The Color of Justice February 22, 2012

THE

COLOR OF

JUSTICE

Theatreworks USA proudly presents the story of a courageous young girl and a great warrior for justice, and their battle for equal rights. Our story begins in the 1950s, a time in America when signs indicating "Colored" and "White" were prominently hung on restroom doors, restaurant windows and drinking fountains. A time when every school child knew that people in coloring books had to have pink skin, and white dolls with blond hair and blue eyes were really the "prettiest." A time in America when many schools were segregated and the practice of "separate but equal" was upheld by the United States Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall, prominent legal counsel for the NAACP, has been traveling around the country looking for families who will challenge the segregation law, who have the courage to take their lawsuits all the way to the nation's highest. One fateful day, he arrives in Topeka looking for a family who would step forward and join the battle in the Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Board of Education. And he finds the Carter family. Eight-year-old Grace Carter is tired of "colored" schools having to settle for ripped books and hand-me-down school supplies from well equipped white schools. She cannot understand why "colored" students have to mop their floors and clean their windows when the white schools have custodial staff, leaving their students free to concentrate on learning. But most importantly, she and her family -- and the entire "colored race"-- is "craving light, " the kind of light you can't find in a segregated school system. And so the little girl and the great man begin a battle. A battle against bigots and Klansmen. A battle against fearful friends and neighbors who want to leave well-enough alone. A battle that costs Mr. Carter his job and Grace her best friend. But a battle that they ultimately win, changing their lives and the lives of black schoolchildren all over America.

Tickets: $7 ~ 847.931.5900