Early Years

     Thoroughgood Marshall was born July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland; his father was a railroad porter and his mother a schoolteacher. After a brief period in New York City, the family moved to a racially diverse, largely middle class neighborhood in Baltimore called Druid Hill, although he attended segregated schools, graduating from the city's Colored High School in 1924 when he was only 16 years old. (He shortened his name to Thurgood in the second grade.)

      Marshall's exposure to the law and the Constitution was unusually early. His father, William Marshall, never attended college, but he was fascinated by court trials and often took his son along with him. Marshall described himself as a "hell raiser" as a child, and while his naturally argumentative nature may have gotten him into a certain amount of trouble, it would prove a useful trait as a lawyer. One of Marshall's punishments for talking too much involved the U.S. Constitution.

      "Instead of making us copy out stuff on the blackboard after school when we misbehaved," Marshall later recalled, "our teacher sent us down into the basement to learn parts of the Constitution. I made my way through every paragraph."

      These early experiences reinforced many of the deepest convictions that shaped Marshall's professional career, including the importance of education for individual advancement, a deep respect for the legal profession, and the recognition of the bonds of family and community. "None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps," Marshall said later.