Quigley to Speak on Mary Church Terrell and Racial Justice in DC

Joan Quigley, an attorney and journalist, will present Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation’s Capital in the Washington History Seminar om Monday, March 14, 2016, 4:00pm - 5:30pm in the 6th Floor Moynihan Boardroom, of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC:

In January 1950, Mary Church Terrell, an 86-year-old charter member of the NAACP, was refused service at a cafeteria a few blocks from the White House. Three years later, on June 8, 1953, she won a unanimous decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc., that invalidated segregated Washington restaurants and paved the way to the landmark school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education a year later. Ms. Quigley argues for the seminal role of Thompson and Mary Church Terrell in civil rights history, which typically begins with Brown.