October 2024

02 Oct 24

On this day in 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

In a speech in Hawaii in 1987, commemorating the bicentennial celebration of the US Constitution, Justice Marshall spoke of his rejection of the view espoused by his more conservative colleagues that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the founders' original understanding and intent: