Cecilia Suyat Marshall

Cecilia Suyat Marshall (July 20, 1928 – November 22, 2022) was an American civil rights activist and historian from Hawaii who was married to Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice, from 1955 until his death in 1993. She was of Filipino descent. Her life is featured in the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian and she was recorded by the Library of Congress regarding her experiences with civil rights in the United States. In the 1940s and 1950s, she served as a stenographer and private secretary for the NAACP in Washington, D.C.

Early life and career Cecilia "Cissy" Suyat was born in Pu'unene, Maui, in Hawaii on July 20, 1928. Her parents emigrated from the Philippines in 1910.

Suyat moved to New York City to live with her maternal uncle and aunt, on the advice of her father, before starting work for the NAACP in Washington, D.C. In her first assignment, she picketed the film The Birth of a Nation at a local theater, which soon stopped showing the film. Suyat took night classes at Columbia University to become a court stenographer and eventually became the private secretary of Dr. Gloster B. Current, the head of the NAACP, from 1948 to 1955. She played a role in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case.

Marriage Suyat met Thurgood Marshall, then married him in 1955 after Marshall's previous wife, Vivian Burey, died of lung cancer. Suyat married Marshall on December 17, 1955.

Later life and death Suyat spent her life preserving history and continued to fight for civil rights after her husband's death. She believed that there is still a long way to go. She gave an oral history interview for the Library of Congress conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, D.C., on June 30, 2013.

Suyat attended the opening of a new school building for the Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change in New York City's Harlem neighborhood in 2004.

Suyat died on November 22, 2022, at the age of 94 in Falls Church, Virginia.