On May 17, The Episcopal Church celebrates the Feast of Thurgood Marshall, an Episcopalian who became the first African-American justice appointed to the United States Supreme Court. The St. James’ community will celebrate his feast on Sunday, May 18, reflecting on his legacy and praying for movement in the paths of reconciliation and justice.
During the 12-1 pm coffee hour, we will have a book-signing and conversation with Dr. Rosalee Martin, author of the recently published book, Their Stories, Our Stories: Four Presidents of Huston-Tillotson University. Join us in Founders Hall!
Tillotson (1875) and Samuel Houston (1877) merged in 1952 as Huston-Tillotson College and became a university in 2005. Huston-Tillotson is the oldest institution of higher education in Austin. Dr. Martin’s book covers 57 years of HT’s 150-year history and 57 years of its 73-year merger. Their Stories, Our Stories: Four Presidents of Huston-Tillotson University is the first comprehensive book documenting the period of 1965-2022. It includes stories of leadership during changing and challenging times and attests to the continuing value of vibrant HBCUs as educational, social, and cultural centers in our world today.
About Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was born in 1908 in Baltimore, where he attended Frederick Douglass High School before majoring in American literature and philosophy at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and graduating magna cum laude from Howard University law school in Washington, D.C.
After Marshall passed the bar in 1933, he went into private practice in Baltimore, specializing in civil-rights cases. By the following year, he became the legal counsel for Baltimore’s branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Marshall won his first major civil-rights decision, Murray v. Pearson, in 1936, which allowed black students to attend the University of Maryland for the first time.
Marshall successfully argued 29 out of his 32 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is most widely remembered for winning the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the Supreme Court declared the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional and which resulted in the desegregation of U.S. public schools.
In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Marshall served until his retirement in 1991.
The Archives of the Episcopal Church features a page on Thurgood Marshall as part of an ongoing exhibit “The Church Awakens: African-Americans and the Struggle for Justice” on its website.
