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Essay on Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was named for his paternal grandfather, a former slave who changed his name to Thoroughgood when he joined the United States Army during the Civil War (1861-1865). Marshall’s mother, Norma Arica Marshall, was one of the first blacks to graduate from Columbia Teacher’s College in New York City. His father, William Canfield Marshall, worked as a railroad porter and as head steward at an exclusive white club. William Marshall was the first black person to serve on a grand jury in Baltimore in the 20th century (Deborah, 1997).
Thurgood Marshall grew up in Baltimore and graduated from an all-black high school at age 16. He attended Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the nation’s oldest historically black college. While in college Marshall participated in a successful sit-in at a local movie theater. Protesters occupied “whites-only” seats to force the theater to cease making black patrons sit in a segregated balcony section. Marshall married Vivien “Buster” Burey in 1930. They remained married until her death in 1955.
After graduating with high honors from Lincoln in 1930, Marshall applied to the University Of Maryland School Of Law, which rejected him because of his race. Instead, he studied at Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C., and graduated first in his class in 1933.
NAACP Lawyer
In 1936 Marshall abandoned a private law practice in Baltimore and moved to New York City, where he became a staff lawyer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). From 1939 to 1961, he served as director and chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (Deborah, 1997).
At the NAACP, Marshall helped develop and implement a strategy to fight racial segregation throughout the United States. He worked closely with local communities and individuals to build support for this plan....
