Thurgood Marshall was an American lawyer and civil rights activist. He served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court’s first African-American justice. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of the NAACP in 1966.
About Thurgood Marshall in brief
Thurgood Marshall was an American lawyer and civil rights activist. He served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court’s first African-American justice. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908. His father, William Canfield Marshall, worked as a railroad porter, and his mother, Norma Arica Williams, working as a teacher. Marshall’s parents instilled in him an appreciation for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. He graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1933 ranked first in his class with an LL. B magna cum laude. He established a private legal practice in Baltimore before founding the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he served as executive director. In 1936, Marshall became part of the national staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first fraternity founded by and for blacks. He died in Washington, D.C., on October 17, 1991. He is survived by his wife, Vivien Buster Burey, and their son, Thurgood B. Marshall, Jr., son of William and Norma Canfield Williams, who died in 2008. He has a daughter, Vivian, and a son-in-law, Michael Marshall, who is also a lawyer and a former Supreme Court Justice. He also has a son, Michael B. Bureo, who served as a United States Solicitor General for more than 30 years.
He had a son and a daughter- in-law who are both attorneys and served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Maryland from 1987 to 1991. His grandson is former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was elected to the United Nations Security Council in 1992. Marshall is a former member of the Board of Education of the City of New York City and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) He is the father of two sons, Michael and Michael Marshall Jr., both of whom served in the United State Air Force and the Air Force Reserve, respectively. His great-great-grandson is former United States Secretary of State John F. H. Richardson, who currently serves as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Defense. Marshall died on October 16, 2009. He will be buried in Baltimore. He previously served as the U States S solicitor general for the District of Columbia. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of the NAACP in 1966. He received the Congressional Gold Medal for his efforts to end racial segregation in public education in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed him to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Four years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to succeed retiring Associate Justice Tom C. Clark as an Associate Justice. In 1967, Johnson successfully nominated Marshall to replace Clark on the Court.
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