(1908–93), U.S. lawyer, jurist, and champion of civil rights. Born in Baltimore, Md., on July 2, 1908, Marshall was the first African American to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court. He attended Lincoln University, and in 1933 he graduated first in his class from Howard University law school. He joined the national legal staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1936 and specialized in civil rights cases. In 1938 he was appointed the NAACP's special counsel, and in 1939 he founded the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, he won 29. His most notable victory came with Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan. (1954), in which the Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” policy that was used to justify public school segregation. Marshall also won cases against poll taxes, racial restrictions in housing, and whites-only primary elections. He left the NAACP in 1961 and served as a judge of the United States court of appeals for the second circuit from 1962 to 1965 and as United States solicitor general from 1965 to 1967. In 1967, Marshall became the first African American to be appointed an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. As a Supreme Court justice, he was known for his attacks on discrimination, his opposition to the death penalty, and his championing of free speech and civil liberties. Marshall retired from the bench in 1991 and died in Washington D.C., on Jan. 24, 1993. (See also African Americans.)