today I am proud to introduce the Justice Thurgood Marshall's Elementary School Study Act. The elementary school that Justice Marshall attended, known as PS 103, located in my hometown of Baltimore, is a place of national significance because it marks the site where one of our nation's greatest legal minds began his education. Thurgood Marshall is well known as one of the most significant historical figures of the American civil rights movement. By the time he was 32 he was appointed the chief legal counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP. He served at the NAACP a total of twenty-five years and was a key strategist to end racial segregation throughout the United States. Perhaps the greatest illustration of this effort was his victory before the Supreme Court overturning the Plessy doctrine effectively ending school segregation with the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS, in 1954. Not only did this case open up educational opportunity and sparked the civil rights movement in this nation, it also marked the beginning of Thurgood Marshall's career, still a young attorney from Baltimore, as one of the greatest legal minds in all the land. This case was just one of the 29 cases he won before the U.S. Supreme Court. Fittingly, Marshall was the first African American confirmed to the Supreme Court. He was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967 and served 24 years, until 1991.…
On the recordFebruary 27, 2015
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