ABSTRACT
Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to be appointed to the Supreme Court, was a captivating raconteur. His stories, dealing with certain aspects of his life, were meant to illustrate a point. Marshall had the distinction of being one of the few Supreme Court judges whose fame preceded him to the Court. His victory in Brown, which overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and declared segregation in public education to be unconstitutional, assured his place in history as the man who won the case that is often regarded as the greatest moral triumph of the United States Supreme Court. During his tenure on the Supreme Court, he championed the right of women to have abortions, guarded the rights of Native Americans, protected the right of citizens to free speech, and fought for the right of death row prisoners to be spared a “cruel and unusual punishment” in his unmitigated opposition to capital punishment.
