Ajr-Rai Barker 10 John Marshall High School Sylvester Robinson Oliver Hill Alston v. School Board of Norfolk VA Oliver Hill was an attorney born in Richmond, VA, the capital of the Jim Crow “separate but equal” system. He spent life challenging this unfair system. He accomplished his goal by winning legal, educational, economical, and political court cases in the United States.

During the Jim Crow era, life for African Americans wasn’t easy. Everything was segregated and they were discriminated against. Three-Hundred blacks were killed from 1877- 1910 by the KKK. Despite this, Oliver Hill, an African American, managed to earn his undergraduate degree from Howard University and entered their School of Law in 1930. Hill graduated second in his class after future Supreme Court Associate Justice, Thurgood Marshall.

Hill’s first successful case, Alston v. School Board of Norfolk Va., gained pay equity for black teachers. Before Alston, black teachers made less than their white counterparts in Norfolk. African American teachers wanted the same level of respect that the white teachers had in the community.

Melvin Alston started a pay equalization suit to back up his co-worker, Aline Black, who filed a suit but was ruled against. He joined forces with the NAACP, which included Oliver Hill, and they took the case to court. He asked the NTA (Norfolk Teachers Association) to join them so that it would make a wide-spread impact. The NAACP realized that this case set the stage for a direct attack on the “separate but equal” doctrine.

Even though the African American teachers negotiated a three-year salary equalization plan, this was the second major educational showdown in Norfolk. This case was one of the cases that led to their victory in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. It helped African American teachers have the same pay as white teachers. It also helped dismantle the “separate but equal” doctrine. Therefore, if it had not been for Oliver Hill, none of this would have been possible.