Changemaker 12: Thurgood Marshall

Today's changemaker is Thurgood Marshall, who passed away on this day in 1993. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1908, he would go on to become the first Black United States Supreme Court Justice. He applied to the University of Maryland Law School but was rejected because of his race. He pursued his studies at Howard University, where he met his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston, who inspired him to sublimate law into social justice.

Marshall contributed significantly to the Civil Rights Movement by promoting racial equity. He, alongside Houston, successfully sued the University of Maryland for its racially discriminatory practices in the 1935 case Murray v. Pearson. As the NAACP's chief counsel, Marshall’s most famous case was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, which became a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court to eliminate racial segregation and that the doctrine of 'separate but equal' had no place in public education and schools.

In 1961, Marshall was appointed to the US Court of Appeals by John F. Kennedy, and in 1965 he became the first Black Solicitor General. In 1967, President Johnson appointed him to the US Supreme Court. During his 25-year tenure on the Court, Marshall used the power of the courts to fight racism and discrimination and make life better for some of the most vulnerable in the US.

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Photo credit: AP