30 April 2008
Thurgood Marshall: Timeline
Highpoints in the Life of a Leader in the Fight for Equality
(The following is taken from the U.S. Department of State publication, Justice for All: The Legacy of Thurgood Marshall.)
July 2, 1908: Born in Baltimore, Maryland. Later attends Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School and Booker T. Washington Junior High.
1921-1925: Attends Colored High and Training School, which became Frederick Douglass High School in 1923.
1929: Marries Vivian Burey.
1930: Graduates cum laude from Lincoln University, in Lincoln, Pa.
1933: Graduates first in his class from Howard University Law School.
1934: Begins to work for Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
1935: With mentor and friend Charles Hamilton Houston, wins first major civil rights case, Murray v. Pearson, desegregating the University of Maryland Law School. This was the law school Marshall could not attend on the grounds of race.
1936: Becomes assistant special counsel for NAACP in New York.
1940-1961: Serves as legal director of the NAACP. In 1940, he wins the first of his Supreme Court victories, Chambers v. Florida. Marshall won 29 cases out of 32 he argued.
1950: Wins Supreme Court victories in two graduate school integration cases, Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents.
1951: Visits South Korea and Japan to investigate charges of racism in the U.S. armed forces. He reported that the general practice was one of "rigid segregation."
1954: Wins Brown v. Board of Education case, the landmark lawsuit that ends the legal segregation of schools in America.
Feb. 1955: Vivian Marshall dies.
Dec. 1955: Marries Cecilia A. Suyat; their union produces Marshall's two sons, Thurgood Jr. and John William.
1961: Nominated and appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit. Makes 112 rulings, all of them later upheld by the Supreme Court.
1965: Appointed U.S. Solicitor General by President Lyndon Johnson; wins 14 of the 19 cases he argues for the government, 1965-1967.
1967: Becomes first African American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, 1967 to 1991.
1991: Retires from the Supreme Court.
1993: Dies at 84 in Bethesda, Maryland.
