Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American justice on the United States Supreme Court ton’s assistant When Houston retired to private practice in 1938, Marshall took over as chief counsel for the NAACP Marshall founded the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF) to attack segregation through judicial and legislative means Throughout the 1950s Marshall traveled the South arguing civil rights cases before state and federal courts He received several death threats during this tour and narrowly avoided a lynching Of the 32 cases Marshall argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the NAACP, he won 29 In 1954 Marshall won the landmark case for the NAACP, Brown v Board of Education of Topeka The unanimous Supreme Court decision overruled the Plessy v Ferguson precedent A year after the Brown v Board decision, Marshall’s wife, Vivian Burey, died; Marshall remarried the same year His second wife, Cecilia Suyat, was a secretary at the NAACP’s New York City office In 1962 President John F Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the U.S Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit Marshall struggled with the decision to leave behind 23 years as the NAACP head counsel, but ultimately followed his sense of duty to his coun- Marshall, Plan 285 try After serving three years on the Court of Appeals, Marshall was appointed by President Lyndon B Johnson as solicitor general of the United States, the third-highest office in the Justice Department President Johnson proceeded to nominate Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967 Marshall’s nomination was confirmed in the Senate 69 to 11, and he was sworn in as the first African-American Supreme Court justice on October 2, 1967 Marshall served on the court for almost 24 years On the liberal Warren court, Marshall joined a majority in favor of civil rights for minorities and the expansion of rights for all citizens Marshall focused his energy on negotiating unanimity among his fellow justices to increase the weight of the Warren Court’s rulings However, as the court grew more conservative in the 1970s and 1980s, Marshall became famous for his vehement minority dissents, arguing in favor of affirmative action, due process, and First Amendment rights, and against the death penalty Thurgood Marshall died of heart failure in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 24, 1993 His legacy as Mr Civil Rights marked him in history alongside activists such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr See also Civil Rights movement, U.S Further reading: Mooney, L., ed “Thurgood Marshall.” In Newsmakers Vol 1993 Detroit, MI: Gale Research; “Profile of Justice Thurgood Marshall.” In U.S Courts: The Federal Judiciary United States Government website, http://www uscourts.gov/outreach/resources/brown_marshallbio.htm (cited February 2006); Williams, Juan Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary New York: Times Books, 1998; Wilson, H W “Marshall, Thurgood.” In Biography Reference Bank online database, http://hwwilsonweb.com (cited January 2006) Anna Brown Marshall Plan World War II decimated Europe’s infrastructure and economy, leaving bombed and gutted buildings, destroyed factories and businesses, and high unemployment Hit heaviest were areas of industrial production and transportation With Europe debt-ridden and financial reserves depleted by the war, the problems could not be easily fixed Both U.S and European officials put forth several plans, all of which were rejected The one alternative for recovery called for German reparations