TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Aug 12, 2025

A statue of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall will be unveiled on Oct. 3 at 5 p.m. CDT in downtown Columbia. News Channel 5 reports that the statue will mark the role Marshall played representing 25 Black men charged in what is now called the Columbia Race Riot of 1946. The incident stemmed from an argument between a white shop worker and a Black man, James Stephenson, who had brought in a radio to be repaired. The confrontation turned violent. After Stephenson was charged with attempted murder, a mob sought Stephenson for what the Black community believed to be a lynching. The Black residents resisted the mob but then were criminally charged. Marshall — who later would become the U.S. Supreme Court's first Black justice — was the lead attorney defending Stephenson and the others. They were acquitted. The bronze statue will stand at the center of a new roundabout in downtown Columbia.