Thurgood Marshall is a prominent African American attorney in the United States. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from Howard University School of Law. His father was a judge on the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia and his mother was a teacher. Marshall went on to graduate from Harvard University with honors in 1935 and served in the Army from 1942 to 1946, during World War II. In 1947, he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates, and in 1948, he ran for Congress, winning an election to represent Maryland’s 1st congressional district.
He successfully defended many civil rights activists, including Rosa Parks. In 1955, he worked as legal counsel for the National Litigation lawyers Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and argued for the case of Brown v. Board of Education. The case was a landmark civil rights victory. The case outlawed the practice of segregated public schools, stating that such discrimination violated the constitution.
During the same year, he was appointed a United States attorney, a post he held until 1959. He was the first African American to serve in that capacity. Later, he became a professor at Howard University.
