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{{for|people and institutions etc. named after Thurgood Marshall|Thurgood Marshall (disambiguation).}}

{{Infobox Judge
|name = Thurgood Marshall
|image = Thurgood-marshall-2.jpg
|imagesize = 175px
|caption = Thurgood Marshall
|office = ]
|termstart = ] ]
|termend = ] ]
|nominator = ]
|appointer =
|predecessor = ]
|successor = ]
|office2 =
|termstart2 =
|termend2 =
|nominator2 =
|appointer2 =
|predecessor2 =
|successor2 =
|birthdate = {{birth date|1908|7|2|mf=y}}
|birthplace = ], ]
|deathdate = {{death date and age|1993|1|24|1908|7|2}}
|deathplace = ], ]
|spouse =
|religion = Episcopalian
}}
'''Thurgood Marshall''' (], ] – ], ]) was an ] ] and the first ] to serve on the ]. Prior to becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in '']''.

Marshall was born in ], on ], ]. His original name was '''Thoroughgood''' but he shortened it to '''Thurgood''' in second grade. His father, William Marshall, instilled in him an appreciation for the ] and the ].{{Fact|date=March 2008}} Additionally, as a child, he was punished for his school misbehavior by being forced to read the Constitution, which he later said piqued his interest in the document. Marshall was a descendant of slaves.<ref>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9079930</ref>

Marshall was married twice; to Vivian "Buster" Burey from 1929 until her death in February 1955 and to Cecilia Suyat from December 1955 until his own death in 1993. He had two sons from his second marriage;<ref name="cissy"></ref> ], who is a former top aide to President ], and ], who is a former ] Director and since 2002 has served as ] Secretary of Public Safety under Governors ] and ].

==Education==
Marshall graduated from ] in Pennsylvania in 1930. Afterward, Marshall wanted to apply to his hometown law school at the ], but the dean told him that he shouldn't bother because he would not be accepted due to the school's ] policy. Later, as a civil rights litigator, he successfully sued the school for this policy in the case of '']''. Instead, Marshall sought admission and was accepted at ]. He was influenced by its dynamic new dean, ], who instilled in his students the desire to apply the tenets of the Constitution to all Americans.

Marshall was a member of ], the first intercollegiate Black ] ], established by ] students in 1906.

==Law career==
{{Main|Murray v. Pearson}}
Marshall received his law degree from ] in 1933, and set up a private practice in Baltimore. The following year, he began working with the Baltimore ]. He won his first major civil rights case, '']'', ] (]). This involved the first attempt to chip away at '']'', a plan created by his co-counsel on the case ]. Marshall represented Donald Gaines Murray, a black ] graduate with excellent credentials who had been denied admission to the ] because of its separate but equal policies. This policy required black students to accept one of three options, attend: ], the ], or out-of-state black institutions. In ], Thurgood Marshall argued the case for Murray, showing that neither of the in-state institutions offered a law school and that such schools were entirely unequal to the University of Maryland. Marshall and Houston expected to lose and intended to appeal to the federal courts. However, the ] ruled against the state of ] and its ], who represented the ], stating "Compliance with the Constitution cannot be deferred at the will of the state. Whatever system is adopted for legal education now must furnish equality of treatment now". While it was a moral victory, the ruling had no real authority outside the state of Maryland.
], Thurgood Marshall, and ], congratulating each other, following Supreme Court decision declaring segregation unconstitutional]]

===Chief Counsel for the NAACP===
Marshall won his very first ] case, '']'', 309 U.S. 227 (]). At the age of 32, that same year, he was appointed Chief Counsel for the NAACP. He argued many other cases before the Supreme Court, most of them successfully, including '']'', 321 U.S. 649 (]); '']'', 334 U.S. 1 (]); '']'', 339 U.S. 629 (]); and '']'', 339 U.S. 637 (]). His most famous case as a lawyer was ''] of ]'', 347 U.S. 483 (]), the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that "]" public education was unconstitutional because it could never be truly equal. In total, Marshall won 29 out of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court.

During the 1950s, Thurgood Marshall developed a friendly relationship with ], the director the ]. In 1956, for example, he privately praised Hoover's campaign to discredit ], a maverick civil rights leader from Mississippi. During a national speaking tour, Howard had criticized the FBI's failure to seriously investigate cases such as the 1955 murders of ] and ]. Ironically, two years earlier Howard had arranged for Marshall to deliver a well-received speech at a rally of his ] in ] only days before the Brown decision.

President ] appointed Marshall to the ] in ]. A group of ] Senators led by Mississippi's ] held up his confirmation, so he served for the first several months under a '']''. Marshall remained on that court until ], when President ] appointed him ].

===U.S. Supreme Court===
On ], ], President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice ], saying that this was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place." He was the 96th person to hold the position, and the first African-American. President Johnson confidently predicted to one biographer, ], that a lot of black baby boys would be named "Thurgood" in honor of this choice (in fact, Kearns's research of birth records in New York and Boston indicates that Johnson's prophecy did not come true).{{Fact|date=March 2008}}

Marshall served on the Court for the next twenty-four years, compiling a liberal record that included strong support for Constitutional protection of individual rights, especially the rights of criminal suspects against the government. His most frequent ally on the Court (indeed, the pair rarely voted at odds) was Justice ], who consistently joined him in supporting abortion rights and opposing the ]. Brennan and Marshall concluded in '']'' that the death penalty was, in all circumstances, unconstitutional, and never accepted the legitimacy of '']'', which ruled four years later that the death penalty was constitutional in some circumstances. Thereafter, Brennan or Marshall dissented from every denial of certiorari in a capital case and from every decision upholding a sentence of death.{{Fact|date=March 2008}}

Although he is best remembered for his jurisprudence in the fields of ] and ], Marshall made significant contributions to other areas of the law as well. In '']'' he held that the ] entitled the ] to a ] in a suit against a ] for breach of duty of fair representation. In '']'' he articulated a formulation for the standard of ] in ] that is still applied and used today. In '']'', he weighed in on the ] consequences of the ], permitting a ] to deduct a loss from an exchange of mortgage participation interests.

Among his many ]s were Chief Judge ] of the ], well-known law professors ], ], Susan Low Bloch, and ], Dean ] of ], and Dean ] of ].

==Death==
Marshall died of ] at the age of 84. He died at the ] in ], at 2:58 p.m. on ], ]. He was buried in ]. He was survived by his second wife and their two sons. Marshall left all of his personal papers and notes to the ]. The Librarian of Congress opened Marshall's papers for immediate use by scholars, journalists and the public, insisting that this was Marshall's intent. The Marshall family and several of his close associates disputed this claim.<ref>{{cite web | last =Lewis | first =Neil A. | title =Chief Justice Assails Library On Release of Marshall Papers | publisher =New York Times | date =May 26, 1993 | url =http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7D8163BF935A15756C0A965958260 | accessdate =2007-12-17 }}</ref> There are numerous memorials to Justice Marshall. One is near the ]. The primary office building for the federal court system, located on ], is named in honor of Justice Marshall and also contains a statue of him in the atrium. The major airport serving Baltimore and the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, was renamed the ] on October 1, 2005.

==Timeline of Marshall's life==
]
1930 - Thurgood graduates with honors from ] (]).
1934 - Thurgood receives law degree from ] (]); begins private practice in ].

1934 - Begins to work for Baltimore branch of ].

1935 - Worked with Charles Houston, wins first major civil rights case, '']''.

1936 - Becomes assistant special counsel for NAACP in ].

1940 - Wins '']'', the first of twenty-nine Supreme Court victories.

1943 - Won case for integration of schools in ].

1944 - Successfully argues '']'', overthrowing the South's "]".

1946 -Thurgood Marshall received a medal from the NAACP.

1948 - Wins '']'', in which Supreme Court strikes down legality of racially restrictive covenants.

1950 - Wins Supreme Court victories in two graduate-school integration cases, '']'' and '']''.

1951 - Visits ] and ] to investigate charges of racism in U.S. armed forces. He reported that the general practice was one of "rigid segregation."

1954 - Wins '']'', landmark case that demolishes legal basis for segregation in America.

1956 - Wins '']'', ending the practice of segregation on buses and ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1961 - Defends civil rights demonstrators, winning Supreme Court victory in '']''; nominated to ] by President ].

1961 - Appointed circuit judge, makes 112 rulings, none of them reversed on ] by Supreme Court (1961-1965).

1965 - Appointed ] by President ]; wins 14 of the 19 cases he argues for the government (1965-1967).

1967 - Becomes first African American elevated to U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991).

1991 - Retires from the Supreme Court.

1992 - Receives the ] recognizing Marshall's long history of protecting individual rights under the Constitution.

1993 - Dies at age 84 in ], near ]

For more, see Bradley C. S. Watson, "]" in ''].''

==References==
*], ''Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary'' (1998 book).
*David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, ''T.R.M. Howard: Pragmatism over Strict Integrationist Ideology in the Mississippi Delta, 1942-1954'' in Glenn Feldman, ed., ''Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South'' (2004 book), 68-95.

==Notes==
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Revision as of 23:28, 19 March 2008

The dog then farted bo