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What unique event occurred forty years ago in the American justice system?
On August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was confirmed as the first African American Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He served most of his term in the Warren Burger conservative court, earning him the nickname "Great Dissenter" until his death in 1991.
It was his victory as a lawyer arguing before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that established his reputation as a formidable and creative legal opponent and an advocate of social change.
The 1896 Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson established the policy of "separate but equal." In Topeka, Kansas, Oliver Brown, angry that his daughter had to walk past a white school to get to her black school, requested help from the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to fight segregated schools.
Led by Thurgood Marshall, NAACP attorneys took Brown's case, which ultimately went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953. The lawyers argued that, while schools and colleges were indeed separate, they were definitely not equal in terms of courses offered, amenities and accreditation.
The Supreme Court justices unanimously agreed that segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and issued a landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that "separate was inherently unequal." In 1955, the Court further ruled that all schools should be desegregated "with all deliberate speed."
Activity: The Supreme Court has been in the news recently when President Bush appointed Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. to change the balance of power toward conservatism. A recent decision effectively reverses the work of Marshall in the 1955 court ruling that all schools should be desegregated by creating strategies that result in more racially balanced student populations including busing.
Let's go back to the time that Thurgood Marshall achieved his fame and greater equality for African Americans -- the Decade of the 1950s.
Pathfinder: Click the icon for the decade of the 1950s. Write a 200-250 word essay that addresses at least two of the following essential questions for critical thinking:
- What were the major arguments that Marshall used in Brown v. Board of Education?
- How was the Supreme Court decision accepted?
- What obstacles were created and by whom to counter the Brown v. Board decision?
- What were some other significant legal cases that set the tone for the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s?
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