With an all-star cast of Twin Cities lawyers and judges, 2024’s History Play is the true story of a civil rights lawsuit that brought Thurgood Marshall to St. Paul, and led to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

In 1942, Sue Cowan Williams, formerly knows as Susie Morris, head of the Dunbar High School English Department and a member of the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association, sued the school district for equal pay for black teachers. With the assistance of Thurgood Marshall, an attorney from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Williams won her case in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Landmark Center’s History Play performance series is a theater program designed to bring to life many of the trials, court decisions, legal ramifications, and other related events that were relevant to Landmark Center when it was the Federal Courts Building. Noted Twin Cities judges, legal practitioners, and academics often trade robes for costumes to bring the events to life.

A play by Terrance C. Newby and James Lundy. Directed by Chad Snyder.