FAMOUS AUTUMNS
THE PIONEERS
Thurgood Marshall Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court 1967-1990
Marshall, Wilder and Brooke Pave the Way
By Kristen Jones During times of great upheaval in the United States, Thurgood Marshall, L. Douglas Wilder and Edward W. Brooke—three black men with differing backgrounds and politics—became symbols of highly significant change in the nation. Other black leaders who have gone on to achieve great things in politics and government after them, can attribute a large part of their success to the doors opened by these three important pioneers. The Right Man for the Court On Oct. 2, 1967, Chief Justice Earl Warren swore in Thurgood Marshall as the first black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall, who was confirmed in a 69-11 floor vote by the U.S. Senate to join the Court, had previously been confirmed by the Senate as a federal judge in the Kennedy administration and then as solicitor general for President Lyndon Johnson. President Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court in June 1967 to replace retiring Justice Tom Clark, who left the Court after his son, Ramsey Clark, became attorney general. Johnson said Marshall was “best qualified by training and by very valuable service to the country. I believe it is the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.” As chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1940s and ’50s, Marshall was the architect and executor of the legal strategy that ended the era of official racial FALL 2022
segregation. The great-grandson of an enslaved person,Marshall was born in Baltimore, Md., in 1908. After being r ejected from the University of Maryland Law School on account of his race, he was accepted at all-black Howard University in Washington, D.C. At Howard, he studied under the tutelage of civil liberties lawyer Charles H. Houston and in 1933 graduated first in his class. In 1936, he joined the legal division of the NAACP, of which Houston was director, and two years later succeeded his mentor in the organization’s top legal post. During his 24 years on the high court, Associate Justice Marshall consistently challenged discrimination based on race or sex, opposed the death penalty, and vehemently defended affirmative action. He supported the rights of criminal defendants and defended the right to privacy. As appointments by a largely Republican White House changed the ideology of the Supreme Court, Marshall found his liberal views increasingly in the minority. He retired in 1991 because of declining health and died in 1993. After his death, the Court approved a special resolution honoring him.
BAVUAL 13
