Thurgood Marshall was a Supreme Court judge who was the court’s first African American judge. He was born on July 2, 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father had to work multiple jobs to get by, and eventually, they had to move to New York. His father was also fascinated with court cases, and he would even bring his son to some of them. This would influence Thurgood to become a lawyer later. He attended a colored school for university, and there he would get good grades and lead his debate team to victory. He attended a colored law school after graduating where he would finish first in his class and pass the bar exam to become a lawyer. His career did not start very well, with him making little money when first started. He joined the NAACP, to try and fight racism and had success when he was able to get a student admitted into the University of Maryland’s law school when he had previously been rejected. Marshall continued his legal career and was able to use his legal power to try and fight against racism, like going against the Japanese concentration camps. Eventually, after WW2 had ended, he started to fight against the Jim Crow laws, and tried helping people get into white schools, but was initially unsuccessful. He eventually got a huge case in the form of Brown v. Board of Education which was held in front of the Supreme Court. The case was about school segregation, and the court ruled in the Favor of Brown, saying that segregated schools were not equal. This was Marshall’s first big win, but he would continue to improve when he was appointed to the Court of Appeals by JFK and later was promoted to Solicitor General which is one of the highest legal positions in the government. This promotion would be the stepping stone for his promotion, because 2 years later he would be nominated for the Supreme Court, and was later appointed as the first African-American Supreme Court judge. As a judge, he worked alongside a lot of more conservative judges who had different ideals than him. This would later lead to disagreements when racial matters were brought up in front of the court. He criticized the court for not treating racial cases seriously. Eventually, the other judges listened to him and had different mindsets on the cases. Marshall had a huge effect on the government and public view of African Americans, making them a lot more inclusive and understanding. His work has opened up a lot of opportunities for African Americans.
