February is Black History Month. To kick things off, our Pic of the Week showcases the childhood home of United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Thurgood Marshall was the first African American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1908, Marshall attended segregated public schools and was denied admission to law school because of his race. He would later go on to successfully argue the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, which declared that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. However, his first victory in the battle against school segregation came early in his career as a lawyer, when he took a Maryland law school to court for denying entry to an African American man in 1935. The historical marker at his childhood home, pictured below, tells the story of Marshall’s life and his accomplishments. You can read the full inscription here.
To learn more about the life and legacy of Justice Marshall, be sure to check out the Library of Congress collections and resources on the late Supreme Court justice:
Photos of Thurgood Marshall in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs collection
Opinions in U.S. Reports authored by Justice Marshall
Thurgood Marshall : a life in American history (2019)
Showdown : Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court nomination that changed America (2015)
Justice Thurgood Marshall: 50th Anniversary of His Swearing-in to the Supreme Court
Anniversary of Thurgood Marshall’s Swearing-In to the Supreme Court
Comments
Justice Marshall and his wife lived in my Falls Church, Virginia neighborhood, Lake Barcroft. Local lore has it that when they moved in to what was then an all-white neighborhood, one neighbor asked “Do we really want people like that living here?” The response: “You mean, Supreme Court Justices?” https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/11/14/76906671.html?pageNumber=35