On Thursday evening, I had the opportunity to see Thurgood, the one person play about the life of Thurgood Marshall. The play runs until April 7th, and it is a show everyone ought to see. The show provides an inviting glimpse into not only the life of this one man, but into the history of our country and all of Americans as a people and as a country. It should be required viewing however for any LGBTQ activist or anyone interested in the continued battle for Civil Rights for any minority group.

Live theater provides the viewer with an experience that no other medium has to offer, and this show which is entertaining, enlightening,and inspirational succeeds in big ways. I’m not a theater critic, so I won’t spend any time trying to offer a traditional review of that sort. Ill leave that to the pros. But I do want to write about why this is such an important show for lesbian, gay, bisexual. trans and queer audiences. Two major points come to mind: the upcoming Supreme Court hearing of Same-sex Marriage cases, and the ongoing dialogue about whether or not LGBTQ Rights can be seen as similar to the Civil Rights Movement by African Americans. The first may seen obvious, and the latter less so, but I hope I can express both to you. Prior to seeing Thurgood, I would have sad that Bayard Rustin was my all time biggest African American hero. Thurgood Marshall wasn’t a person with whom I was at all familiar. Yet he has much to offer for today’s activists. Seeing the show won’t be the end to what I learn about this great man.

A pinnacle for Thurgood’s career, was arguing Brown v the Board of Education before the US Supreme Court in 1953, which is a most interesting case to consider as we look forward to the US Supreme Court hearing arguments in two cases dealing with Same-sex marriage in less than two weeks.At issue in Brown was that of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, and the overturning of a previous SCOTUS ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson.

The plaintiffs in Brown asserted that this system of racial separation, while masquerading as providing separate but equal treatment of both white and black Americans, instead perpetuated inferior accommodations, services, and treatment for black Americans. Racial segregation in education varied widely from the 17 states that required racial segregation to the 16 that prohibited it.

Recently, GetEqual criticized President Obama’s amicus brief, because it didn’t directly refer to the 14th Amendment, but in many regards the environment is similar today for same-sex couples who find different laws in different states providing a wide variability in protections for them. What I valued learning from the play, was how much the actual ruling of the Supreme Court didn’t end the issues. Rather the NAACP and Marshall spent the next years afterwards using the precedent of the case all across the South. In other words, the SCOTUS decision doesn’t become the last word, but rather another tool to use to further the efforts of Full Equality, The Warren Court, which heard Brown couldn’t reach a decision and ask to rehear arguments in early 1954, after which they released a unanimous decision. How interesting that effort is to consider compared to today’s court, which is expected to provide a very divided decision.

More interesting to me personally, is the second point I put forward. Some people within the African American Community mostly, do not appreciate that the LGBTQ Movement sees it’s struggle as a continuation of the Black Civil Rights Movement and suggest that there is no similarity between the two as the African-American experience includes the ravages of slavery and decades of segregation. Consider the efforts to keep Blacks from voting, and the work done by the NAACP to assure that every Black American could actually cast a ballot- the most basic Right of an American. But a scene in the play really highlighted the effects of segregation in ways I had never considered before. Today, the LGBTQ community may not be segregated physically from others, but we are Othered in very real and tangible ways, and what are the effects of that Othering? How many gays, lesbians, bis, trans, and q user youth struggle to believe they are as good as their heterosexual counterparts?

In one of the most riveting scenes for me, Thurgood uses a black and a white baby doll to demonstrate a study of how African-American youth selected the white dolls as prettier and better.Cultural Othering, by physical segregation or psychological means harms our youth and prepares them to constantly struggle to see themselves as being of value as they are.

For the record, I believe completely that Equality for LGBTQ Americans is very much a continuation of the struggle heroes like Thurgood Marshall fought as he battled segregation and discrimination. The work towards Full Equality for all Americans is far from over. Thurgood knew it was not over in his lifetime, and the struggle continues today. But even if that is true, the severity of the struggle that all African Americans name as their legacy is tremendous and the LGBTQ community as a whole cannot point to a similar past. Certainly, individuals can be found with horrific experiences to share, but as a group, in the most general sense, we have been extremely privileged. This is mostly White Privilege and Male Privilege, and the fact that the Women’s suffrage movement dates even farther back in time. If then, we are fighting simply for the Right for Same-sex Marriage, then our’s is not the same as the fight fought by leaders like Marshall. We (and I mean that in the broadest sense of the word we) must not see our struggle as fighting only for our rights, but as the group today, that is at the forefront for the battle for Full Equality for everyone.

I urge everyone to see this wonderful play. Sit there, in the audience and feel Thurgood addressing you directly, and allow that interaction to prompt you to consider history, the present and the future.