Colored Girl Lawyer Visits the U.S. Supreme Court

Although I was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 2001, I never had the opportunity to argue before the Court. However, the words chiseled into the stone of the building “Equal Justice Under Law” have always been a guiding principle in my life.

Also, I was born in 1954, the same year the Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, the case that integrated schools in the United States. That coincidence of celestial timing has always made me feel that I was somehow joined at the hip with the Court and its quest for justice. The Brown v. Board of Education decision changed the arc of my life for the better.

So with that background, on my recent trip to Washington, DC “My Special” (also a lawyer) to see the Amish quilt exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, I decided I had to take a slight pause from quilts, art and history in museums to document my personal history by visiting the Supreme Court.

It was a sacred experience for me. I said a personal prayer of gratitude that in 1954 there were courageous justices on the Court who did the right thing and changed the world.

Colored Girl Lawyer Rocks! 56 X 68 inch red and white quilt by O.V. Brantley, 2023. Part of the exhibit “Long Time Coming — A Retrospective of O.V. Brantley’s Red and White Quilts.” Machine quilted by Maxine Moore. NFS.