Thurgood Marshall - Education

Education

Marshall attended Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore and was placed in the class with the best students. He graduated a year early in 1925 with a B-grade average, and placed in the top third of the class. Subsequently he went to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania to study medicine and become a dentist. Other alumni at Lincoln University at the same time as Marshall were poet Langston Hughes, musician Cab Calloway and future president of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah. Initially he did not take his studies seriously, and was suspended twice for hazing and pranks against fellow students. He was not politically active at first, becoming a "star" of the debating team and in his freshman year opposed the integration of African-American professors at the university. Hughes later described him as "rough and ready, loud and wrong". In his second year he got involved in a sit-in protest against segregation at a local movie theatre. In this same year, he was initiated as a member of the first black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha. His marriage to Vivien Burey in September 1929 encouraged him to take his studies seriously, and he graduated from Lincoln with honors (cum laude) Bachelor of Arts in Humanities, with a major in American literature and philosophy.

Marshall wanted to study in his hometown law school, the University of Maryland School of Law, but did not apply because of the school's segregation policy. Marshall instead attended Howard University School of Law, where he worked harder than he had at Lincoln and his views on discrimination were heavily influenced by the dean Charles Hamilton Houston. In 1933 he graduated from there first in his class. Three years later, Marshall would successfully represent his client bringing suit against the University of Maryland Law School for its policy, ending segregation there (see Murray v. Pearson).