On Oct. 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall began his almost 25-year tenure on the Supreme Court. The first African American to serve on the court, Marshall first made a name for himself as an attorney for the NAACP, where he challenged the constitutionality of things like segregated schools and whites-only election primaries. All in all, Marshall argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court as a lawyer and won 29 of them. Here is a roundup of some of his legal highlights as an attorney and a justice:
Civil rights victories
Marshall was dubbed “Mr. Civil Rights” because of his tireless pursuit of equality for people of all races. Some of the most prominent civil rights cases he tried include:
- Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Marshall and his legal team brought this case, which challenged public school segregation, all the way to the Supreme Court in the early 1950s. When asked by one of the sitting justices what he meant by “equal” during his argument, Marshall reportedly replied, “Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time, and in the same place.” In the end the court ruled 9-0 that “separate education facilities are inherently unequal,” although it took years for school segregation to be fully realized.
- Smith v. Allwright. Another legal victory for Marshall was this 1944 case that outlawed the practice of holding all-white primaries in Texas, an act intended to disenfranchise black voters.
Supreme Court career
Marshall continued his staunch defense of civil and human rights after he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967 by former President Lyndon B. Johnson.
- Affirmative action legislation. Marshall dissented on a number of Supreme Court decisions that knocked down affirmative action policies. “In light of the sorry history of discrimination and its devastating impact on the lives of Negroes,” Marshall once wrote, “bringing the Negro into the mainstream of American life should be a state interest of the highest order.”
- Death penalty opponent. Marshall believed the death penalty was unconstitutional under all circumstances. He dissented in more than 150 cases – hence his nickname “the great dissenter” – in which the Supreme Court would not hear the appeals of those on death row.
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