The Supreme Court: The First Negro Justice

Rarely was the nominee’s race mentioned, though it was largely the point at issue. Instead, Southern critics like South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond argued abstractly that Thurgood Marshall’s “activist” legal outlook disqualified him for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

A substantial majority of the U.S. Senate did not agree. Never, said Michigan’s Philip Hart, has there been a Supreme Court nominee “whose qualifications are so dramatically and compellingly established.” That was more praise than Marshall needed or deserved. Still, the fact that his nomination was politically judicious could take nothing from his 27-year career as counsel for the N.A.A.C.P., his later service as a federal judge and U.S. Solicitor General. By a vote of 69 to 11, the Senate confirmed the apment of Marshall, 59, as the first Negro Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Said Marshall: “Let me take this opportunity to reaffirm my deep faith in this nation and to pledge that I shall ever be mindful of my obligation to the Constitution and to the goal of equal justice under law.” Two days later, Marshall took the oath in a private ceremony conducted by the court’s oldest member, Justice Hugo Black, 81, of Alabama.