Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court Justice was instrumental in crafting the United States of America as we know it today. Having long regarded the US Constitution fundamentally flawed for its allowance of slavery (Cohen 173), Marshall bore a grudge against racial injustice and the American institutions that perpetuated segregation and exclusion. Rather than converting his anger and frustration into hatred or violence, Marshall applied his mind and his resolve, and in the process became one of the most influential Americans to live in the 20th century. Leading the charge against the Jim Crow laws that had separated the races for 55 years, the most defining moment in Marshall's life may well have been his part in winning the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case before the Supreme Court. His leadership survives as a lesson to those that endeavor to better not merely their lives, but their country in the name of justice.

Marshall's long battle against racial segregation in America began just one year after his graduation from Howard Law School (Williams 15). His initial step involved persuading a black colleague to apply to the law school at the University of Maryland; knowing that he would be rejected on racial grounds, Marshall used the University's own written affirmation of this policy to form the basis of his lawsuit against them (Williams 15). The case went to court in 1935, and Marshall scored a victory: his colleague would in fact be admitted to the University o

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Category: Government - S