About Justice Marshall

“None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots.”
Thurgood Marshall

You’ve all heard the terms “segregation,” “civil rights,” and “equal opportunity under the law.” Today we celebrate a great American, the grandson of a slave, and the first African American to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Thurgood Marshall, a man who was most instrumental in de-segregating America’s public schools.

Born in 1908 and raised in Baltimore, MD, Thurgood Marshall attended racially segregated schools from the time he was in first grade all the way through law school. He was denied access to schools that were set aside for only white students.

Marshall’s mother was a teacher in an all black elementary school, and his father was a dining car waiter for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Thurgood’s teachers described him as “high spirited.” That’s a nice way of saying that he was loud and argumentative in the classroom. About the time he was in 6th grade, his principal administered a punishment that would have a significant effect on Marshall’s future. He was sent to the basement of the school where he had to do write-offs – only his write-offs were from the United States Constitution! He had to memorize a passage from the constitution and recite it prior to being allowed back in class. “Before I left that school,” he later told a reporter, “I knew the whole thing by heart!”

Parts of the Constitution, however, puzzled him. As an adult, Marshall remembered wondering about the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal rights.” Seeing inequality all around him, starting with his own segregated school, he asked his father what the guarantee meant. His father simply told him that the Constitution described things as they SHOULD be, not as they really were. Marshall later noted that his parents and grandparents encouraged him to adjust to segregation, rather than fight it. “I was taught to go along with it, not fight it unless you could win!”

Thurgood Marshall took his ability to argue, refined it in college, and tuned it into a career – he became a lawyer. One of his first big jobs was working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In the 1930’s he represented many black college students who were trying to gain entrance to all white universities – and he was successful! He did this by focusing on one of the interpretations of the Constitution known as the “separate but equal” doctrine used to legally separate black and white children into different schools. He figured out that the Supreme Court had upheld the “separate” part of that interpretation, but no one had ever tested the part that said “equal.” He proved that the colleges were not equal and the court had no choice but to order the white university to admit a black student. Many of Thurgood Marshall’s legal cases referred to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, more specifically to the passages of those amendments relevant to civil rights issues. I hope that you will take some class time and see if you can find the words that meant so much to provide you with the education you now have – and at NO cost!!!

By the late 1940’s Marshall had earned a nickname, “Mr. Civil Rights,” and in 1952 he became the major voice in a lawsuit known as Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, the landmark case that was settled in 1954 and ended the practice of segregating schools in the United States. He used the Fourteenth Amendment in his brief to the Supreme court. Read his words: “There can be no doubt that the framers (of the Constitution) were seeking to secure and to protect the Negro as a full and equal citizen.” Earlier Supreme Court decisions, he continued, “compel the conclusion that school segregation …is at WAR with the Amendment’s intent.”

Desegregation of schools didn’t happen immediately. In fact, school districts all over the United States became involved in law suits petitioning an end to “separate but equal” segregated schools. In Nashville, the landmark school desegregation lawsuit was filed on behalf of A. Z. Kelley and Robert W. Kelley. This lawsuit would continue for thirty years until it was resolved just a few years ago. The link between Thurgood Marshall and A.Z. Kelley is a strong one. Had it not been for these men ______________ ? You finish that thought.

Now we need to talk about President John F. Kennedy and his connection to Thurgood Marshall. President Kennedy was inaugurated in January, 1961, just six years after the desegregation law suit. The United States was defining civil rights based on many law suits, some of them argued by Thurgood Marshall. The federal judicial system is made up of three tiers. At the lowest level are the district courts. If you lose, you can appeal the decision to the next level, a circuit court of appeals – there are 11 circuit courts in the US. The only way to overturn a decision at this level is for the case to go to the Supreme Court.

In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where an unusually high number of important cases are tried. This was a very high honor for Marshall, and a lot of people tried to block his appointment, but Marshall persevered and took his seat on the federal bench in September 1962.

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to fill a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court. He became the first African American to serve on the highest court in the country, and held that post until his retirement 24 years later in 1991. Thurgood Marshall died in 1993 at the age of 84.

Dr. Barbara Ide, Thurgood Marshall Building Dedication, September 13, 2006