Senate confirms Marshall, 69-11; becomes first Black justice on the Supreme Court

By the summer of 1967, no Black American had ever sat on the Supreme Court in its 178-year history. On August 30, the Senate voted 69–11 to confirm Thurgood Marshall, then serving as U.S. Solicitor General, as an Associate Justice. The vote followed five days of Judiciary Committee hearings in July, where segregationist senators pressed Marshall on obscure points of constitutional history. He took the oath in October and served until 1991…