Thurgood Marshall - Law Career

Law Career

Marshall set up a private practice in Baltimore in 1936. That year, he began working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Baltimore.

He won his first major civil rights case, Murray v. Pearson, 169 Md. 478 (1936). This was the first challenge of the "separate but equal" doctrine that was part of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. His co-counsel on the case, Charles Hamilton Houston, developed the strategy. Marshall represented Donald Gaines Murray, a black Amherst College graduate with excellent credentials, who was denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School because of its segregation policy. Black students in Maryland wanting to study law had to accept one of three options, attend: Morgan College, the Princess Anne Academy, or out-of-state black institutions.

In 1935, Thurgood Marshall argued the case for Murray, showing that neither of the in-state institutions offered a law school and that such schools were entirely unequal in quality to the University of Maryland. Marshall and Houston expected to lose and intended to appeal to the federal courts. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled against the state of Maryland and its Attorney General, who represented the University of Maryland, stating, "Compliance with the Constitution cannot be deferred at the will of the state. Whatever system is adopted for legal education must furnish equality of treatment now." While it was a moral victory, the state court's ruling had no authority outside of Maryland.