1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
Federal News Network presents a daily update of important moments in the history of the U.S. government.
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the only black justice to serve on the nation’s highest court by that point and a forceful advocate for civil rights, announced his retirement on this day in 1991. Marshall, 82, cited his ″advancing age and medical condition″ in a letter to President George H.W. Bush announcing he would leave the court ″when my successor is qualified.″ As a justice, Marshall championed individual rights such as privacy and abolition of the death penalty, and has been a staunch defender of the 1973 ruling that granted women the right to an abortion. His departure gave Bush a chance to bolster the court’s conservative majority. Marshall was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. He had been the solicitor general and, as chief legal officer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the country’s preeminent civil rights figures. Marshall argued the case which resulted in the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed school segregation. During his 23 years as legal director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and his tenure as the federal government’s solicitor general, Marshall argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court and won 29 of them.
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