Inscribed
above the entrance of the U.S. Supreme Court is the phrase, "Equal Justice
Under Law." No person has done more to make this ideal a reality than the
late Thurgood Marshall, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1967
to 1991.
Marshall, a native of Baltimore,
graduated with honors from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and Howard University
Law School. Encouraged by his mentor at Howard, Dean Charles H. Houston, Marshall
became legal counsel for the NAACP's Baltimore branch in 1934. In 1936, he joined
the organization's national legal staff, and two years later became its chief.
As Director-Counsel of the
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Marshall traveled all over America,
leading the legal fight to destroy segregation. With heroic tenacity, he argued
32 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and won 29 of them. His crowning achievement
came when he skillfully proved in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas,
segregated schools were inherently unequal and therefore, unconstitutional.
This ruling became the low of the land and the cornerstone for the Civil Rights
movement.
In 1961, President John F.
Kennedy appointed Marshall to the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1965,
President Lyndon Johnson selected Marshall to be Solicitor General of the United
States, the lawyer who represents the federal government in cases before the
U.S. Supreme Court. In 1967 President Johnson named him to the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Throughout America, Justice
Marshall was known as, "a protector of little people." If he had a coat of arms,
emblazoned upon it would be this statement from the U.S. Constitution, "to promote
the general welfare and secure the blessing of liberty."
