It was only after a second round of arguments in 1954--after Earl Warren was appointed chief justice--that the court ruled unanimously to overturn segregation in public schools. The foundation for the Brown vs the Board of Education case, was laid in place by the many smaller judgments won by the NAACP led by Thurgood Marshall legal team. Charles Hamilton Houston, the vice dean, viewed the law school as training "social engineers" who could use the law to challenge segregation. Mr Civil Rights: Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP. Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's first African-American justice. In 1935, Houston directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Marshall was his right-hand man. Immediately after graduation, Marshall opened a law office in Baltimore and in the early 1930s, he represented the local NAACP chapter in a successful lawsuit that challenged the University of Maryland Law School over its segregation policy. He kept right on the tail of the car and they kept going back to tell him. He said, that I raped that whore? We first went down to Mink Slide [the black neighborhood in Columbia] on our way out to get a bottle of whiskey. Southern senators held up the appointment for almost a year, challenging his legal credentials but obviously opposed to him because he was black and a civil rights pioneer. Tap here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to you. I know, is there anybody else, a relative, somebody you can depend on? He said, there’s nothing to racial about that, he said, he does it ALL the time whether you’re white, black or green. Some civil rights activists disparaged the NAACP's legal approach to dismantling segregation, contending that civil disobedience was a more effective tool to change public opinion and pressure politicians and businesses to change their practices. Marshall was chief counsel for the NAACP and argued numerous civil rights cases before the Supreme Court. He said well I guess I’ve got to make up my mind. Thurgood Marshall was an American lawyer who was appointed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1967. During this period, Mr. Marshall was asked by the United Nations and the United Kingdom to help draft the constitutions of the emerging African nations of Ghana and what is now Tanzania. Marshall had been one of the NAACP's top lawyers. Vivian "Buster" Burey Marshall was an American civil rights activist and was married for 25 years until her death to Thurgood Marshall, lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who also managed Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Mr. Civil Rights: Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP. (Library of Congress) And he said what did you say? During the confirmation process, conservative Republican senators sought to discredit Kagan by disparaging her mentor, Marshall. I was driving the car and three or four cars came up, police cars and state troopers, five or six cars, and pulled us over and said they had a search warrant. Be on the platform, so much more money. He said second, the judge and the governor have been on the telephone and if Irvin will plead guilty, he’ll give him a life sentence and he’ll be sure he won’t get the death penalty. One of his favorite concerned his days as the head of the legal arm of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1930s and 1940s representing black clients facing prosecution in the South. This is a timeline of his life events. B. Thurgood Marshall & the NAACP The actions of the NAACP played a crucial role on the road to integrating schools in America. You’re drunk. Marshall had been one of the NAACP's top lawyers. B. Thurgood Marshall & the NAACP The actions of the NAACP played a crucial role on the road to integrating schools in America. I’m going to be stuck with that for life. Thurgood Marshall in front of the Supreme Court building (left) and with Autherine Lucy and fellow NAACP attorney Arthur Shore outside Birmingham's Federal Court during Lucy's campaign to desegregate the University of Alabama. And he says to me, boy, you wanna take my test? He said well go ahead. A: I felt that, Irvin’s mother had me awake all night, every night. So they followed Looby’s car which they’d hoped they would do. Marshall argued 32 cases before the US Supreme Court and won twenty-nine of them. The list below are of cases between 1943-1961, brought before the Supreme Court of the United States by the NAACP or the Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., in which Thurgood Marshall argued the case. I said the same answer he gave. The Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multidisciplinary center within the NAACP Legal Defense Fund dedicated to research, advocacy campaigns and organizing. And I said, did you also notice that the state’s attorney – three different times gave the Masonic distress signal to that jury? In Thurgood Marshall’s speech at the NAACP Wartime Conference, he maintains that a legal strategy is necessary to secure full civil rights and that blacks in particular, must avail themselves of statutes of the United States to protect their fundamental rights as free American citizens. “In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.” 2. Thurgood Marshall told his biographer Juan Williams, who wrote Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, that press coverage of the case sparked eye-rolling laughs at the NAACP offices. Marshall interrupted, saying, "It would have been cheaper to shoot him right after he was arrested, wouldn't it?". Once, in Columbia, Mississippi, after an all-white jury acquitted his black clients--a rare occurrence--he was nearly lynched, with the help of local police. He traveled 30,000 miles a year, on the back roads of the Deep South fighting for desegregation and against Jim Crow law. The NAACPs initial goal was to funnel equal resources to black schools. Well I was changing trains and I had about a two or three stopover and while I was waiting I got hungry and I saw a restaurant on there so I decided that if I got hungry enough I’d go over there and put my civil rights in my back pocket and go to the back door of the kitchen and see if I could buy a sandwich. The Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multidisciplinary center within the NAACP Legal Defense Fund dedicated to research, advocacy campaigns and organizing. Marshall would have worn those attacks as a badge of honor. Now, Judge Futch, you know I told you when you went out that you could bring in three verdicts: guilty, not guilty or guilty with mercy. We made it easy for you to exercise your right to vote! McCall was the sheriff. 3. Hatred generates fear, and fear once given a footh… She had the most impressive face I’ve ever seen on a woman, real high cheekbones and a whole lot of red in that black, a whole lot of red, and lot of Indian. His mother was an elementary school teacher. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. Part of HuffPost Politics. Thurgood Marshall in front of the Supreme Court building (left) and with Autherine Lucy and fellow NAACP attorney Arthur Shore outside Birmingham's Federal Court during Lucy's campaign to desegregate the University of Alabama. Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? Marshall served on the Court from 1967 to 1991. Marshall successfully challenged the board to only litig… He was the architect of the legal strategy that ended racial segregation in the United States of America. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Thurgood Marshall, earlier named Thoroughgood Marshall (which he changed in the 2nd grade), was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Marshall's argument in the case relied on the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave freed slaves "equal protection of the laws." His classmates included entertainer Cab Calloway and writer Langston Hughes. You understand that? Get the film! He had become famous for defending cases with black defendants, as an NAACP lawyer, and as head of legal defense for the agency. You want to take a chance? February, 1956. In April 1941, Thurgood Marshall is an NAACP lawyer traveling the country defending people of color who are wrongly accused of crimes because of racial prejudice. Mr. Civil Rights: Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP . I said, what the hell you talking about? When they saw Marshall, they mistook him for the elevator operator. So after they’d decide the case, they’re going to finish the cigar before they come in. Marshall served on the Court from 1967 to 1991. At least a hundred. And I said, why not? Thurgood Marshall argued, and won more US Supreme Court cases than anyone in history. The sheriff, the sonofabitch. You ain’t gonna shoot me in the back, we’ll go together. But when they needed attorneys, it was the NAACP they turned to. And when I went down for the trial, a white man met me in the hallway and it was real tense, state troopers and everything. Thurgood Marshall, earlier named Thoroughgood Marshall (which he changed in the 2nd grade), was born in Baltimore, Maryland. While there, Marshall encountered many political figures and civil rights leaders Marshall had hoped to wait to retire until a Democrat was elected president and could replace him. The list below are of cases between 1943-1961, brought before the Supreme Court of the United States by the NAACP or the Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., in which Thurgood Marshall argued the case. Thurgood Marshall told his biographer Juan Williams, who wrote Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, that press coverage of the case sparked eye-rolling laughs at the NAACP offices. Date Event; July 2, 1908: Thurgood Marshall is born Thurgood Marshall was born in Maryland. we’ll be over there in a minute. They left, yes. I said how? And so go toward them, but not from them. It was a dry county and they were going to search the car. Marshall advocated on behalf of the NAACP to challenge the south’s policy of segregation in education. And you’d go look at the record and he’d got 26 witnesses [supporting him]. Marshall grew up in segregated Baltimore, Maryland, where, he recalled, "there wasn't a single department store that would let a Negro in the front door." APPLY NOW . So, to make a long story short, the jury went out, no, while the jury was going on, I looked at the whole jury face to face – all white, of course – and everyone had a Shriner pin on him. One of his best known was in a 1973 case, San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, in which the court ruled by a 5-4 vote that Texas's system of funding public schools through property taxes--which meant that wealthy communities spent much more than poor ones--did not violate the Constitution's equal protection mandate. 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