【美国人物志】瑟古德·马歇尔 (4/9)

英语自学网

瑟古德·马歇尔（Thurgood Marshall，1908年7月2日－1993年1月24日），美国法律人士，1967年至1991年间担任美国最高法院大法官，他是第一位担任此职的黑人。
在担任大法官前，马歇尔曾在布朗诉托皮卡教育局案中担任原告律师，主张南方各州实施的种族隔离政策违反美国宪法第十四修正案，在最高法院获得胜诉。布朗案因宣告种族隔离政策违宪而成为美国历史上一个里程碑式的判决，美国前总统小布什称其为“一个使美国永远更好的判决”。
Hints:
Thurgood Marshall
National Association
the Advancement of Colored People
Supreme Court

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Thurgood Marshall was a very good lawyer. The people he represented in court were black and poor. He never earned much money. But his name soon became well known. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People offered him a job. He went to work as one of its legal representatives.
In time, he became the organization's chief legal representative. He traveled across the United States. He fought against racial separation laws. He also defended black people who were charged with a crime, but who did not have the money to pay for legal help.
Many of those cases reached America's highest court, the Supreme Court of the United States. During his life as a lawyer, Thurgood Marshall argued cases before the Supreme Court more than 30 times. He lost only a few cases. Slowly, the laws of racial separation in America began to change. Many of those changes were the result of the work of Thurgood Marshall.