which lawyer dedecated his life to defeating jimcrow

by Whitney Renner 3 min read

One of the most influential figures in African American life between the two world wars was Charles Hamilton Houston. A scholar and lawyer, he dedicated his life to freeing his people from the bonds of racism. Houston played a significant role in dismantling the Jim Crow laws, which earned him the title "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow".

The first general counsel of NAACP, Charles Hamilton Houston
Charles Hamilton Houston
Through his work at the NAACP, Houston played a role in nearly every civil rights case that reached the US Supreme Court between 1930 and Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Houston worked to bring an end to the exclusion of African Americans from juries across the South.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Charles_Hamilton_Houston
exposed the hollowness of the "separate but equal" doctrine and paved the way for the Supreme Court ruling outlawing school segregation.

Full Answer

Who was the lawyer in charge of fighting segregation in schools for the NAACP?

Thurgood Marshall was a civil rights lawyer who used the courts to fight Jim Crow and dismantle segregation in the U.S. Marshall was a towering figure who became the nation's first Black United States Supreme Court Justice.

Was a lawyer with the NAACP and later became the first African-American Supreme Court justice?

Thurgood MarshallThurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's first African-American justice.

How many cases did Charles Houston win?

sevenFrom 1935 to 1948, he argued eight cases before the Supreme Court, winning seven of them.

Who was the first black lawyer?

Macon Bolling AllenMacon Bolling AllenResting placeCharleston, South CarolinaOther namesAllen Macon BollingOccupationLawyer, judgeKnown forFirst African-American lawyer and Justice of the Peace4 more rows

Who was the first black person on the Supreme Court?

Thurgood MarshallOn June 13, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated distinguished civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American justice to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Who taught Thurgood Marshall?

Charles Hamilton HoustonThurgood Marshall was one of the architects of Brown v. Board of Education, and was the lead counsel arguing against the separate but equal rule of Plessy v. Ferguson. Charles Hamilton Houston was his mentor at and after Marshall attended Howard University School of Law.

What was Charles Houston known for?

Charles Hamilton Houston, (born September 3, 1895, Washington, D.C., U.S.—died April 22, 1950, Washington, D.C.), American lawyer and educator instrumental in laying the legal groundwork that led to U.S. Supreme Court rulings outlawing racial segregation in public schools.

What did Roy Wilkins fight for?

Appointed to the NAACP's highest administrative post during the early stage of the Civil Rights Movement, Wilkins directed the organization on a course that sought equal rights for blacks through legal redress. In August 1963 he helped organize and later addressed the historic civil rights March on Washington.

Who was the Dean of Howard University Law School?

Under Houston, the law school graduated a group of highly effective civil rights lawyers, the most illustrious of whom was Thurgood Marshall.

Who was the most influential African American in the two world wars?

One of the most influential figures in African American life between the two world wars was Charles Hamilton Houston. A scholar and lawyer, he dedicated his life to freeing his people from the bonds of racism. Houston played a significant role in dismantling the Jim Crow laws, which earned him the title "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow".

Who was the first African American president of Howard University?

Mordecai Johnson, the first African-American president of Howard University, named Charles Houston to head the law school in 1929. Houston brought an ambitious vision to the school, he set out to train attorneys who would become civil rights advocates. At the time, courses were offered only part-time and in the evening. Houston created an accredited, full-time program with an intensified civil rights curriculum. In Houston's capacity as Dean, he had a direct influence on nearly one-quarter of all the black lawyers in the United States, including former student Thurgood Marshall. Houston transformed a second-rate law school into a first class institution that churned out generations of brilliant black lawyers. His determination to train world-class lawyers who would lead the fight against racial injustice gave African Americans an invaluable weapon in the civil rights struggle.

What was Jim Crow law?

t. e. Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States and elsewhere within the United States. These laws were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Southern Democrat -dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by black people ...

What were the laws of Jim Crow?

Jim Crow laws and Jim Crow state constitutional provisions mandated the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains between white and black people. The U.S. military was already segregated.

What is racial etiquette?

Racial Etiquette: The Racial Customs and Rules of Racial Behavior in Jim Crow America – The basics of Jim Crow etiquette. "You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow!". PBS documentary on first Freedom Ride, in 1947. List of laws enacted in various states.

What laws were passed in the South?

Although sometimes counted among "Jim Crow laws" of the South, statutes such as anti-miscegenation laws were also passed by other states. Anti-miscegenation laws were not repealed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court (the Warren Court) in a unanimous ruling Loving v. Virginia (1967). Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court opinion that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State."

What was Rosa Parks's role in the Civil Rights Movement?

This was not the first time this happened – for example, Parks was inspired by 15-year-old Claudette Colvin doing the same thing nine months earlier – but the Parks act of civil disobedience was chosen, symbolically, as an important catalyst in the growth of the Civil Rights Movement; activists built the Montgomery bus boycott around it, which lasted more than a year and resulted in desegregation of the privately run buses in the city. Civil rights protests and actions, together with legal challenges, resulted in a series of legislative and court decisions which contributed to undermining the Jim Crow system.

What was the Jim Crow context?

In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of African Americans.

What is the origin of the phrase "Jim Crow"?

The origin of the phrase "Jim Crow" has often been attributed to " Jump Jim Crow ", a song-and-dance caricature of black people performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface , which first surfaced in 1828 and was used to satirize Andrew Jackson 's populist policies.

What is the truth about Jim Crow?

About Jim Crow. 2014 1. Introduction. The Jim Crow era ended nearly 50 years ago with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which restored African-Americans to full citizenship in the United States after a century of legalized oppression. As the era fades deeper and deeper into the past, ...

What was Jim Crow's goal?

Jim Crow was an entire way of life dedicated to asserting and maintaining the superiority of whites over blacks. The Jim Crow system dominated the southern and border states, though Jim Crow laws and attitudes could be found in the Northeast, the Midwest and the West as well.

How many ways were blacks denied the right to vote?

Blacks were denied the franchise in many ways. Dr. Russell Booker of America’s Black Holocaust Museum has identified eight methods used to deny blacks the right to vote7: All-white primary elections:In the United States, there are usually two rounds of elections: first the primary, then the general.

Why were blacks reduced to second class citizenship?

Blacks were reduced to second-class citizenship. They were denied the right to vote, kept separate from whites in most phases of life, and in general, treated as if they were subhuman, in an effort to justify white supremacy and keep the black population under tight control.

What were the social institutions in the South?

Social institutions were structured to reinforce the organizing principle of the culture: that blacks were inherently inferior to whites, in effect subhuman.

How many black voters were there in Louisiana in 1896?

to those whose grandfathers had been able to vote, to those with ‘good characters,’ to those who paid poll taxes. In 1896, Louisiana had 130,334 registered black voters. Eight years later, only 1,342, one percent, could pass the state’s new rules.5. Segregation.

How did the reconstruction era end?

The Reconstruction era ended with the Compromise of 1877, which resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election.

What did Earl Warren say about Jim Crow?

Chief Justice Earl Warren was a skilled negotiator, and garnered a unanimous decision in which the Court ruled that "'separate but equal' has no place" in America's public schools, as separate was deemed inherently unequal. Jim Crow was suddenly at odds with the law of the country, and openly threatened white supremacy.

What was the case against the University of Texas Law School?

In Sweatt, a case against the University of Texas Law School, the Court ruled that the black facilities provided by the university did not meet the standard of equality, so black students could not be excluded from the white facilities.

Why was the Shelley v. Kraemer case struck down?

Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) ruled that a state court could not constitutionally restrict an American from occupying a property on the basis of race , desegregating housing.

What happened to Lloyd Gaines?

A black student, Lloyd Gaines, was denied admission to the white-only State University of Missouri Law School, so he took legal action. The Court affirmed Plessy (6-2), and did not require Missouri to accept Gaines at the Law school.

Who was the NAACP leader who overturned Plessy?

By legally making the maintenance of segregation an expensive and complicated alternative to integration, Gaines was the first of a series of cases that led to the overturning of Plessy. Thurgood Marshall, NAACP Counsel and civil rights leader, coordinated several key victories before the Supreme Court that resulted in the dismantling of Jim Crow.

Was Jim Crow a threat to white supremacy?

Jim Crow was suddenly at odds with the law of the country, and openly threatened white supremacy. Though the legality of Jim Crow in education had been defeated, blacks continued to struggle for equal rights in its wake.

image

Etymology

Image
The phrase "Jim Crow Law" can be found as early as 1884 in a newspaper article summarizing congressional debate. The term appears in 1892 in the title of a New York Times article about Louisiana requiring segregated railroad cars. The origin of the phrase "Jim Crow" has often been attributed to "Jump Jim Crow", a song-and-…
See more on en.wikipedia.org

Origins

  • In January 1865, an amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery in the United States was proposed by Congress, and on December 18, 1865, it was ratified as the Thirteenth Amendmentformally abolishing slavery. During the Reconstruction period of 1865–1877, federal laws provided civil rights protections in the U.S. South for freedmen, African Americans who ha…
See more on en.wikipedia.org

Historical Development

  • Early attempts to break Jim Crow
    The Civil Rights Act of 1875, introduced by Charles Sumner and Benjamin F. Butler, stipulated a guarantee that everyone, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, was entitled to the same treatment in public accommodations, such as inns, public transportation, theaters, …
  • Racism in the United States and defenses of Jim Crow
    White Southerners encountered problems in learning free labor management after the end of slavery, and they resented African Americans, who represented the Confederacy's Civil War defeat: "With white supremacy being challenged throughout the South, many whites sought to pr…
See more on en.wikipedia.org

Decline and Removal

  • Historian William Chafehas explored the defensive techniques developed inside the African-American community to avoid the worst features of Jim Crow as expressed in the legal system, unbalanced economic power, and intimidation and psychological pressure. Chafe says "protective socialization by black people themselves" was created inside the community in order to accom…
See more on en.wikipedia.org

Influence and Aftermath

  • African-American life
    The Jim Crow laws and the high rate of lynchings in the South were major factors that led to the Great Migrationduring the first half of the 20th century. Because opportunities were so limited in the South, African Americans moved in great numbers to cities in Northeastern, Midwestern, an…
  • Interracial marriage
    Although sometimes counted among "Jim Crow laws" of the South, statutes such as anti-miscegenation laws were also passed by other states. Anti-miscegenation laws were not repealed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court (th…
See more on en.wikipedia.org

Remembrance

  • Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, houses the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, an extensive collection of everyday items that promoted racial segregation or presented racial stereotypes of African Americans, for the purpose of academic research and education about their cultural influence.
See more on en.wikipedia.org

Further Reading

  1. Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-1950-3756-1
  2. Barnes, Catherine A. Journey from Jim Crow: The Desegregation of Southern Transit. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. ISBN 0-2310-5380-0
  3. Bartley, Numan V. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South during the …
  1. Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-1950-3756-1
  2. Barnes, Catherine A. Journey from Jim Crow: The Desegregation of Southern Transit. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. ISBN 0-2310-5380-0
  3. Bartley, Numan V. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South during the 1950s.Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.
  4. Bond, Horace Mann. "The Extent and Character of Separate Schools in the United States." Journal of Negro Educationvol. 4 (July 1935), pp. 321–327.

External Links

  1. The History of Jim Crow, Ronald L. F. Davis – A series of essays on the history of Jim Crow. Archive index at the Wayback Machine
  2. "You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow!"PBS documentary on first Freedom Ride, in 1947.
  3. List of laws enacted in various states
  4. Ferris University pageabout Jim Crow
See more on en.wikipedia.org