Today in History, August 30th
On August 30, 1967, the Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall as the first Black Supreme Court justice. Plus the first Black American in space.
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August 30 is best known for 1967, when the U.S. Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall as the first African American justice of the Supreme Court. The date also marks Guion Bluford’s 1983 launch as the first Black American in space and the 1963 opening of the Washington-Moscow hotline.
The big story: Thurgood Marshall is confirmed to the Supreme Court (1967)
By the time he was nominated, Thurgood Marshall had already changed the Supreme Court from the other side of the bench. As the top lawyer for the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1940 to 1961, he built the legal attack on segregation. His biggest win was Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, in which the Court rejected “separate but equal” in public schools. John F. Kennedy put him on a federal appeals court, and Lyndon B. Johnson made him solicitor general in 1965. When Justice Tom C. Clark retired, Johnson nominated Marshall on June 13, 1967. On August 30 the Senate confirmed him by a vote of 69 to 11. He took the oath on October 2 and served on the Court for 24 years. He stepped down in 1991 for health reasons and died in 1993.
More events on August 30
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1800 | Gabriel, an enslaved man, planned to lead a revolt on Richmond, Virginia, that night. A violent rainstorm scattered his followers, and the plot was crushed. |
| 1813 | Red Stick Creek warriors attacked Fort Mims, north of Mobile, during the Creek War. The war ended with Andrew Jackson’s victory at Horseshoe Bend in 1814. |
| 1918 | Fanya Kaplan shot Vladimir Lenin twice after a speech at a Moscow factory. He survived, and the Bolsheviks answered with a wave of reprisals. |
| 1963 | The Washington-Moscow “hotline,” a direct teletype link created after the Cuban Missile Crisis, went into operation. |
| 1983 | Space shuttle Challenger lifted off in the program’s first night launch, carrying Guion S. Bluford, the first Black American in space. |
| 1999 | East Timor voted in a UN-organized referendum, and almost four-fifths of voters chose independence from Indonesia. |
| 2006 | California’s Senate passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, making California the first state to cap carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. |
| 2015 | Neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, died in New York at 82. |
Born on August 30
- 1797: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English novelist who wrote Frankenstein, born in London.
- 1918: Ted Williams, Boston Red Sox slugger and the last major leaguer to hit .400 in a season, born in San Diego.
- 1919: Kitty Wells, the “queen of country” and the genre’s first female star, born in Nashville, Tennessee.
Sources
- Marshall, Thurgood, Federal Judicial Center
- Thurgood Marshall confirmed as Supreme Court justice, History.com
- Gabriel, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Creek War, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- This Day in History: August 30, History.com
- First African American in space, History.com
- East Timor, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Ted Williams, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Kitty Wells, Encyclopaedia Britannica
