court – more than any other lawyer in history. One of the most famous and influential cases that Marshall fought was ​Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In 1951, Oliver Brown filed a lawsuit because his daughter was denied admission to an all-white grammar school. He stated that the segregated schools were a violation of the 14th Amendment because they were not equal to each other. After Marshall argued the case for a few years, he received the verdict he had been hoping for on May 17th, 1954. Chief Justice, Earl Warren wrote “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal has no place,” because segregated schools are “inherently unequal,” (History.com, 2009). Because of this, the Court ruled that black children who are unable to attend white schools are being “deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment,” (History.com, 2009). This victory was not only fantastic for Marshall, but for the entire country, as it was one of the initial turning points that sparked the civil rights movement itself.

In 1961, Marshall was appointed to the position of Solicitor General for the U.S. Court of Appeals by John F. Kennedy. After this, people began thinking “it was clear the successful attorney was well on his way to making a case for a Supreme Court nomination,” (History.com, 2009). Six years later, in 1967, Lyndon Johnson made Marshall a Supreme Court Justice. He became the first black justice and was lucky enough to have his ideas and views accepted by the mainly liberal court that existed at the time. In the duration of his position as a justice, he made quite a name for himself as passionate and empathetic. He bolstered expanding civil rights and limiting criminal punishment up until he retired in 1991 from the Supreme Court.

Works Cited

  1. History.com Editors. “Brown v. Board of Education.” ​History.com, A&E Television Networks, 27 Oct. 2009, www.history.com/topics/black-history/brown-v-board-of-education-of-topeka.
  2. History.com Editors. “Thurgood Marshall.” ​History.com, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct. 2009, www.history.com/topics/black-history/thurgood-marshall.

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