He became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice just 13 years after the monumental case that called for the desegregation of schools. He was the lawyer in one of Supreme Court’s most well-known cases of all-time, Brown v the Board of Education. He is Thurgood Marshall.

Born the grandson of a slave, Marshall attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania alongside future social activist and poet Langston Hughes. In 1930, Marshall would apply to the University of Maryland Law School, where he was denied admission because of his color. After the rejection, Marshall applied and was admitted into Howard University Law School. Marshall saw himself as a lawyer who represented the voiceless people. He represented many people and social groups who were fighting for racial equality, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , the NAACP.