Why Thurgood Marshall?

As a lawyer, Thurgood Marshall successfully fought school segregation in the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, a major turning point for the civil rights movement.  In 1967 he became the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court, working to uphold the constitutional rights of all people for 24 years.  He died in 1993.  

While the Judkins Park neighborhood public elementary school has been named for Thurgood Marshall since 1996, members of the community felt we could do more to honor his legacy.  This youth art project with Coyote Central's Hit the Streets program was born.

Thurgood Marshall outside the Supreme Court in 1955, when he was chief counsel for the NAACP. (Photo by Hank Walker – Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)