Who was the first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court?

Thurgood Marshall was the first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Marshall in 1967 to replace Justice Tom C. Clark. The Senate confirmed him 69–11 on August 30, 1967, making Marshall the first African American member of the Court. He took the judicial oath at the beginning of the Court’s 1967 term and served as an associate justice until 1991.

Marshall had already achieved national prominence as a civil-rights lawyer. As head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, he argued cases challenging racial segregation, including Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. That ruling held racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional and overturned the legal framework associated with “separate but equal.”

A common mix-up is confusing Marshall with earlier figures who shared the surname. John Marshall, Chief Justice from 1801 to 1835, was not African American. Clarence Thomas became the second African American justice in 1991, and Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first African American woman appointed to the Court in 2022.