Thurgood 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 Thurgood Marshall's legacy of equal access to higher education by supporting exceptional merit scholars attending America's public historically black colleges and universities. The Fund was renamed the Thurgood Marshall College Fund in 2006. Fifty-four schools are members of the TMCF, including Thurgood Marshall's alma mater Lincoln University, PA , and many of the nation's largest and most prestigious institutions of higher education.

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund has awarded more than $50 million in scholarships, capacity building and programmatic support. More than 5,000 Thurgood Marshall Scholars have graduated and are making valuable contributions to science, technology, government, human service, business, education and various communities.

Alumni of TMCF 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 Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just after it launched in January, 1986.