Remembering Thurgood Marshall

Remembering Thurgood Marshall

Remembering Thurgood Marshall

With this being the month of October, I wanted to share an important date in history.

On Oct. 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn into the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the Court’s first African-American justice.

During his lifetime, he founded the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and served as the fund’s executive director. In that position, he argued several cases before the Supreme Court, but, most famously, he handled Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

This landmark case was considered Marshall’s greatest victory as a civil rights lawyer. The case in which the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" public education, as established by Plessy v. Ferguson, was not applicable to public education because it could never be truly equal.

Marshall in total won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court. Marshall's life was very important in shaping the American society we experience today. He fought for individual rights and equality for all people.

Marshall was truly a remarkable man and his actions helped to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans.

To quote Marshall, "The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis."

Love one another and remember his legacy.