How many African-Americans have served as Chief Justice of the United States?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has only had white male Chief Justices to date, but the day will undoubtedly come when an African-American leads the Court. Bear in mind the Supreme Court has only had seventeen Chief Justices since it was established in 1790, so the opportunities for diversity have been few.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, as of 2010, there have been no female African-American Supreme Court Justices.

Until fairly recently, the Supreme Court consisted primarily of white men. Two African-American men have served on the Court:

• Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall (retired June 1991, deceased 1993)
• Associate Justice Clarence Thomas (still seated)

Answer 3

As of 2011, there have only been two African-American justices on the US Supreme Court.

Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Justice appointed to the US Supreme Court, was Chief Counsel for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a social activism group) in 1954, and argued Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka before the high court twice -- once in 1952 and once in 1953.

President Lyndon Johnson nominated Marshall as an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court in 1967, and he was confirmed by a Senate vote of 69-11 on August 31. Marshall served from 1967-1991, and died on January 24, 1993, at the age of 84.

Clarence Thomas, the second African-American Justice to serve on the Court, was nominated by George H. W. Bush in 1991 to succeed Thurgood Marshall, who retired the same year.

Before joining the Supreme Court, Thomas was chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Reagan, and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit under the elder Bush.