ABSTRACT
One of the best-known legal figures of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was a crusader for civil rights and liberties as an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, solicitor general of the United States, and associate justice of the US Supreme Court. In 1940, Marshall helped to establish the organization's newly created Legal Defense and Education Fund. Marshall Marshall argued that placing African American children in segregated schools harmed them. He coupled legal arguments with social science studies to illustrate the damaging effect. President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961, despite concerted opposition by a group of southern senators who held up his confirmation for months. In 1967, Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court, making him the first African American ever to serve on that body. Marshall was opposed to retiring during the administration of a Republican president.
