December 2, 2020 Meeting

On December 2, 2020, Team Thurgooders presented on their movie “Marshall” (2017), a biographical film about Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Thurgood Marshall. The movie stars Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens, Sterling K. Brown, and James Cromwell and focuses on one of the first cases of his career, State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting was conducted virtually, via Zoom.

The title of Team Thurgooders’ presentation is “No Easy Way: Thurgood Marshall’s Fight for School Desegregation and Its Impact on the Riverside Unified School District.” Team Thurgooders is comprised of Hon. Jennifer Gerard, Richard Majchrzak, Mark Mellor, Chris Heikaus Weaver, Dani Mouri, Erica Alfaro, Christopher Ortega, and Bryan Sahagun.

The presentation began with a description of the case State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell and a biography of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. The trailer from Marshall was shown to the audience.

In order to capture the Inn members’ interest, Jeopardy! America’s Favorite Quiz Show® was played. The teams were given the answers and the teams had to come up with the correct question in response. The categories were “The Marshall Court,” “Marshall the Movie,” “School Desegregation,” “The Life of Marshall,” and “Race and Criminal Justice.”

The presentation was dedicated to the memory of Chadwick Boseman (1976-2020), star of “Marshall” and Alex Trebek (1940-2020), the longtime host of “Jeopardy!”

At the conclusion of the presentation, Inn members were invited to score the presentation, from a ranking of 1 (worst) to 5 (best). The team and winning presentation will be announced at the May 2021 meeting.