He was the youngest with an older brother named William Aubrey. His parents, William C. and Norma Marshall were brought up in almost completely different worlds. Norma was schooled and in training to become a teacher. William dropped out of school after elementary school, but could read and write very well. He worked as an errand boy and when his father opened a grocery store he started working there full time.
Thurgoods father was very light skinned and blue-eyed black man that could have very well passed if he had wanted to, but the Marshalls" were very rich in self-pride and the struggle of their people. Though William was a man of great character and class, he did not let his resentment of his Pullman car porter or steward job destroy him or humiliate him. He often spent time in and around the courtrooms and argued the cases with friends and family members. Thurgood's grandmother even did her own personal sit-out to fight the placement of an electric pole on her sidewalk. .
The month surrounding Thurgood's birth was at a time when the environment around them was filled with hate and racial tension. There were multiple of riots going on about the lynching of two black men after the false accusations of a white women's rape. There were many other brutal killings of blacks, riots and destruction. This began the migration of blacks to rigid segregation. .
Maryland legislator, by this time, had passed the laws requiring "white" and "colored" toilets on trains and such. Separate, but, supposable, equal, was the law of the land. This created a bigger environment of violence and hate toward each other, blacks and the system. By May 30th, 1909, The Members of the Brotherhood of Liberty, a group of black Baltimore activists, got over a thousand people in New York together to meet. A year later the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was formed. These blacks, headed by the "militant" leader W.
