Thurgood Marshall Argument

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Thurgood Marshall is mainly known for his work in Brown vs Board of Education and as the first African American Supreme Court Justice. Brown vs Broad of Education took place in 1953, and is a landmark trial in American history. Thurgood Marshall was the NAACP executive director of the Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Thurgood Marshall is part of the civil rights movement and the Brown vs Board of Education case is critical to establishing the philosophy that separate is not equal. The impact of Thurgood Marshall’s argument in Brown vs Board of Education has a continuous impact on American society and philosophy, and is still impacting the social and political movements today. Thurgood Marshall makes an important argument in American history …show more content…

A common argument for the separation between blacks and whites is that they could not live together. This argument was made by segregationists including, Thomas Jefferson who believed whites and blacks could not live together. Jefferson states in a “Selection from Notes on the State if Virginia” in the year 1787, that “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollection, by the blacks, of the injustices they have sustained ; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race” (Jefferson 199-200). Jefferson believe that the distinction of color, the injustices sustained by blacks and whites, and rooted prejudices will prevent whites and blacks from living with each other. Marshall disagrees with the notion that whites and blacks cannot live together. Marshall disagrees that the world would fall apart if whites and blacks went to the same elementary or high school. According to blackpast.org, Marshall argues that the kids that are separated by the schools they go together leave school and play together in the streets, that farms, and walk down the road together. (blackpast.org) He sees the idea that blacks and whites cannot go to the same elementary or high schools to …show more content…

Andrews and Gaby show that the process to build support for the civil rights movement work on a two level approach “First, the Department of Justice attempted to promote “voluntary” desegregation by working with executives of national companies and civic groups. Second, administration officials worked with these same groups to build support for major legislation among key interest groups” (Andrews and Gaby). The movement starts as a way of having voluntary desegregation and then a movement toward making major legislation change. Thurgood Marshall is part of the major legislative changes that occurred during the civil rights movement, as he is part of the team of attorneys who won Brown vs Board of Education. This philosophy of promoting desegregation among civic groups then pushing for legislative changes limited racial tensions as much as possible. The first part made people aware of the issue, design to generate a majority support by changing the thinking of the majority. Than this change in philosophy makes it possible for the civil rights movement to push hard for legislative changes that can possibly