History was made at the opening of the new term at the Supreme Court on October 2nd 1967 with the swearing in of the first black justice in its 178 year history. He is former US Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall seen getting a last minute check-up from his wife before the ceremony. Marshall, Thurgood US civil rights activist, jurist, and lawyer; special counsel for NAACP 1938-1950; argued for Brown in Brown v. Board of Education 1954; solicitor general 1965-1967 (1st black solicitor general); Supreme Court justice 1967-1991 (1st black justice); wrote decisions for Benton v. Maryland 1969 (6-2, constitutional ban on double jeopardy does apply to state courts; overturned Palko v. Connecticut 1937), Ake v. Oklahoma 1985 (8-1, indigent defendants claiming insanity must be supplied with court-appointed psychiatrists), Ford v. Wainwright 1986 (5-4, convicts too mentally incompetent to understand reason for their own execution cannot be executed); Spingarn Medal 1946 _1908-1993