An evening with Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall

Step back in time to meet two integral figures from American History! You'll hear their stories, and you'll be able to ask them questions about their lives!

Rosa Parks (as portrayed by Chautauqua scholar Becky Stone) is best known for rejecting instructions to relinquish her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955. After she was arrested for civil disobedience, her willingness to become a controversial figure inspired the black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year, the first major direct action campaign of the post-war civil rights movement. Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the Civil Rights movement.

Thurgood Marshall (as portrayed by Chautauqua scholar Dr. Lenneal Henderson) was an attorney who successfully argued several cases before the Supreme Court, including Brown vs. Board of Education. Appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson, Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice. Marshall was also founder of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

6:30 PM - Rosa Parks portrayed by Becky Stone
7:30 PM - Thurgood Marshall portrayed by Lenneal Henderson
8:30 PM - Concluding Q & A with scholars and closing remarks