who was chief attorney for the naacp when it challenged the doctrine of "separate but equal."

by Obie McClure 8 min read

The first general counsel of NAACP, Charles Hamilton Houston exposed the hollowness of the "separate but equal" doctrine and paved the way for the Supreme Court ruling outlawing school segregation.

How did the NAACP challenge the separate but equal doctrine?

Thurgood Marshall 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. He is …

How did the NAACP challenge the grandfather clause?

Mar 21, 1981 · Pioneering civil-rights attorney Thurgood Marshall, the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), successfully argued the case before the court. Marshall, who founded the LDF in ...

Who was the first president of the NAACP?

For the Petitioner: Led by Thurgood Marshall, an NAACP, Brown's attorneys argued that the operation of separate schools, based on race, was harmful to African-American children. Extensive testimony supported the contention that legal segregation resulted in both fundamentally unequal education and low self-esteem among minority students.

What was the goal of the NAACP?

The NAACP, led by Thurgood Marshall (who became the first black Supreme Court Justice in 1967), was successful in challenging the constitutional viability of the "separate but equal" doctrine. The Warren Court voted to overturn sixty years of law that had developed under Plessy. The Warren Court outlawed segregated public education facilities for blacks and whites at the …

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Who was the chief lawyer for the naacp?

Thurgood Marshall
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. He is best known for arguing the historic 1954 Brown v.

Who was the lead lawyer for the naacp in the Brown case?

Thurgood Marshall
In 1941 Harold Boulware became the Chief Counsel for the South Carolina NAACP and led the effort to gain equal pay for equal work for African-American teachers. He gained fame as one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, along with Thurgood Marshall, in the Clarendon County Schools desegregation case, Briggs v.Jun 8, 2021

Who was the attorney that was a member of the naacp and successfully argued the case of Brown vs Board of Education to the Supreme Court?

Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall, the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, served as chief attorney for the plaintiffs.Jan 11, 2022

Who was the attorney in Brown v. Board of Education?

Charles Hamilton Houston played an invaluable role in dismantling segregation and mentoring the crop of civil rights lawyers who would ultimately litigate and win Brown v Board of Education. At Howard Law School, he served as Thurgood Marshall's mentor and his eventual employer at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Who was the attorney lawyer that helped to win the case of Brown vs the Board of Education of Topeka in 1954?

Thurgood Marshall
In Brown v. Board of Education, the attorney for the plaintiffs was Thurgood Marshall. He later became, in 1967, the first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Who was the first Black person on the Supreme Court?

Thurgood Marshall
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. Marshall had already made his mark in American law, having won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, most notably the landmark case Brown v.

Who put Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court?

President Johnson
President Johnson nominated Marshall in June 1967 to replace the retiring Justice Tom Clark, who left the Court after his son, Ramsey Clark, became Attorney General.Aug 30, 2021

Why did the Supreme Court decide to overturn Plessy versus Ferguson as explained in Brown versus Board of Education?

The Court expressly rejected Plessy's arguments that the law stigmatized blacks “with a badge of inferiority,” pointing out that both blacks and whites were given equal facilities under the law and were equally punished for violating the law.Apr 22, 2022

Who was the chief justice of the Supreme Court that helped the Brown verdict win?

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Brown family and the other plaintiffs. The decision consists of a single opinion written by chief justice Earl Warren, which all the justices joined.

What Court case did Brown vs the Board of Education overturned?

Plessy v. Ferguson
Board of Education. The Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, and declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Who led the naacp defense team in Virginia?

Thurgood Marshall was a member of the NAACP legal defense team in the Brown v. Board of Education case. He later became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. Led the NAACP Legal Defense team in Virginia in the Brown vs.

Who was the chief of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund?

Soon after, Marshall joined Houston at NAACP as a staff lawyer. In 1940, he was named chief of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which was created to mount a legal assault against segregation. Marshall became one of the nation's leading attorneys.

What was the impact of Marshall's rule on the Supreme Court?

His mission was equal justice for all. Marshall used the power of the courts to fight racism and discrimination, tear down Jim Crow segregation, change the status quo, and make life better for the most vulnerable in our nation.

What did Marshall do for the Supreme Court?

During his nearly 25-year tenure on the Supreme Court, Marshall fought for affirmative action for minorities, held strong against the death penalty, and supported of a woman's right to choose if an abortion was appropriate for her.

What was Marshall's first legal case?

After graduating from Howard, one of Marshall's first legal cases was against the University of Maryland Law School in the 1935 case Murray v. Pearson. Working with his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston, Marshall sued the school for denying admission to Black applicants solely on the basis of race.

What was Marshall's most famous case?

Marshall's most famous case was the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case in which Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren noted, "in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.".

Who was the first black supreme court justice?

Thurgood Marshall. 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.

Who was the first black justice?

Four years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson named Marshall U.S. solicitor general and on Aug. 30, 1967, Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and joined the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first Black justice.

Who was the first general counsel of the NAACP?

Charles Hamilton Houston. The first general counsel of NAACP, Charles Hamilton Houston exposed the hollowness of the "separate but equal" doctrine and paved the way for the Supreme Court ruling outlawing school segregation. The legal brilliance used to undercut the "separate but equal" principle and champion other civil rights cases earned Houston ...

What did the Supreme Court say about the admission of black people to the University of Missouri?

In a 1938 Supreme Court case concerning the admission of a Black man to the University of Missouri, Houston argued that it was unconstitutional for the state to bar Blacks from admission since there was no "separate but equal" facility.

How did Houston's strategy work?

Houston's shrewd strategy worked, effectively paving the way for desegregation. While not rejecting the premise of "separate but equal" facilities, the Supreme Court ruled that Black students could be admitted to a white school if there was only one school. Houston's shrewd strategy worked, effectively paving the way for desegregation.

Why did Houston leave Howard University?

Houston left Howard University to serve as the first general counsel He played a pivotal role in nearly every Supreme Court civil rights case in the two decades before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. Houston worked tirelessly to fight against Jim Crow laws that prevented Blacks from serving on juries and accessing housing.

Why was the NAACP criticized?

At the same time, NAACP members were subject to harassment and violence.

What was the NAACP's goal?

The NAACP’s Early Decades. Since its inception, the NAACP has worked to achieve its goals through the judicial system, lobbying and peaceful protests. In 1910, Oklahoma passed a constitutional amendment allowing people whose grandfathers had been eligible to vote in 1866 to register without passing a literacy test.

Why did the NAACP march in 1917?

In 1917, some 10,000 people in New York City participated in an NAACP-organized silent march to protest lynchings and other violence against Black people. The march was one of the first mass demonstrations in America against racial violence.

How many branches does the NAACP have?

During the civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s, the group won major legal victories, and today the NAACP has more than 2,200 branches and some half a million members worldwide.

What issues did the NAACP face?

Today, the NAACP is focused on such issues as inequality in jobs, education, health care and the criminal justice system, as well as protecting voting rights.

What did the NAACP do in 1964?

During this era, the NAACP also successfully lobbied for the passage of landmark legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, barring racial discrimination in voting.

What did the NAACP promise?

In its charter, the NAACP promised to champion equal rights and eliminate racial prejudice, and to “advance the interest of colored citizens” in regard to voting rights, legal justice and educational and employment opportunities.

When was the separate but equal doctrine overruled?

The “separate but equal” doctrine introduced by the decision in this case was used for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws until 1954, when it was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

What is the purpose of the Separate but Equal doctrine?

Implementation of the “separate but equal” doctrine gave constitutional sanction to laws designed to achieve racial segregation by means of separate and equal public facilities and services for African Americans and whites. The “separate but equal” doctrine introduced by the decision in this case was used for assessing the constitutionality ...

Why is Louisiana segregated?

The State of Louisiana (the Respondent) argued that it is the right of each State to make rules to protect public safety. Segregated facilities reflected the public will in Louisiana. Separate but equal facilities provided the protections required by the 14 th Amendment and satisfied the demands of white citizens as well. They also argued that because the Civil rights cases of 1883 made clear that segregation in private matters does not concern the government, a state legislature shouldn’t be prohibited from enacting public segregation statutes.

What was the Plessy v Ferguson case?

Overview. The decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, mostly known for the introduction of the “separate but equal” doctrine , was rendered on May 18, 1896 by the seven-to-one majority of the U.S. Supreme Court (one Justice did not participate.) The case arose out of the incident that took place in 1892 in which Homer Plessy ...

Why did Brown's attorneys argue that segregation was harmful to African Americans?

Lawyers argued that segregation by law implied that African Americans were inherently inferior to whites. For these reasons they asked the Court to strike down segregation under the law.

Why was Homer Plessy arrested?

Homer Plessy, a person of mixed race was deliberately chosen as a Plaintiff in order to support the contention that the law could not be consistently applied because it failed to define white and “colored” races. Even the railroad cooperated with the Committee of Citizens because to comply with the requirements of the Act they had to incur unnecessary expenses purchasing additional railroad cars.

When was segregation in schools ruled unconstitutional?

On May 17, 1954 , the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The Court said, “separate is not equal,” and segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Where did the phrase "equal but separate" come from?

The phrase was derived from a Louisiana law of 1890, although the law actually used the phrase "equal but separate". The doctrine was confirmed in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Though segregation laws existed before that case, the decision emboldened segregation states during ...

Who was the 14th Chief Justice of the United States?

In 1953, Earl Warren became the 14th Chief Justice of the United States, and the Warren Court started a liberal Constitutional Revolution which outlawed racial segregation and "Separate but equal" throughout the United States in a series of landmark rulings.

What amendment did the state and federal courts reject?

Furthermore, the state and federal courts tended to reject the pleas by African Americans that their Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to federal, not state, citizenship. This rejection is evident in the Slaughter-House Cases and Civil Rights Cases .

What did Albion Tourgee claim about Plessy?

Plessy's lawyer, Albion Tourgee, claimed Plessy's 13th and 14th amendment rights were violated. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, and the 14th amendment granted equal protection to all under the law. The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson formalized the legal principle of "separate but equal".

What were the laws of the late 19th century?

In the late 19th century, many states of the former Confederacy adopted laws, collectively known as Jim Crow laws, that mandated separation of whites and African Americans. The Florida Constitution of 1885 and that of West Virginia mandated separate educational systems. In Texas, laws required separate water fountains, restrooms, and waiting rooms in railroad stations. In Georgia, restaurants and taverns could not serve white and "colored" patrons in the same room; separate parks for each "race" were required, as were separate cemeteries. These are just examples from a large number of similar laws.

What is the meaning of "separate but equal"?

Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guaranteed "equal protection" under the law to all people. Under the doctrine, as long as the facilities provided to each "race" were equal, ...

When did the Board of Education overturn segregation laws?

Board of Education of 1954. However, the subsequent overturning of segregation laws and practices was a long process that lasted through much of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, involving federal legislation (especially the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ), and many court cases.

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