Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an As of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court’s 96th justice and its first African-American justice.
Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, the great-grandson of a slave.
Marshall graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore in 1925 and from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1930. At Lincoln University, Marshall was initiated as a member of the first black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha.
Marshall wanted to apply to his hometown law school, the University of Maryland School of Law, but the dean said he would not be accepted because of the school’s segregation policy. Marshall instead attended Howard University School of Law, where he graduated from, first in his class, in 1933. Three years later, Marshall would successfully represent his client in bringing suit against the University of Maryland Law School for its policy, ending segregation there (see Murray v. Pearson).
In 1936, Marshall set up a private practice in Baltimore. That year, he began working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Baltimore.
Marshall died of heart failure at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, at 2:58 pm on January 24, 1993 at the age of 84. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His second wife and their two sons survived him.
