A major figure in American public life for a half-century, Thurgood Marshall, the first black Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and an unmistakable pillar of the civil-rights revolution, died this week at the age of 84 of heart failure.

Although he was an historic figure on the Supreme Court, Marshall was probably the only appointee who had a secure place in history before he began his 24-year tenure on Oct. 2, 1967.As Chief Justice Rhenquist remarked after his passing, Marshall was "the most influential civil-rights lawyer of our century."

For 22 years, he headed the Inc. Fund, the nickname for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. In 1961, John F. Kennedy appointed him to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The great-grandson of a slave, son of the steward at a fashionable all-white Chesapeake Bay yacht club, Marshall pioneered the civil-rights battle against segregation in housing, public accommodations and schools. He won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court for the Inc. Fund.

His greatest victory as a lawyer was the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation case in which he represented the NAACP. The Supreme Court used the case in 1954 to outlaw racial segregation in public education. An experienced Supreme Court advocate by that time, he argued the case in a plain-spoken manner that is now legendary.

Asked by Justice Felix Frankfurter during the argument what he meant by "equal," Marshall replied, "Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place."

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In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him U.S. solicitor general, the government's top courtroom lawyer, and two years later, to the Supreme Court. Today, he is remembered by other justices and the legal community for his wit, warmth and charm. He was privately a gregarious and genial man but much more reserved in public.

As a member of the court's shrinking liberal wing, Marshall often vowed to outlive Republican presidents so his replacement could be chosen by a Democrat.

It was a promise he could not keep, and his retirement in 1991 brought the appointment of another black, Clarence Thomas, prompting a stormy confirmation fight featuring sordid accusations of sexual harassment.

Legal scholars believe that Marshall's famous dissenting opinions often acted as the conscience of the court - "a reminder of the human consequences of legal decisions." Undoubtedly, he will be most remembered for his lifetime of devotion to the establishment of civil rights for black Americans.

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