People, Locations, Episodes

Willie Brown Jr., Lawyer, and Politician born

*Willie Brown was born on this date in 1934. He is a Black lawyer, politician and businessman.

Arnette Hubbard, Lawyer, and Judge born

*Arnette Hubbard was born on January 1, 1935. She is a Black lawyer, judge, and administrator. Born Arnette Rhinehart in Arkansas, she was an only child. Her grandfather encouraged her to become an outstanding lawyer and judge. Hubbard received her B.A. in mathematics and chemistry from Southern Illinois University. She graduated from the University of […]

Grovey v. Townsend Is Decided

*On this date in 1935, Grovey v. Townsend was decided. This United States Supreme Court decision held a constitutional reformulation of Texas’s white primaries system. The case was the third in a series of Court decisions known as the “Texas primary cases.” In Nixon v. Herndon (1927), Lawrence A. Nixon sued for damages under federal civil rights laws after […]

Murray v. Pearson is Ruled

*On this date in 1935, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled against segregation at the University of Maryland Law School.

The case, Murray vs. Pearson had been attacking the school legally since that summer and successfully sued the University of Maryland to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named Donald Gaines Murray.
Represented by Charles Houston of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, his colleague and protégé’ Thurgood Marshall won his major first civil rights case in this ruling.

Breedlove v. Suttles is Decided

*On this date in 1937, Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937), was decided. This case was an overturned United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of requiring the payment of a poll tax to vote in state elections. At the time, Georgia imposed a poll tax of $1.00 per year, generally levied on all inhabitants. […]

Mary Frances Berry, Author, and Administrator born

*On this date in 1938 Mary Frances Berry was born. She is an African American lawyer, administrator, activist and author.

Berry was born in Nashville, Tennessee, where she attended public schools. She earned bachelors and master’s degrees at Howard University, a doctorate in history from the University of Michigan, and the jurist doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School. She is a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.

Cecil Price, Police Officer born.

*Cecil Price was born on this date in 1938. He was a white-American police officer and white supremacist. Cecil Ray Price was born in Flora, Mississippi, and graduated from Flora High School in 1956. After graduation, Price became a deputy sheriff in Neshoba County, Mississippi, and joined the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. On June […]

Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada is Decided

*On this date in 1938, Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337, was decided.   This was a United States Supreme Court decision holding that states that provided a school to white students also had to provide in-state education to Blacks. States could satisfy this requirement by allowing blacks and whites to attend the same school or creating a second school for […]

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is Formed

*On this date in 1940, we celebrate the founding of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). They are a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.   Created by Charles Hamilton Houston in the 1930s, the organization stems from the legal department of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1940, Thurgood Marshall established LDF […]

Nat Glover Jr., Administrator born

*Nat Glover was born on this date in 1943. He is a Black college administrator, former police officer, and sheriff.   Nathaniel Glover Jr. was born and attended public schools in Jacksonville. As a young man, he experienced the racism of the early 1960s when he stumbled into Ax Handle Saturday. On that day, white men, including some members of the Ku Klux […]

Sharon Pratt, Policy Administrator born

*Sharon Pratt was born on this date in 1944. She is a Black lawyer, politician, and administrator. From Washington D.C., she was born to D.C. Superior Court judge Carlisle Edward Pratt and Mildred “Peggy” (Petticord) Pratt. Three years later, a sister, Benaree, was born. After she lost her mother to breast cancer at an early […]

Duvall v. School Board is Ruled

*On this date in 1944, Duvall v. School Board was ruled on. This case involved equal pay for certified schoolteachers in South Carolina regardless of race.  On November 10, 1943, NAACP lawyers filed the case with the federal district court to equalize the salary of Viola Louise Duvall, a Black educator from Charleston’s Burke High School. The […]

Korematsu v. The United States is Decided

*On this date in 1944, Korematsu v. the United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), was decided. This was a landmark United States Supreme Court case upholding the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The case exemplifies the racial intersectionality between Asian Americans and African Americans in the United States. The decision has widely been criticized, with some scholars describing it as “an […]

Lena Baker is Executed

*On his date in 1945, Lena Baker, an African American mother of three, was electrocuted at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville.

She was convicted for the fatal shooting of E. B. Knight, a white Cuthbert, GA mill operator she was hired to care for after he broke his leg. She was 44 and the only woman ever executed in Georgia’s electric chair. For Baker, a Black maid in the segregated south in the 1940’s, her story was a tough sell to a jury of 12 white men. And rumors that she was romantically involved with victim E. B. Knight did not help.

The Women’s Political Council is Formed

*The Woman’s Political Council (WPC) was organized on this date in 1946. Founded in Montgomery, Alabama, it was an early force active in the 20th-century American Civil Rights movement, formed to address the racial issues in the city. WPC’s founding members included Mary Fair Burks, Jo Ann Robinson, Irene West, Thelma Glass, and Euretta Adair. The […]