A new one-hour documentary explores the life and legacy of Baltimore’s own legal legend, Thurgood Marshall, visionary lawyer and first Black justice on the United States Supreme Court.
“Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect” premieres Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, at 10 p.m. EST on PBS, PBS.org, and the PBS app. The special draws from rare archival recordings, personal photographs, and exclusive interviews, offering an intimate, yet timely and relevant portrait of a person who dramatically reshaped democracy in America.
The show was executive produced by Stanley Nelson and Travis Mitchell. Nelson is an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmaker and Mitchell is senior vice president and chief content officer of Maryland Public Television (MPT). The special was produced and directed by Alexis Aggrey, and two-time Grammy winner Derrick Hodge composed the music.
“Becoming Thurgood” uses a blend of animation, oral history, and sound to bring Marshall’s life story to viewers. They will be introduced to the man of action as someone who was strategic, courageous, and devoted to justice. Marshall held the nation accountable to the Constitution through the courts, redefined what the laws could do to help citizens fully enjoy their rights, and moved America closer to its stated ideals.
Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1908. The film takes viewers through his childhood to his years at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Lincoln University and Howard University School of Law to his groundbreaking career as a civil rights lawyer dismantling segregation.
“When there are changes happening in your country, when there’s unrest, when there’s unfairness, people look to lawyers for the answer,” said Sherrilyn Ifill of Howard University School of Law. “So, law and lawyers are very important tools in the toolbox of the very long, many hundred years quest of Black people to be free and full citizens in this country.”
Marshall won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Winning that case invalidated the “separate but equal” precedent and ended legal racial segregation in public schools. The decision was met with massive pushback by segregationists and racists across the nation, especially in the South. Politicians as powerful as U.S. Senators to state governors to local school board members did their utmost to preserve white supremacy.
Desegregation continued to be fought in the courts for decades after. One of the most famous cases of this was the Little Rock Nine. In 1957, at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, the response of white families and students was so violent that President Dwight D. Eisenhower called in the National Guard to ensure the safety of the nine Black students attempting to enter the school. Over two years later, in response to a May 1, 1959 order to integrate its schools, the officials in Prince Edward County, Virginia closed its entire school system instead — and remained closed for five years.
In 1967, Marshall became the first African American appointed to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served for 24 years until his retirement in 1991.
“To those of us who know the struggle is far from over, history has another lesson,” Marshall said. “It tells us how deeply rooted habits of prejudice are, dominating the minds of men and all our institutions for three centuries, and it cautions us to continue to move forward, lest we fall back.”
Watch “Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect” on Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 10 p.m. on on PBS, PBS.org, and the PBS app.
