by Jeremy Leaming There really are very few Supreme Court
justices worth celebrating and many more who are easily
forgettable. But Thurgood Marshall, who joined the high court 45
years ago today, was a champion of equality before he became the
first African American to join, at that time, the all-male, all-
white Supreme Court. Marshall was named to the federal appeals
court by President John F. Kennedy, and later to the Supreme
Court by Lyndon B. Johnson. Both were historic appointments. As
John Schachter notes in this post, much of Marshall’s life
included historic achievements. After being denied admissions to
the University of Maryland’s law school, because of racism,
Marshall earned a law degree from Howard University and launched
what would be a trailblazing legal career bolstering and
advancing equality and liberty in the country. In 1940 he
founded the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which has
become one of the nation’s leading civil liberties groups.
Before reaching the federal bench, Marsha