Cecilia Marshall, wife of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, dies at 94

Cecilia “Cissy” Marshall, the spouse of the late Supreme Court docket Justice and civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall, died on Tuesday at age 94, the court docket’s public data workplace introduced.

Like her husband, Marshall had labored for the NAACP within the Forties and ’50s. She was born in Hawaii and moved to New York, the place she turned a stenographer, in response to particulars of her formative years offered by the court docket. No reason behind loss of life was given.

Thurgood Marshall, the primary Black justice within the court docket’s historical past, had retired in 1991 and died in 1993. However Cecilia Marshall, recognized for her heat, exuberance, and enduring curiosity within the court docket, continued to attend oral arguments and extracurricular court docket festivities, usually with their son Thurgood Marshall Jr.

“You wished to sit down subsequent to her at any occasion,” Chief Justice John Roberts mentioned in a press release Tuesday that captured her character. “She had a simple humorousness that could possibly be – in an applicable setting, after all – a bit saucy.”

He famous that Marshall usually sat in a reserved part for spouses at oral arguments and Supreme Court docket Historic Society occasions. Roberts mentioned she not often missed an investiture or different Supreme Court docket event.

Justice Elena Kagan, who was a legislation clerk for Justice Marshall throughout the 1987-88 session, mentioned in a press release on Tuesday, “Each clerk to Justice Marshall acquired a type of bonus: the steadfast friendship and assist of his spouse Cissy. She was a wonderful girl, and all of us liked and admired her. The group of TM clerks will right this moment really feel an awesome loss.”

Born Cecilia Suyat in 1928 in Pu’unene, Maui, in Hawaii, she would later transfer to New York Metropolis, the place she took evening courses at Columbia College to turn into a stenographer. She labored for the Nationwide Affiliation for the Development of Coloured Folks (NAACP) from 1948-1955.

Thurgood Marshall, earlier than becoming a member of the bench in 1967, led the NAACP Authorized Protection and Schooling Fund. In that place, he was chief counsel for the collection of circumstances that led to the historic Brown v. Board of Schooling choice putting down the “separate however equal” doctrine in public faculties.

The couple married in December 1955 and had two sons, Thurgood Jr. and John.

Cecilia Marshall, who lived in Falls Church, Virginia, served over time on the board of the NAACP Authorized Protection Fund and the Supreme Court docket Historic Society. The Supreme Court docket public data workplace mentioned she was additionally lively in church actions and group service. Along with her two sons, she is survived by 4 grandchildren and three nice grandchildren.