Marshall in Movement: Artist’s McAlester mural honors civil rights, justice determine | Native Information

Chandler Watson said his mural on the wall of a McAlester law firm was aimed at honoring a person for civil rights and justice.

The Oklahoma City artist said the mural was a way to provoke critical thinking about the importance of freedom and to remind people of the late Thurgood Marshall’s work for advancing civil rights.

“Thurgood Marshall is what the judicial system should be if it ever does justice to what it could be,” Watson said at an inauguration ceremony Thursday.

The mural was painted on one wall of the office building for lawyers Brecken Wagner and Blake Lynch of McAlester, who held an inauguration ceremony on Thursday.

A quote from Marshall – “The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the community, but also those of the human spirit – a spirit that demands self-expression” – used in the mural comes in a landmark case that McAlester’s attorneys do used in a local case.

McAlester Mayor John Browne attended the ceremony Thursday and proclaimed Marshall in Motion Day across town.

Thurgood Marshall was America’s first black Supreme Court Justice and served as an associate judge on the United States Supreme Court from October 1967 to October 1991. He died in 1993 at the age of 84.

He graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1933 before successfully advocating several cases before the Supreme Court – including Brown v Board of Education, Smith v Allwright, and Shelley v Kraemer.

Brown v. Board of Education is the landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on May 17, 1954, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Smith v. Allwright is another groundbreaking decision that repealed Texas law that empowered parties to establish internal rules that prohibit the use of white primaries. Shelley v. Kraemer is the groundbreaking case that put down racially restrictive living.

President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second District in 1961. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him attorney general of the United States four years later before successfully appointing him to the US Supreme Court in 1967.

Wagner said the idea for the mural came about when the legal partners were discussing ways to beautify the city. Wagner and Lynch donated resources to build a roundabout near the McAlester Post Office with a buffalo statue in the center.

Watson said he had a sketch idea for a building and got in touch when Wagner and Lynch looked for artists for the mural.

“And the way Brecken started talking about Thurgood Marshall was like I’ve heard people talk about Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant,” said Watson. He said that passion kept him motivated.

Watson said he moved a lot as a kid because his parents were in the military before going to Choctaw-Nicoma Park High School in Oklahoma.

He attended Rose State College and the University of Central Oklahoma before getting interested in art through comedy.

Watson said he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in comedy and held the stage with some national headliners. He continued to paint and photograph while using the warm-up technique of painting and drawing various things.

“It works with anything I plan to be creative with,” said Watson. “When I have at least two minutes to sit down with a sketchbook and find out what’s on my mind and what I don’t have to focus on, that’s a moment of silence before a bad thunderstorm.”

Watson returned to Oklahoma and continued his art through painting, photography, and comedy.

He thanked Wagner and Lynch and the McAlester community for their support and hospitality in completing the mural.

Contact Adrian O’Hanlon III at [email protected]