NAACP Marshall began to be known for both his skill as a lawyer and his passion for civil rights. As the head of the NAACP's legal arm, he worked under repressive conditions with limited budgets. Upon his return to his New York office, he is sent to Bridgeport, Connecticut, to defend Joseph Spell, a chauffeur accused of rape by his white employer, Eleanor Strubing, in a case that has gripped the newspapers. A: That’s when they tried to lynch me. Right? In Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza (1968), Marshall's majority opinion ruled that a shopping center was a "public forum" and could not exclude picketers. Marshall was chief counsel for the NAACP and argued numerous civil rights cases before the Supreme Court. I agree. The ruling marked a turning point in American history and lifted Marshall's national profile. Legal action by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP helped to end racial discrimination in education. Not Looby, no. Marshall advocated on behalf of the NAACP to challenge the south’s policy of segregation in education. Today is National Voter Registration Day! A: No, I reversed it. No, Willis McCall fought him in the newspapers, the governor, about why would he do such a thing. "I wouldn't do the job of dogcatcher for Ronald Reagan," he said in a 1989 interview. “To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy." Not enough of the real NAACP lawyer shows up in Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal As one of his clients recalled, "until Marshall came, [that] law was whatever a white lawyer or white policeman or white judge said it was.". He was already a famous lawyer, and certainly America's most prominent black attorney, when Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the Court in 1967. A: I’ve had cases, do you realize that for every case I took, I turned down a hundred? Thurgood Marshall died in 1993, leaving behind a legacy that earned him the nickname "Mr. Civil Rights." athletes crossed the color line in professional and amateur sports. So eventually they got a little meeting together and they said hell with it, we’ll take him back to town. Q: This guy had been reversed on appeal before you came? As an emissary from the NAACP, Marshall was often at risk of physical harm while traveling in the South. Date Event; July 2, 1908: Thurgood Marshall is born Thurgood Marshall was born in Maryland. In 1936, Marshall moved to New York to work at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). But when they needed attorneys, it was the NAACP they turned to. Thurgood Marshall founded LDF in 1940 and served as its first director-counsel. Tired of having his friends poke fun at his first name, he decided to try to improve the situation and, at the age of six, legally changed it to Thurgood. As a practicing lawyer. Marshall had been one of the NAACP's top lawyers. Supreme Court justice and civil rights advocate. Marshall would have worn those attacks as a badge of honor. (Library of Congress) Throughout his life, Marshall--the chief architect of the legal strategy to dismantle segregation--was forced to endure such indignities, but he channeled his outrage by battling racism. Marshall served on the Court from 1967 to 1991. "First floor, please," one of them said. I said yeah. And incidentally, when they found out I wasn’t in it, they beat that driver bad enough that he was in the hospital for a week. He said several of those jurors obviously are cigar smokers and they’re not going to waste that cigar. His majority opinion in Stanley v. Georgia (1969) held that the possession of pornography in the privacy of one's home could not be subject to prosecution. Irvin will have to do, IL our fellow beings, we ’ ll over... 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