On June 6 , 2026, members of the namesake family, civil rights leaders, legal colleagues and friends joined Military Sealift Command and industry representatives to gather at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, California, to christen the future USNS Thurgood Marshall (T-AO-211).
The seventh John Lewis Class oiler and replenishment ship is named for the brilliant legal scholar and first African American Associate Justice named to the Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall was born Thoroughgood Marshall in Baltimore, Maryland. At the age of six, he petitioned to shorten his given name to Thurgood, securing his first legal victory! He attended racially segregated schools in Baltimore, graduating with honors from Colored High and Training School of Baltimore. Thurgood was a mischievous young man and while being disciplined for a hazing incident in high school, the principal assigned him to read the Unites States Constitution, planting the seeds for a future Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He then attended the HBCU Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he excelled at debate and graduated with honors in 1930. Having been rejected by the University of Maryland Law School due to race, he enrolled in the Howard University School of Law, where he graduated first in his class. While at Howard he was mentored by Professor Charles Hamilton Houston Sr. and joined him in the office of the Special Counsel to the NAACP shortly after leaving Howard. Thurgood became more involved with NAACP and eventually founded the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In this role he oversaw cases such as the landmark Brown v. Board of Education which ended racially segregated “separate but equal” schools in 1954. He also oversaw many lesser-known cases. He road trains and buses throughout the nation to defend poor African Americans, whose race had been a barrier to justice. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson appointed him to federal judiciary posts until he was finally nominated to the Supreme Court by President Johnson in 1967, serving until his retirement in 1991. Justice Marshall died in 1993 and was honored by becoming only the second Justice to lie in state at the Great Hall of the Supreme Court.
Thurgood married Vivian (Buster) Burey in 1929 and they remained married for twenty five years until her death from lung cancer early in 1955. She had worked with him on the Brown vs Board of Education case. Later that year, Thurgood married Hawaiian born Cecilia “Cissy” Suyat who also worked at the Legal Defense Fund. Thurgood and Cissy had two sons, Thurgood “Goody” Marshall Jr. and John Marshall. Cissy remained active in civil rights and continued to actively support the Legal Defense Fund. She passed away in November of 2022.
Three family members of Justice Marshall were named co-sponsors: granddaughters Melonie Tibbs, Cecilia L. Marshall, and granddaughter-in law Dr. Alissa Kamens Marshall. Melonie Tibbs, daughter of John Marshall lives in Reston, VA with her husband and is a realtor. Cecelia, also John’s daughter, is named after her grandmother. She is dedicated to keeping the work of her grandparents going and is currently Executive Director of the Thurgood Marshall Foundation. Alissa, the wife of Thurgood Willaim Marshall holds a PhD from Tufts University in biological chemistry. She is now an executive at the Promega Corporation where she works to accelerate innovation in health research. Ms. Karmyn Tibbs, Great Granddaughter of Thurgood Marshall, will serve as the ship’s Maid of Honor.
The USNS Thurgood Marshall (T-AO-211) is the seventh in the John Lewis Class of fleet oilers. It will have the ability to carry 162,000 barrels of diesel ship fuel, aviation fuel, and dry stores cargo, according to the Military Sealift Command. Bringing needed food and fuel to the fleet globally is the mission of Military Sealift Command whose ships are crewed and led by civil service mariners. The prospective Master of the ship will be civil service Captain Andrew Graff. The John Lewis class is built with double hulls to protect against oil spills. The Lewis-class of oilers will replace the current Kaiser class fleet replenishment oilers.
On Friday morning, the co-sponsors, family and guests toured the ship and participated in the traditional mast-stepping ceremony. During this ceremony, people placed mementos/good luck charms into a box that is welded near the mast. This box acts as a time capsule - it will be unsealed when the ship is taken out of service. Mast-Stepping is an ancient maritime tradition dating back two thousand years or more. Commemorative coins were placed in the metal receptacle by ship builders, Navy commands and friends and family. Co-Sponsors placed mementos of the US Supreme Court, and the Legal Defense fund into the box. The Society of Sponsors of the United States Navy President, Ann Zumwalt, placed her challenge coin as well as a reproduction of Z-Gram 66:“EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE NAVY”. Finally, when the Master of Ceremonies asked if anyone else would like to place a coin, at least twenty shipbuilders, dressed in soiled work clothes, hardhats, and steel toed boots, solemnly walked in line to place coins into the box. Nothing could have spoken more to the legacy of Thurgood Marshall than the scene of these workers: black, brown, white, male and female, their hands soiled with the mornings work, reverently placing their quarters, dimes and other coins into the box. The respect for the man whose life’s work, ensuring equal opportunity for all Americans, was palpable.
On Friday evening, the Sponsors Reception was held at the San Diego Marina Marriott Marquis. While guests enjoyed a meal hosted by NAASCO, speakers reviewed the accomplishments of the namesake. Gifts were bestowed upon the co-sponsors and the prospective Master of the ship was given books and other personal items to remember the namesake to the ship’s crew. Dr. Alissa Kamens Marshall spoke beautifully on behalf of the three co-sponsors and honored Justice Marshall. The presence of the extended Marshall family and life-long legal colleagues provided a very intimate feel to the evening.
On the day of the christening, shipside at NAASCO, the significance of the event was felt by all as the legal backbone of the civil rights movement was honored. The respect and gratitude of all present was not diminished by the day’s headlines which warned of further attempts to roll back the gains of the civil rights movement in the last half of the twentieth century. David Carter, President of General Dynamics NAASCO led the platform speakers, welcoming the co-sponsors and listing all the ships surrounding the audience under construction for the US Navy. Rear Admiral Banjamin Nicholson, Commander Military Sealift Command, reviewed the legal accomplishments of the namesake who won 29 of the 32 cases he brought before the Supreme Court, “a record of advocacy unmatched in American legal history.” He also spoke of the role this ship will play in the global support of the Navy and its sister replenishment ships which are the “lifeblood” of naval power projection.” Vice Admiral Douglas Verissmo, Commander of Naval Aviation spoke on behalf of the Chief of Naval Operations. He reminded all present that the demand for naval forces has never been higher and these logistics ships provide the asymmetric advantage the United States Navy enjoy. The keynote speaker, representing the Acting Secretary of the Navy was Major General David J. Bligh, United States Marine Corps, Judge Advocate General of the Navy. He reminded all that on the 82nd Anniversary of D-Day, that historic accomplishment would have been impossible without the hundreds of logistics ships that supported the landing. The top lawyer in the Navy honored the mastery of Thurgood Marshall as a litigator in oral argument, advocacy and deep understanding of the Constitution. General Bligh also pointed out the physical and moral courage Marshall displayed, travelling across the country, often sleeping in his car in hostile environments in order to bring justice to those whom justice was an evasive goal.
Cecelia Marshall spoke of behalf of the co-sponsors and thanked the ship builders and former Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro who named the ship and the three co-sponsors. She told of one of Justice Marshall’s last public appearances in 1992. Instead of talking about himself, he told stories of some of his courageous clients. “I speak of them not only because of the kind of people they are but because of the kind of nation they insisted we become.” She concluded with the story of H. Waverly Woodson, a graduate of Marshall’s alma mater, Lincoln University. Waverly left his pre-med program and volunteered for the Army. He trained for and passed an artillery officer training program only to find after completion that were no openings for black officers. He was then made a medic and found himself on a landing craft headed for Omaha Beach. Wounded by shrapnel before he hit the beach he went on for thirty hours, treating over two hundred men for their wounds. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor that summer, but none of the 432 medals awarded in the war were given to black servicemen (over one million blacks had served in WWII). She concluded by quoting his closing remarks from that 1992 speech. “Knock down the fences that divide and tear apart the walls that imprison. Reach out. Freedom lies just on the other side.”
The three co-sponsors proudly climbed to the christening platform and flawlessly shattered the three bottles simultaneously. Fair winds and following seas to USNS Thurgood Marshall. May she proudly fulfill her role in defending the Constitution that her namesake so loved.
Submitted by Ann Zumwalt Sponsor USS ZUMWALT (DDG 1000)
