Thurgood Marshall’s 1956 speech on Human Rights at the University of Illinois

On March 8, 1956, Marshall visited the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to talk about his work, the many cases of segregation in Illinois, and the murder of the young Emmett Till. The 14-year-old Chicago boy was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after offending a white woman. 

Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American justice on the US Supreme Court. For many years before that, he was a prominent civil rights lawyer. He argued more than 30 cases before the nation's highest Court, including Brown vs. Board of Education. In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional, leading to desegregated schools.

On May 16, 2024 Illinois Public Media's radio program The 21st, Minnie Pearson, a Champaign NAACP leader, and Erik McDuffie, a Black Studies professor, react to hearing Marshall's speech. You can listen to their discussion, hosted by Brian Mackey, on the IPM website.