biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1908–93)
|
| biography:
| Civil-rights advocate and judge, born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. The great-grandson of a slave, he graduated as valedictorian from Howard University Law School (1933) and soon began to represent civil-rights activists. Becoming a counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1938), during the next 23 years he won 29 of the 32 major cases he undertook for that organization; several of the cases set constitutional precedents in matters such as voting rights and breaking down segregated transportation and education. His finest moment came with Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and its ‘separate but equal’ ruling that perpetuated segregated institutions and facilities. President John F Kennedy named him to the US Court of Appeals, a seat he finally took despite the resistance of Southern senators (1962–5). President Lyndon Johnson appointed him US solicitor general (1965–7) and then to the US Supreme Court, the first African-American to hold such an office (1967–91). Consistently voting with the liberal block, he found himself increasingly isolated as the court's make-up changed, and he was forced by ill health to retire and see his seat taken by the conservative Clarence Thomas. |
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