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LTC Stephen F.
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Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on August 30, 1967, the United States Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall as the first black Supreme Court Justice.
Rest in peace Thurgood Marshall.
Unfortunately this civil rights ardent supporter sided with the majority in Roe v Wade and overturned each of the USA states laws limited induced abortion in 1971.

Thurgood Marshall: The Definitive Biography of the Great Lawyer and Supreme Court Justice (1999)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmCrp66-5ms

Images:
1. The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States (Artist - Simmie L. Knox)
2. 1934 Thurgood Marshall graduated first in his class at Howard University
3. Thurgood Marshall with his wife Teddy Marshall and their sons Thurgood Marshall, Jr. [born August 1956] and John W. Marshall [born in July 1958]
4. Thurgood Marshall at Lincoln University. He graduated cum laud in 1930.

Biographies
1. oyez.org/justices/thurgood_marshall
2. thurgoodmarshall.com

1. Background from {[https://www.oyez.org/justices/thurgood_marshall]}
BORN Jul 2, 1908 at Baltimore, MD
DIED Jan 24, 1993
ETHNICITY African
RELIGION Episcopalian
FAMILY STATUS Lower-middle class
MOTHER Norma Williams
Father William Marshall
FATHER'S OCCUPATION Club steward JUSU
NOMINATED TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BY Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug 30, 1967

ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Oct 2, 1967 — Oct 1, 1991
APPOINTED BY Lyndon B. Johnson COMMISSIONED on Aug 30, 1967
SWORN IN Oct 2, 1967 SEAT11
REASON FOR LEAVING Retired
PRECEDED BY Tom C. Clark
SUCCEEDED BY Clarence Thomas

Thurgood Marshall had a fresh, passionate voice and became a champion of civil rights, both on the bench and through almost 30 Supreme Court victories before his appointment, during times of severe racial strains. Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908, to Norma Arica and William Canfield Marshall. Marshall’s mother was a kindergarten teacher and his father was an amateur writer who worked as a dining-car waiter on a railroad, later becoming a chief steward at a ritzy club. When Marshall’s father had a day off, he would occasionally take his sons to court so they could watch the legal procedure and arguments presented. Afterwards, the three would debate legal issues and current events together. Marshall’s father would challenge his sons on the points they made, constantly encouraging them to prove their case.
Growing up in Baltimore, Marshall experienced the racial discrimination that shaped his passion for civil rights early on. The city had a death rate for African-Americans that was twice that of Caucasians, and due to school segregation, Marshall was forced to go to an all-black grade school. Once, he was unable to use the bathroom because all public restrooms were reserved for whites. Despite the times, Marshall’s parents tried to shelter him from the reality of racism. They earned enough money to live in a nice area, and he was able to attend a first-rate high school. He was often mischievous and sent out of class to read the Constitution for misbehavior. When Marshall graduated high school in 1925, he knew the Constitution backwards and forwards. Marshall was accepted to Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania, from where his brother had just graduated. It was known as the black counterpart to Princeton, and one of his classmates was the famous writer Langston Hughes. Marshall chose to focus more on the social life of college. Because of his intelligence, he was able to get through with little effort, but after getting suspended for hazing with his fraternity, he began to focus on academics. Marshall joined the debate club, which helped him realize his passion for becoming a lawyer. He also became more involved with civil rights and helped desegregate a movie theater, which he later described as one of the happiest moments in his life. Marshall met his wife, Vivian Burey, while taking a weekend trip with his friends to Philadelphia. They soon married on September 4, 1929, before Marshall started his last semester. He graduated college in 1930 as a top-notch student.
After being denied by his first choice, the University of Maryland Law School, due to the color of his skin, Marshall decided to go to Howard University. He and his wife moved in with his parents, and his mother sold her wedding ring to help pay for his law school. There he learned about civil rights law and began to think of the Constitution as a living document. His mentors introduced him to the world of the NAACP, often bringing him to attend meetings and watch lawyers discuss key issues. One of the mentors who made the biggest impression upon Marshall was Charles Houston, who taught him to defeat racial discrimination through the use of existing laws. Marshall graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1933 and moved back to Baltimore.
Marshall denied a postgraduate scholarship to Harvard in order to start his own practice and opened an office in east Baltimore. A few people did come to him for help, though unable to pay. Marshall turned none of them away. He began to develop his style as he took cases dealing with police brutality, evictions and harsh landlords. Marshall was respectful but forceful in presenting his case. As his name began to gain notice, he earned big clients such as labor organizations, building associations, and corporations. Marshall started to volunteer with the NAACP and eventually became one of their attorneys, joining his mentor Houston to argue cases together. He won his first case arguing that the University of Maryland Law School should allow an African-American admission. In 1935, Houston got Marshall appointed as Assistant Special Counsel for New York in the organization. From then on, the two began planning on how to have the Supreme Court overrule the separate but equal doctrine. After Houston resigned and Marshall took over as Special Counsel in 1938, he traveled to dangerous areas in the South in order to investigate lynching, the denial of voting rights, jury service, and fair trials to African-Americans. The face of the NAACP had soon become that of Marshall’s. In 1940, the NAACP set up a legal activist organization known as Fund, Inc., of which Marshall was hired to be special counsel. He was able to work toward his goal of challenging segregation in education. He won his first Supreme Court case dealing with forced confession; and after President Truman rejected the separate but equal doctrine in relation to the G.I. Bill, Marshall was ready to bring the education issue into full light. Marshall finally got the case he had been hoping for, and in 1952 argued Brown v. Board of Education. The case was reargued in 1953, and after 5 months of waiting, the Supreme Court delivered its opinion that invalidated the separate but equal doctrine. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Marshall as federal judge to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City. Marshall spent four years on the court, and none of his opinions were reversed on appeal to the Supreme Court. In 1965, President Johnson called upon Marshall to be the country’s next Solicitor General. Marshall was sworn into office, but only spent two years in the position. In 1967, the President appointed him as the first African-American to be an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Marshall’s voice was a liberal one which held great influence early on in his term. As a proponent of judicial activism, he believed that the United States had a moral imperative to move progressively forward. He staunchly supported upholding individual rights, expanding civil rights, and limiting the scope of criminal punishment. Justice William Brennan shared many of Marshall’s opinions and they usually voted in the same bloc. In Furman v. Georgia, these justices argued the death penalty was unconstitutional in all circumstances, and dissented from the subsequent overruling opinion, Gregg v. Georgia, a few years later. He also made separate contributions to labor law (Teamsters v. Terry), securities law (TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc.), and tax law (Cottage Savings Ass’n v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue). He had strong views on affirmative action and contributed greatly to opinions on constitutional law. Marshall maintained a down-to-earth style and would often joke with Chief Justice Burger as they passed in the hallways by asking “What’s shakin’, Chief baby?” As the court made a shift towards conservatism, however, Marshall became frustrated and his influence weakened. Despite the change of currents, Marshall’s voice remained strong until his retirement, when he was succeeded by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. Marshall died on January 24, 1993 of heart failure in Bethesda, Maryland.
Cases argued
• Miranda v. Arizona (1965)
• United States v. Price (1965)
• Boynton v. Virginia (1960)
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1) (1940-1955)
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (2) (1940-1955)
• Shelley v. Kraemer (1940-1955)
• Sweatt v. Painter (1940-1955)



2. Background from [[http://thurgoodmarshall.com/]]
"Thurgood Marshall was America's leading radical. He led a civil rights revolution in the 20th century that forever changed the landscape of American society. But he is the least well known of the three leading black figures of this century. Martin Luther King Jr., with his preachings of love and non-violent resistance, and Malcolm X, the fiery street preacher who advocated a bloody overthrow of the system, are both more closely associate in the popular mind and myth with the civil rights struggle.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, Thurgood Marshall was the grandson of a slave. His father, William Marshall, instilled in him from youth an appreciation for the United States Constitution and the rule of law. After completing high school in 1925, Thurgood followed his brother, William Aubrey Marshall, at the historically black Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania. His classmates at Lincoln included a distinguished group of future Black leaders such as the poet and author Langston Hughes, the future President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and musician Cab Calloway. Just before graduation, he married his first wife, Vivian "Buster" Burey. Their twenty-five year marriage ended with her death from cancer in 1955.

In 1930, he applied to the University of Maryland Law School, but was denied admission because he was Black. This was an event that was to haunt him and direct his future professional life. Thurgood sought admission and was accepted at the Howard University Law School that same year and came under the immediate influence of the dynamic new dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, who instilled in all of his students the desire to apply the tenets of the Constitution to all Americans. Paramount in Houston's outlook was the need to overturn the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson which established the legal doctrine called, "separate but equal." Marshall's first major court case came in 1933 when he successfully sued the University of Maryland to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named Donald Gaines Murray. Applauding Marshall's victory, author H.L. Mencken wrote that the decision of denial by the University of Maryland Law School was "brutal and absurd," and they should not object to the "presence among them of a self-respecting and ambitious young Afro-American well prepared for his studies by four years of hard work in a class A college."

Thurgood Marshall followed his Howard University mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston to New York and later became Chief Counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During this period, Mr. Marshall was asked by the United Nations and the United Kingdom to help draft the constitutions of the emerging African nations of Ghana and what is now Tanzania. It was felt that the person who so successfully fought for the rights of America's oppressed minority would be the perfect person to ensure the rights of the White citizens in these two former European colonies. After amassing an impressive record of Supreme Court challenges to state-sponsored discrimination, including the landmark Brown v. Board decision in 1954, President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In this capacity, he wrote over 150 decisions including support for the rights of immigrants, limiting government intrusion in cases involving illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and right to privacy issues. Biographers Michael Davis and Hunter Clark note that, "none of his (Marshall's) 98 majority decisions was ever reversed by the Supreme Court." In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson appointed Judge Marshall to the office of U.S. Solicitor General. Before his subsequent nomination to the United States Supreme Court in 1967, Thurgood Marshall won 14 of the 19 cases he argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the government. Indeed, Thurgood Marshall represented and won more cases before the United States Supreme Court than any other American.

Until his retirement from the highest court in the land, Justice Marshall established a record for supporting the voiceless American. Having honed his skills since the case against the University of Maryland, he developed a profound sensitivity to injustice by way of the crucible of racial discrimination in this country. As an Associate Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall leaves a legacy that expands that early sensitivity to include all of America's voiceless. Justice Marshall died on January 24, 1993.

Timeline of Thurgood Marshall
"1908 – Marshall named Thoroughgood on July 2 to Norma and William Marshall in Baltimore, Maryland; shortens name to Thurgood in second grade.
1929 – Marshall marries University of Pennsylvania student Vivian “Buster” Burrey.
1930 - Mr. Marshall graduates with honors from Lincoln U. (cum laude)
1933 - Receives law degree from Howard U. (magna cum laude); begins private practice in Baltimore Receives law degree from Howard U. (magna cum laude); begins private practice in Baltimore.
1934 –Marshall graduates from Howard University School of Law (magna cum laude); begins private practice in Baltimore.
1934 - Marshall works for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Baltimore division.
1935 - With Charles Houston, wins first major civil rights case, Murray v. Pearson
1936 - Becomes assistant special counsel for NAACP in New York
1940 - Wins first of 29 Supreme Court victories (Chambers v. Florida)
1940 - Marshall is named first Director-Counsel of NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
1944 - Successfully argues Smith v. Allwright, overthrowing the South's "white primary"
1948 - Wins Shelley v. Kraemer, in which Supreme Court strikes down legality of racially restrictive covenants
1950 - Wins Supreme Court victories in two graduate-school integration cases, Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents
1951 - Visits South Korea and Japan to investigate charges of racism in U.S. armed forces. He reported that the general practice was one of "rigid segregation".
1954 - Wins Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, landmark case that demolishes legal basis for segregation in America
1955 - Marshall marries Cecelia “Cissy” Suyat Marshall.
1956 - Thurgood Marshall Jr. was born.
1959 - John W. Marshall was born.
1961 - Defends civil rights demonstrators, winning Supreme Circuit Court victory in Garner v. Louisiana; nominated to Second Court of Appeals by President J.F. Kennedy
1961 - Appointed circuit judge, makes 112 rulings, all of them later upheld by Supreme Court (1961-1965)
1965 - Appointed U.S. solicitor general by President Lyndon Johnson; wins 14 of the 19 cases he argues for the government (1965-1967)
1967 - Becomes first African American elevated to U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991)
1971- Marshall and the other U.S. Supreme Court Justices guaranteed abortion rights in landmark Roe v. Wade case.
1978 – Marshall and the other U.S. Supreme Court Justices barred quota systems in college admissions in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case.
1987 - Marshall gifts his name to establish the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund to benefit Public Historically Black Colleges and Universities
1991 – Marshall retires as Associate Justice of U.S. Supreme Court.
1993 – Marshall succumbs to heart failure in Baltimore, Maryland at age 84 and leaves behind a lasting legacy of civil rights."

FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. Maj Robert Thornton Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price SMSgt Lawrence McCarter GySgt Thomas Vick Maj Marty Hogan MSG Felipe De Leon Brown MSG Andrew White SFC David Reid, M.S, PHR, SHRM-CP, DTM SSG Stephen Rogerson SSG Franklin Briant SSG Robert Mark Odom SPC Margaret Higgins SGT Denny Espinosa
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LTC Stephen F.
LTC Stephen F.
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Thurgood Marshall: Portrait of an American Hero
https://youtu.be/kQYNftjINRI?t=26

Images:
1. Thurgood Marshall as a young man
2. Thurgood Marshal and his wife Cissy Marshall
3. Thurgood Marshall with President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

FYI SGT Jim ArnoldSFC (Join to see) SGT Steve McFarland SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL LTC Greg Henning SGT Gregory Lawritson PO1 William "Chip" Nagel Col Carl Whicker TSgt David L.PO1 Robert GeorgeSFC William Farrell SSG (Join to see) SPC Matthew Lamb CW5 Jack CardwellSPC Nancy GreeneSSG Franklin Briant1stsgt Glenn Brackin Sgt Kelli MaysCapt Rich BuckleyCynthia Croft
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SPC Margaret Higgins
SPC Margaret Higgins
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LTC Stephen F.: My Dear Brother-in-CHRIST, Steve, I thank thee; beyond compare; for thy mentioning my name; in your Very HONORING list of names.
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
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MSG Felipe De Leon Brown
MSG Felipe De Leon Brown
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Thank you, Stephen, for sharing the additional information about SCOTUS Justice Thurgood Marshall.
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SMSgt Lawrence McCarter
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Thurgood Marshall sure had a very impressive legal record, not only had He argued a major case in front of the Supreme court, Brown vs the Board of Education" but He won. If that wasn't enough He of course became a Justice on the US Supreme Court. I have read a lot of things about Justice Marshall and was very impressed with Him as an individual and great legal mind.
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PVT Mark Zehner
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Brilliant man!
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