Jasmine N. Pope Helps Stage BCBA Reenactment of Thurgood Marshall’s Williams v. Zimmerman
On February 26, 2026, the Baltimore County Bar Association’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) and Historical Committees hosted a reenactment of Williams v. Zimmerman, a case argued by a young Thurgood Marshall.
The Case
Marshall argued Williams v. Zimmerman in September 1936, challenging Baltimore County’s application of “separate but equal” in its public schools. He was 28 years old and only two years into practice.
The challenge was unsuccessful. But the case was part of the litigation strategy Marshall and the NAACP built over the following two decades — a strategy that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education, which Marshall argued before the Supreme Court in 1952 and 1953. He was appointed to that Court in 1967, becoming the first African American to serve as a Justice.
Jasmine Pope’s Role
Jasmine N. Pope, Vice-Chair of the BCBA’s DEIA Committee, played a significant role in the planning, casting, execution, and direction of the program. The event drew coverage from WMAR-2 News.
That this history is local matters. The courthouse where Marshall argued the case in 1936 sits in the same county where our attorneys practice today, and where Jasmine now serves on the DEIA Committee that brought the case back into that room.