BHS Day 2: Thurgood Marshall

Hi! If you caught yesterday's entry post (and I hope you did lol), then today's Spotlight feature should be of no surprise to you. We're going to focus on the Legal half of the ELM Spotlight and talk a bit about one of the most prominent, successful African-Americans the community has seen. Thurgood Marshall was integral in many historic rulings in the court, the ruling of Brown v Board of Education of Topeka being among the most notable, which I covered yesterday with the NAACP, so it's only fair I give him his just due today.  

Name: Thurgood Marshall, 1908-1993

Profession: Lawyer, US Supreme Court Justice, activist Why is the Spotlight on him today? For his contributions to the civil rights movement through his representation of the Black community in the courts

Notables and accomplishments:
--Was the first African-American to be elected to the Supreme Court, where he served as an Associate Justice for 24 years after serving as a Solicitor General during President Johnson's tenure
--Had a near perfect record with the cases he presented to the Supreme Court; of the thirty-two cases he argued, he won twenty-nine
--Was the primary legal counsel for the NAACP, then founded the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund and served as the first director counsel, where he was successful in arguing his case against the segregation of minorities in public schools in the 1954 Brown v Board of Education court case
--Successfully convinced NAACP's board to take on cases that directly impacted segregation, which eventually culminated in the overturning of 'separate but equal' in schools and eliminating segregation in most other public places --Was the first recipient of the American Bar Association's Thurgood Marshall Award, which is his namesake award given to individuals who fight for liberty and civil rights
--Successfully argued to Texas courts that forbidding Blacks to vote in Democratic primary elections was actually violating the 15th Amendment and this resulted in the elimination of voter discrimination in Southern states and caused a spike in the amount of registered Black voters in the South --Past recipient of the Spingarn Award, NAACP's highest award
--Voted with the majority in favor of the right to abortion in the 1973 Roe v Wade case

Research resources and further reading links:
World Encyclopedia Book, Volume 13 | The African-American Almanac | NAACP LDF | LDF's Smith v Allwright case | Biography | History

Quote of the day (from Thurgood Marshall's obituary):

"We make movies about Malcolm X, we get a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but every day we live with the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall."