started what would be a successful fight to integrate eating places in the District of Columbia. In the 1890s the District of Columbia had formalized segregation, as did states in the South. Before then, local integration laws dating to the 1870s had required all eating-place proprietors "to serve any respectable, well-behaved person regardless of color, or face a $1,000 fine and forfeiture of their license." In 1949, Terrell and colleagues Clark F. King, Essie Thompson, and Arthur F. Elmer entered the segregated Thompson Restaurant. When refused service, they promptly filed a lawsuit. Attorney Ringgold Hart, representing Thompson, argued on April 1, 1950, that the District laws were unconstitutional, and later won the case against restaurant segregation. In the three years pending a decision in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Terrell targeted other restaurants. Her tactics included boycotts, picketing, and sit-ins. Finally, on June 8, 1953, the court ruled that segregated eating places in Washington, DC, were unconstitutional. Terrell was a leader and spokesperson for the Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the District of Columbia Anti-Discrimmination Laws which gave her the platform to lead this case successfully. After the age of 80, Terrell continued to participate in picket lines, protesting the segregation of restaurants and theaters. During her senior years, she also succeeded in persuading the local chapter of the American Association of University Women to admit black members. She lived to see the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, holding unconstitutional the racial segregation of public schools. Terrell died two months later at the age of 90, on July 24, 1954, in Anne Arundel General Hospital in Highland Beach, Maryland. It was the week before the NACW was to hold its annual meeting in Annapolis, Maryland near her home in Highland Beech. Legacy and honors 1933 – At Oberlin College's centennial celebration, Terrell was recognized among the college's "Top 100 Outstanding Alumni". 1948 – Oberlin awarded Terrell the honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. 1954 – First Lady Mamie Eisenhower paid tribute to Terrell's memory in a letter read to the NACW convention on August 1, writing: "For more than 60 years, her great gifts were dedicated to the betterment of humanity, and she left a truly inspiring record." 1975 – The Mary Church Terrell house in the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Washington was named a National Historic Landmark. Mary Church Terrell Elementary School