As part of the 50-year commemoration of a landmark civil rights ruling, the Illinois Humanities Council on April 19 will stage a re-enactment of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education.
The presentation at the Goodman Theatre will feature members of the local bar and federal judiciary. They will work from an edited transcript of the arguments in December 1952 and re-arguments in December 1953.
On May 17, 1954, the court ruled that racially separate educational facilities in public schools were inherently unequal and thereby unconstitutional.
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Several cases were consolidated under Brown, including one pitting NAACP lead counsel Thurgood Marshall and John W. Davis, the appellate lawyer for South Carolina’s segregated school systems. At the Goodman, they will be played, respectively, by Chicago lawyers James Montgomery and Michael Coffield.
Specific roles are not expected to be assigned to court members. During the actual arguments, Justice Felix Frankfurter dominated the questioning; his queries will be parceled out among the panel on the Goodman stage, the council said.
A discussion will follow the proceedings. Tickets are $150, and proceeds are earmarked for council programs about Brown to be held around the state through May 2005. For more information, call 312-422-5580.