The Story

"Forged in the Fire" by Hugh Baxley recognizes Sherman resident William J. Durham, pioneering African American attorney known for his civil rights work with future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall on the case Brown v. Board of Education, among others. William J. Durham lived in Sherman on Brockett Street, and officed in the Andrews Building. He continued his Sherman law practice after the 1930 riot, but later moved to Dallas.

 

Durham is known for his role in assisting Thurgood Marshall (who later became the first African-American justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court) in preparing Sweatt v. Painter, and then Brown v. Board of Education, the cases that successfully desegregated schools in America. Durham also argued the case that ended segregation of the State Fair of Texas.

See more in the Texas Historical Association’s Handbook of Texas entry, and in the Rockwall County Herald-Banner’s article.

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About the Artist and Art

Hugh Baxley II is a self-taught artist residing in Denison, Texas. He works in an array of mixed medias from acrylics, oils, pastels, pencil, charcoal and photography. Some of his favorite artists are Renaissance artist like Da Vinci and Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Caravaggio to artists such as Dali, Picasso, Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Frida Kahlo, Van Gogh, Gentileschi, Rosa Bonheur, Cassatt, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Hugh has been a featured artist in the Herald Democrat Entertainment newspaper as well as in the Voyage Dallas magazine.

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​For this panel design, Baxley researched and has acknowledged some of the most significant cases that William J. Durham successfully argued. These cases guaranteed the rights of African-Americans to participate as equals in American society.