The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund
Thurgood MarshallThurgood Marshall successfully argued the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, ordering desegregation of public schools. He later became the first African-American appointed to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund (TMSF) was established in 1987 to carry on Justice Marshall's legacy of equal access to higher education by supporting exceptional merit scholars attending America's Public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The Office for the Advancement of Public Black Colleges (OAPBC) created TMSF with Justice Marshall's support. [OAPBC is an information and advocacy unit of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) in cooperation with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.] Today, 47 schools are members of the TMSF, including many of the nation's largest and most prestigious institutions of higher education.
Graduating StudentsTo date, the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund has awarded more than $50 million in scholarships, capacity building and programmatic support. More than 200 Thurgood Marshall Scholars have graduated and are making valuable contributions to science, technology, government, human service, business, education and various communities thanks to the support they received from TMSF.
Alumni of TMSF member schools include civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson; CBS News "60 Minutes" correspondent Ed Bradley; NFL football great Walter Payton; actress Lynn Whitfield; opera star Jessye Norman and astronaut Ronald McNair, who died when the Challenger space shuttle exploded just after it launched in January 1986.
Thanks to TMSF scholarships and programs, public historically black colleges and universities are preparing a new generation of leaders.