Location for Separate Is NOT EQUAL: Brown v. Board of Education –- A Filmed Reenactment Moved to the Altadena Senior Center

Barbara Pearson, Director of the Altadena Library District reports, “Because there has been such an excellent response to the Altadena Library’s upcoming showing of the filmed reenactment of the oral arguments for Brown v. Board of Education, we had staff inquire about the Senior Center with its more spacious community room hosting this event.  We were so pleased with the encouraging response by Mr. Brookins.”  Altadena Senior Center Director Tony Brookins offered, “We are more than happy to work with the Altadena Library on this important community event.” 

The program Separate Is NOT EQUAL: Brown v. Board of Education will now take place at the Altadena Senior Center on Saturday February 23 beginning at 2:00 p.m.  The Honorable Terry J. Hatter, Jr., Senior United States District Judge (Chief Judge Emeritus) Central District of California, will appear in person to introduce this important event.  In the video Hatter presents his views of the case and its effect on his own life and the schools in Pasadena.  Other speakers in the film include Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of Oliver Brown, the named plaintiff, and Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, Irvine School of Law, who gives a background of the case and its aftermath.

Brown v. Board of Education was a United States Supreme Court Case (1954) which declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional.

This riveting presentation features actual lawyers and judges arguing the case. Thurgood Marshall, chief legal counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) who gave the main argument later became the first African American on the Supreme Court. Speaking about this historic reenactment Justice Hatter had this to say, “Brown v. Board was the jumping off point of the civil rights movement…and in terms of moral responsibility for this nation, the decision has no match."

Judge Hatter is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. He served as a United States District Judge for the Central District of California since 1979 and in 1998 became the Chief Judge of the Central District.  He has been a professor of law at Loyola Law School and at the University of Southern California Law School; and served as the Executive Director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty.

This free program is sponsored by the Friends of the Altadena Library and the Altadena Senior Center. The Altadena Senior Center is located at 560 East Mariposa Street, Altadena, CA 91001. For more information please call 626-798-0833 or visit the library on the web at http://www.altadenalibrary.org.