On August 30, 1967, the US Senate voted 69-11 to confirm civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall as the 96th justice of the Supreme Court. He was the first African-American to serve on the court. President Lyndon Johnson nominated Marshall, then serving as US Solicitor General, to the post in June of that year to fill a vacancy left by Justice Tom Clark. Marshall had previously served on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after being nominated by President John Kennedy in 1961.

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