Thurgood Marshall
Marshall High School
Thurgood Marshall's tenure as chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and founder of its Legal Defense and Educational Fund made him one of America's most influential and well-known lawyers. He devoted 30 years to public services, working as a federal appeals court judge, solicitor general, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Marshall brought 32 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29 of them. His most noted case was Brown vs. the Board of Education, which dismantled the legal basis for racial segregation in schools and other public facilities. In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall Solicitor General, the nation’s chief legal counsel, of the United States, making him the first African American to serve as Solicitor General or a Supreme Court Justice. When Thurgood Marshall died in 1993, he was only the second Justice to lie in state in the Supreme Court's chambers.