Crossing the River Jordan Award

Previous Winners

The Honorable Thurgood Marshall (1996)
When Thurgood Marshall was born into a middle class family in Baltimore in 1908, Jim Crow laws guaranteed that he wouldn’t have the same rights as a white man in many, if not most, areas of the country. There were schools he was not allowed to attend, facilities he was not allowed to use. Justice Marshall dedicated his career and his life to making sure his children and grandchildren would not be subject to segregation. In the process, he became one of the most important figures in the struggle for civil rights.

Justice Marshall graduated from Lincoln University and received a law degree from Howard University. He followed his Howard University mentor Charles Hamilton Houston to New York and later became Chief Counsel for the NAACP. During his 21-year tenure in that role, he won 29 cases before the United States Supreme Court. His skills in the courtroom were indisputable, and he became one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the civil rights movement.

Marshall’s most famous Supreme Court victory came in 1954, in the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education, which demolished the legal basis for segregation in America. His persuasive argument that “separate but equal” schools were impossible, that “separate” was inherently unequal, set in motion the forces of desegregation, and initiated the movement for educational equity that is still sweeping the nation’s cities and states.

Justice Marshall was appointed to the US Circuit Court in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. All 112 rulings passed down during his four years as a judge were later upheld by the Supreme Court. In 1965, President Johnson appointed him to the position of Solicitor General, the government’s chief attorney before the Supreme Court. In 1967, in the crowning achievement of an already remarkable career, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American ever appointed to the United States Supreme Court, where he served with distinction until 1991.

Thurgood Marshall was awarded the Crossing the River Jordan Award posthumously; the award was accepted by his son Thurgood Marshall Jr.