Honoring Thurgood Marshall

Honoring Thurgood Marshall

Last week it was my true honor to take part in the Unveiling Ceremony for the Rockland County Thurgood Marshall Human Rights Monument. The statue is cast in bronze and stands in front of a black marble wall with these words, attributed to Thurgood Marshall, etched onto the wall, “In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.”

This Monument was many years in the making and pays tribute to a man who played a direct role in the course of Rockland County and American history. After founding the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1940, Marshall fought tirelessly to end “separate but equal” structures for white and black people across our country.

And long before he argued the well-known Brown v. Board of Education case in 1952 and 1953, Thurgood Marshall was working right here in Rockland, attempting to integrate the Hillburn School system. In 1943, Marshall worked with Hillburn’s black community to file a petition against the local school board and appealed to the New York State Board of Education to end segregation of the Village’s elementary schools.

With the help of local residents, he was successful in ending racial segregation in Hillburn. And while this was just one battle in the hundreds that Thurgood Marshall fought to end segregation across our country it was a defining moment in the history of Rockland.

And as has often been the case in our history, what started in Rockland grew and compounded, resulting in expanding justice and fulfilling the promise of equality for all Americans. Justice Marshall will long be remembered nationally for his leadership and his protection of civil rights as a Supreme Court Justice.

But here in Rockland he will be remembered for bringing an end to one of the last formally segregated schools in New York. His fight in Hillburn is a crucial part of our history, and his legacy is something we must all be reminded of. Justice Marshall is a fitting example for how we must continue to fight for equality across Rockland and around our country.

By unveiling this Monument, we turned a new page in the history of Rockland County, and it is my fervent hope that that new page grows to a chapter. I invite all of you to visit this Monument and pay tribute to a man who changed the course of history here in Rockland and across the United States of America.

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