Government Career
Marshall was appointed Assistant Attorney General in 1961 by Robert Kennedy, who was Attorney General in President John F. Kennedy's administration. Despite Marshall's lack of civil rights experience, he was put in charge of the Civil Rights Division, as Robert Kennedy had already decided not to appoint a known rights leader.
The relationship between Marshall and Kennedy had a difficult beginning. During their initial meeting little was said, with Kennedy remarking, "I have nothing in common with that man." However, as the civil rights movement heated up in the South, events brought them together.
During his time in government Marshall was a significant contributor to a number of advances in civil rights. In 1961 segregation on interstate travel was banned. The following year, the University of Mississippi was forced to admit James Meredith, a well qualified black student. Marshall and the Attorney General persuaded President Kennedy to enforce the order using federal troops.
Marshall also ran a campaign to increase voter registration by blacks. Within two years of coming into office, he had launched 42 federal lawsuits against states to reform their electoral legislation.
Marshall's focus was on results. He argued to not to use the 14th Amendment to overcome discrimination, instead favoring the federal government's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. As this power was reserved to the government, states had few legal options of recourse. Marshall used this as a basis to write the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government and in employment.
Marshall's reputation was not that of an office-based bureaucrat, but of a hands-on negotiator who dealt with many of the major figures across the civil rights drama from Martin Luther King and Governor George Wallace of Alabama.
Marshall resigned his office in December 1964. President Lyndon B. Johnson wrote on Marshall's formal letter of resignation, "I have never known any person who rendered a better quality of public service."
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