(Columbia) March 27, 2007 - A Columbia home where Thurgood Marshall planned his strategy for a landmark civil rights case is in jeopardy.

Marshall and others drafted the school desegregation lawsuit in a house on Marion Street that would later be combined into Brown vs. Board of Education, requiring school integration.

Modjeska Simpkins, a South Carolina civil rights pioneer, lived there. Money to maintain the historic site is gone and now there's an effort to save the home.

Preservationist Catherine Fleming Bruce sees its possibilities, "It really has a good aura to it ..."

You might see a dining room, but Catherine Bruce sees a table that sets Columbia's scene for civil rights. She fears the Modjeska Simkins Center could face the wrecking ball.

This month a bank filed foreclosure papers against the Collaborative for Community Trust, the preservation group run by Bruce that still owes $34,000 on a loan from 2003.

Bruce says they need that money by April fourth. She's launching an emergency campaign to raise it.

Bruce hopes to save the guesthouse too - an eyesore on the outside with big problems underneath. It's a cozy place that attracts the homeless and infuriates neighbors like Charlie Dorton, who says, "They use our backyard for a restroom."

Dorton says the building is a fire hazard - a place the homeless smoke, eat, drink, sleep and in the winter try to stay warm. He recently asked City Council to consider tearing it down. "I hope the city will react to it and spend some of the funds to fix it up."

Mayor Bob Coble says they have - signficantly. In 2005 the group got $150,000 from the city's hospitality tax for renovations. In 2006 they got nothing. Coble says, "We had far more proposals than we had money so that committee had to make those choices."

Last year $2 million in hospitality dollars went to two private schools, for softball fields and parking lots at Columbia College and renovations at Allen University's auditorium. Catherine says, "I wouldn't say it's not fair. I'd say they need a better strategy."

Now Bruce is banking on the community to come through to help save a home that holds so much.

Mayor Coble says if the foreclosure goes through the city will work with the bank to make sure the house stays a historic home.

If you'd like to help save the Modjeska Simkins Center, please send donations to:

Collaborative for Community Trust
2025 Marion Street
Columbia, SC 29201
803-748-8644
allsimkins@yahoo.com