Historical Change Agent

“Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place." 

                  - Thurgood Marshall

Thurgood Marshall is “the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States” and was a civil rights activist. (biography.com)  Marshall was born in Maryland in July of 1908, he graduated high school in 1925 and then went to Lincoln University where Langston Hughes and other famous Black leaders also attended.  When Marshall got denied admissions into the University of Maryland Law School in 1930, this is what ignited his passion for creating justice and started to look at ways to change from “separate but equal” (chmn.gmu.edu).  Marshall got his law degree from Howard University in 1933, Marshall’s first success at delegating and paving the way for upcoming black youths to go to the school they would to attend came in 1933 when he sued the University of Maryland for not admitting African Americans into their school because of their race even though they were well prepared youths. 

Marshall fought for the rights for those who were of the minority and being oppressed.  Marshall had a good record with the Supreme court, when he was appointed to the U.S. Courts of appeals for the Second Circuit he wrote over 150 decisions and none of the 98 majority decision he made were ever reversed. (chmn.gmu.edu)  Marshall made change on a complete macro level he tried to ensure that equality was being created.  He had studied The Constitutions as a child in school as punishment.  Marshall’s number constitution that he abides by is the 14^th Amendment which is that all citizens of the US, that “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priviledges or immunities of the citizens of the US” (law.cornell.edu).  Marshall has become underrated when looked at with his counterparts; he isn’t well known as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.  He was also a civil rights crusader that went under recognized.  

Thurgood Marshall is known for his activism and law changing.  In his lifetime he won many cases and many which are now also in books, such as the victory of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Murray vs. Pearson, Smith vs. Allwright and plenty others which all dealt with the racial inequalities African Americans faced.