Good for Thurgood!

Good for Thurgood!

Thurgood Marshall was born in 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was African American, and his grandfather was a former slave. By the time Thurgood was born, it was against the law to own slaves. Thurgood grew up with both black and white neighbors, but in many states, people were segregated.

In the South, black people were not allowed to eat in many restaurants that served white people. They were not allowed to sit in the same train cars as white people.

Black children in the South were not allowed to go to school with white children. They couldn't even drink from the same water fountains. Yet the Supreme Court-the highest court in the landhad made segregation legal. It decided that those restaurants, trains, schools, parks, and hotels were “ separate but equal. "

In fact, those places were not equal, and those laws were unfair. At the dinner table, Thurgood's family used to argue about what to do about those laws. Thurgood became very good at arguing.

Thurgood liked pranks and got into his fair share of trouble growing up. His punishment in high school was often to memorize the U. S. Constitution. " Before I left that school, I knew the whole thing by heart, " he later said. Yet some of the ideas in the Constitution did not hold true in his own life. Thurgood thought the rights in the Constitution should apply to everyone. He felt that the laws in some states that segregated African Americans went against the ideas and laws put forth in the Constitution. He realized that by becoming a lawyer, he could use the law to help African Americans achieve equality. After graduating from an all-black college, Marshall wanted to attend the University of Maryland Law School. Because of his race, the school would not let him in. Instead, he went to the all-black law school at Howard University. He graduated at the top of his class in 1933.