His Point of View

This week I was able to attend a performance of  the one man play “Thurgood” starring Laurence Fishburne.  This was a magnificent performance.  I often had to remind myself that Fishburne was only playing a role.  The play is near the end of its run at the Kennedy Center in DC, and unfortunately its sold out for the remaining performances. If you can I would advise you to go to make sure you see this show when and if it comes to a theatre near you.  I did not know until I began doing a little research for this post, that this play has been on going on and off broadway since 2006, when the role was performed by James Earl Jones.  I only wisht that I would have known about the show so that I could have seen what Jones brought to the role.

As can be expected the play details many of the highlights of the life of former US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.  The performance focuses on his early years as a budding attorney, and his fight to win Brown vs. The Board of Education, as well as a few other cases that were crucial to the civil rights movement of the mid 1900′s.  Surprisingly there was quite a bit of humor which I did no expect, it just goes to show that there is a human side to everyone, no matter what their public image may be.  The was much I did not know about Thurgood Marshall, and I now have a desire to do more research into the life of America’s first African American Solicitor General and Supreme Court Justice.  I hope that the 90 minute show continues to shine a light on a man who did so much to change America.