The
Brown V. Board of Education Case
The Members of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
Photo of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense Fund of the 1950s
Charles Hamilton Houston
Charles Hamilton Houston was the leader of the legal defense fund, and was credited with being the one who created the NAACP strategy that helped end segregation in public schools. Though Houston did not end up arguing in the actual Brown V Board of Education case due to health problems, he was still the first special counsel for the NAACP in the 1930s, when the NAACP started to try out their strategy. Houston and Marshall went throughout the rural south and gathered evidence that showed the unequal conditions black people faced. There, he decided that the best strategy for ending segregation in public schools would be to start integrating schools from higher educational facilities then go down to the lower schools.
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was chief counsel for the NAACP, and represented the NAACP when he met with the inhabitants of the Clarendon County, South Carolina, which was where the Briggs V Elliot case took place. With this case, the NAACP tested their strategy for ending segregation in schools. In court, Marshall had argued that the white and black schools were in fact not equal like the doctrine had promised because separate cannot not be equal, and that segregation had a detrimental effect on black students. His involvement with one of the most infamous U.S Supreme Court case, and his desire for equality led him to become a U.S Supreme Court Justice in the future.
Spottswood W. Robinson
Spottswood W. Robinson joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund as an attorney in 1947, right after he graduated from Howard University School of Law. When students in Farmville, Virginia were protesting for equality in the schools, Robinson and Oliver Hill were sent in to fight the case after the students contacted the NAACP for aid in their struggle. The two attorneys only agreed to argue the students’ case if they would allowed to fight for integration in schools, instead of equal facilities. This became known as the Davis v. School Board of Prince Edward County, which was argued at the US Supreme Court Level by the same lawyers who argued it at a district court level, Robinson and Hill.
Oliver W. Hill
Oliver W. Hill was a student of Charles Hamilton Houston at Howard University, and graduated second to Thurgood Marshall. He and Marshall ended up working together for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Hill and Robinson were both assigned to the Davis v. County School Board case, and both had argued the case when it got to the US Supreme Court level, in the Brown v Board of Education case. After the Brown case, Hill practiced law actively in his law firm, but stopped in 1998. The NAACP bestowed upon him its highest honor, The Spingarn Award, and he was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Robert L. Carter
Robert L. Carter, along with others in the legal team of the NAACP, thought of the strategy to end segregation, but it was mostly credited to Charles Hamilton Houston. In 1950, Carter, Thurgood Marshall, and Spottswood Robinson travelled to South Carolina to work with Dr. Kenneth Clark, a psychologist whose testimony later greatly aided the NAACP in the US Supreme Court case. A year after, Carter and Jack Greenburg, a fellow Legal Defense fund attorney, helped collect expert witnesses and met with local attorneys in Topeka, Kansas. Carter was the attorney who argued the single Brown v Board of Education case when it got to the Supreme Court Level. Carter continued to work with the NAACP after the Brown Case, but stopped in 1968 to practice law in a private firm. In 1972, he was elected the US District Court of the Southern District of New York.
Jack Greenburg
Jack Greenberg began his career with the NAACP legal team in 1949, and served the defense fund for 35 years. He also worked as the director counsel of the team from 1961 to 1984. Greenburg was the first white attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and was also the youngest lawyer on the legal team. He, along with Robert Carter, helped collect information for the single Brown v Board of Education case. Though he could have stayed at any hotel he wanted to in Topeka, he chose to stay with the NAACP members in their homes. Greenberg and Louis Redding argued the Belton v Gebhart case in front of the US Supreme Court.
James Nabrit Jr.
James Nabrit Jr. had instructed the first civil right law course in the US, as a teacher in Howard University. He had Robert Carter and Spottswood Robinson as students while he was a teacher there. Both of those students would go on to argue parts in the Brown case. When Charles Hamilton Houston became ill, he entrusted Nabrit with the responsibility of taking over his duties. One of those duties was the Bolling v Sharpe case. This case was one of the four cases that made up the Supreme Court Case, Brown v Board of Education.
Harold R. Boulware
Harold R. Boulware had obtained his law degree from Howard University School of Law, like most of the attorneys on the NAACP legal team. He was the chief counsel for the South Carolina NAACP branch, and was chief attorney in the Briggs v Elliot case. He had argued this case in the Supreme Court for the Brown V. Board of Education case. Boulware later on became the first African American to be elected to be an Associate Judge for the Columbia Municipal court, but then stopped in 1974, when he decided to judge in the Richland County Judicial System. Boulware’s court later became the Family court of the 5th Judicial Circuit in the States-Wide Judicial System.
Louis R. Redding
Louis R. Redding, as the only black lawyer in Delaware, studied law in prestigious schools that gave him the skills necessary to become one of the US's most important civil rights lawyers. He worked as an attorney for the NAACP, and had filed the Bulah v Gebhart case on the behalf of Sarah Bulah and her daughter. This case was one of the four cases that constructed the Supreme Court Case. Redding and Jack Greenburg had argued this case in front of the US Supreme Court.