By Varan Satchithanandan ’12, Commentary Editor

In light of Black History Month, I have been considering the most significant events and people involved in the US’ equal rights

movement. And while names like Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama are often mentioned as the figureheads for the advancement of rights, I would argue that the oft-forgotten Thurgood Marshall is the most important figure in American Civil Rights history. In addition to being the first black Supreme Court Justice, Marshall had a prodigious output. He argued more cases before the Supreme Court than anyone else in history. Perhaps his most storied case is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In what can only be described as a monumental victory, state laws that mandated separate schools for black and white students were ruled unconstitutional. For Newark Academy, a school that takes great pride in its diversity, this ruling has much significance. In Smith v. Allwright, Marshall overthrew the South’s “white primary”.  With a victory in Browder v. Gale, the practice of segregation on buses was ended. He tackled integration in the secondary and tertiary levels of schools. Marshall was a man for equity among all races, as demonstrated by his role in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, a case in which affirmative action in California was abolished. To be sure, Thurgood Marshall is a somewhat forgotten figure. Rarely is he mentioned as a civil rights great by the casual observer, among others like MLK, or the polarizing Malcolm X. Marshall was special in that he didn’t attempt to inspire through rhetoric, but rather by action and law.