UCLA National Black Law Journal

Title Charles Hamilton Houston

Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/776794vd

Journal National Black Law Journal, 3(2)

ISSN 0896-0194

Author McNell, Genna Rae

Publication Date 1973

Peer reviewed

eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California THE BLA CK LA W JO URNA L PAGE 123 CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON

By GENNA RAE McNEIL* and exposure to mortal danger. Injustice at home and abroad prompted a C HARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON, the decision to join his father in the practice of descendant of a line of free Blacks and law. In the summer of 1919 following his dis- slaves, was born September 3, 1895, in charge from the Army, racial violence Washington, D.C., where he lived and worked erupted in Washington, D.C., and a score of until his death at the age of fifty-four in April, other localities. Blacks were murdered and 1950. His parents were William LePre victimized. In the autumn following that Houston, a lawyer, and Mary Ethel Hamilton "Red Summer," Charles Houston entered Houston, a former teacher and hairdresser. Harvard Law School. He distinguished him- To the extent that it was within their power, self at Harvard, being the first Black to serve these two working parents provided a privileg- on the Harvard Law Review, earning his ed environment for their very capable only LL.B. ('22) with an honors average and re- child. Houston attended "M" Street High ceiving the Langdell Scholarship for further School (subsequently renamed for the Black studies. Houston earned all "A"s in his poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar), the college fourth year of law studies during which time preparatory school for Blacks in Washington, he was instructed by such men as Roscoe D.C., and the surrounding area. At the age of Pound and Felix Frankfurter.' In 1923 he ob- nineteen, he graduated Magna Cum Laude tained his Doctorate in Juridical Science and with an honors degree in English and Phi Beta was awarded the prestigious Sheldon Travel- Kappa from Amherst College. The next two ing Fellowship which allowed him to study years he taught English at Howard Univer- civil law at the University of Madrid and sity's Commercial College. At the age of sit as an observer in the courts of Spain, Italy, twenty-one Charles Houston entered the first Greece, Tunisia and Algeria. Black officers' training camp, Fort Des After Houston returned from southern Moines, where he earned his commission as a Europe and northern Africa and joined the First Lieutenant in the Infantry. The Army's District of Columbia bar, his father proudly unfair assignment of a number of Black infan- renamed the office, "Houston & Houston". try officers and disparaging reports regarding the ability of Blacks to train in the Special Services, however, offended and provoked Houston so much that he relinquished his *B.A. Kalamazoo College; M. A. University of Chicago; Candi- a field artillery date for PhD History, University of Chicago. Ms. McNeil's rank and retrained to become dissertation topic is: "Charles Hamilton Houston (1895-1950) officer in the American Expeditionary and the Struggle for Civil Rights." She is a former instructor of Afro-American History at Roosevelt University, and is newly Forces. As a Second Lieutenant overseas, he appointed to the faculty of the History Department, University encountered virulent racism practiced by Red of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 1. Letter from Walter White to Roger N. Baldwin, July 8, Cross workers, white enlisted men and his 1933, in 8 American Fund for Public Service: Applications fellow white officers. Because of his race and Favorably Acted Upon 135, Frankfurter commented ten years later that Houston was one of the most "brilliant and color, he suffered arbitrary insults, indignities able students at Harvard within his memory." PAGE 124 THE BLA CK LA W JO URNA L PAGE 124 THE BLACK LA WJOURNAL

They went about the task of making a success out of special problems of [Black] lawyers," of what they regarded as the first Black law but also for the researching of "legal aspects firm in Washington, D.C. In addition to of [Black] economic, social and political life." building a traditional private practice, the Moreover, it should produce "capable and younger Houston began teaching at the socially alert [Black] lawyers to meet the 3 Howard University School of Law. He was group needs." There was no doubt in meticulous in the preparation of both cases Houston's mind that if Black lawyers were not and lectures, always putting forth his best ef- trained to fight for Black people, resort to the fort for clients and students. By the end of courts for vindication of rights would prove to 1924, Charles Houston's interest in the plight be more often than not an exercise in futility. of Black people involved him in the pursuit of "Experience has proved that the average two full-time careers. white lawyer especially in the South cannot be relied upon to wage an uncompromising fight "...TO WAGEAN UNCOMPROMISING for equal rights for [Black people]. He has too FIGHT..." many conflicting interests, and usually After three years as a practitioner and a himself profits as an individual by that very professor, Charles Houston found he was still exploitation of the [Black], which, as a dissatisfied with the degree to which his work lawyer, he would be called upon to attack and ' '4 was contributing to the struggle for the im- destroy. provement of the quality of Black life in the Because of the improbability of white United States. With enthusiasm, he accepted lawyers protecting Blacks with the same in- for the Howard Law School the directorship terest and vigor as they exhibit in the protec- of a survey on the status and activities of tion of white clients and an inadequte supply Black lawyers in the United States. In large of Black lawyers for the Afro-American pop- measure, the dismal facts gleaned from this ulace, Charles Houston considered it ab- study coupled with a love for and sense of duty solutely essential to offer Howard's law to his people led Charles Houston to accept students a new interpretation of the meaning the vice-deanship of Howard's Law School. In of the practice of law for a Black person in the this capacity, despite criticism, he insisted on United States. He insisted that this practice "unqualified excellence" from faculty and was more than skillful advocacy and negotia- students and worked "with singleness of pur- tion in serving individual clients in matters pose [and] unremitting drive" for the conver- pertaining to accident claims, wills and sion of the Howard Law School from an unac- domestic relations. The law "offers an im- credited evening school to a full-time, pelling challenge to leadership and service[;]" nationally known and respected school of law it offers the "privilege of piloting the race in accredited by the American Bar Association its persistent march toward full citizen- and the Association of American Law ship . . .'" Houston maintained that the poli- Schools. Houston achieved in five years "a tical, social and economic condition of Black transformation which ordinarily requires a Americans necessitated a Black lawyer's generation in the history of an educational in- preparation for both anticipation and guid- stitution."2 ance of the race's advancement. To students The transformation of the institution went under his tutelage - Coyness L. Ennix, beyond the holding of day classes and full ac- Oliver W. Hill, Edward P. Lovett, Thurgood creditation. It was Houston's view that E. Marshall, James G. Tyson, and others Howard University's School of Law could in a city with seven white 2. W. Hastie, "Charles Hamilton Houston", 8 Negro History justify its existence Bull. 207 (1950). law schools only if it performed a "distinct, 3. C. Houston, "Personal Observations on the Summary of Studies in Legal Education As Applied to the Howard necessary work for the social good." The University School of Law" 1-2 (ms.) (1929). 4. C. Houston, "The Need for Negro Lawyers," 4 J. of Negro Howard Law School should provide a fertile Education 49 (1935). "educational field for [not only] the working 5. C. Houston, "Law As A Career" 3 (ms.) (1932). THE BLA CK LA W JOURNA L PAGE 125 THE BLACK LA WJOURNAL PAGE 125

- Houston commended the undertaking inequality, to integration into the society, of law as social engineering and further equal protection, equal access and equal op- 8 charged them to view the primary "social portunity. justification for the [Black] lawyer ... in the United States ... [as] the service he can THE EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN: render the race as an interpreter and propo- "LA W. .. WITHIN ITS LIMITATIONS" nent of its rights and aspirations."6 Houston's challenge did not go unheeded. To make a contented slave you must make a By the mid-thirties Howard University Law thoughtless one, . . . darken his moral and mental vision, and ... annihilate his power of students were beginning to move throughout reason. He must be able to detect no incon- the nation and to play active roles in the civil sistencies in slavery ...It must not depend rights' struggle. Moreover, friends and upon mere force: the slave must know no colleagues who shared his vision succeeded higher law than his master's will. Houston as top administrators of the school. -Frederick Douglass (1881) Men such as William Hastie, George Johnson Using the above passage, Charles Houston and James Nabrit molded the Howard introduced a descriptive essay and appeal for University School bf Law into the center of support of the NAACP's program against dis- legal thought and activity in work toward the crimination in public education.9 For indeed it elimination of legal obstacles to Black seemed to Houston that a new form of slavery people's freedom. still existed in the South and that a worse kind In 1935 Charles H. Houston left his posi- of oppression would await Blacks throughout tion at Howard to enter the legal fray. He the country if Black people did not ceaselessly committed himself on a full-time basis to protest discrimination and fight for "identical direct the struggle against racist oppression in quality and quantity of educational oppor- its various manifestations, and against tunity [for] all citizens regardless of race, segregated, discriminatory and unequal color or creed[:] ...democracy and ignorance education in particular. A grant from the cannot endure side by side."10 If ignorance American Fund for Public Service provided prevails among the masses, among any race, the National Association for the Advance- Houston averred, they become "the tools of a ment of Colored People (NAACP) with suf- small exploiting class.""II ficient funds to hire a Special Counsel to con- Houston felt that failure to eradicate ine- duct a legal campaign against discrimination. quality in the education of Black youth would From 1935 to 1940 Charles Houston, as condemn the race to an inferior position Special Counsel, established himself as the within American society. The white man "architect and dominant force of the legal claims Black American slowness, backward- 7 program of the NAACP." The "spiritual ness and lesser intelligence to justify "poorer father of the Legal Defense Fund," Charles teachers, wretched schools, shorter terms Houston devised the legal strategy, charted and an inferior type of education" for Blacks, the course, began a program of political Houston declared, but there is only one education for the masses, brought into the legitimate answer to the question of why campaign the brightest and best young lawyers (among them Thurgood Marshall 6. C. Houston, "The Need for Negro Lawyers," 4 J. of Negro who subsequent to Houston's resignation Education 49 (1935). 7. W. Hastie, supra note 2. became the second NAACP Special Counsel), 8. Address by J. Lindsay, Nat'l. Ass'n. for the Advancement of directed Black lawyers throughout the nation Colored People's Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Nov. 18, 1971; Address by R. Wilkins, NAACP's Forty-first An- in the waging of their local campaigns, and nual Conference, June 20, 1950. 9. [C. Houston], "A Program Against Discrimination in Public provided the cohesive factor from 1935 until Education" I (ms.) n.d.[ca. 1935]. 10. C. Houston, Memorandum "Re Projected Picture on Ine- his death for a myriad of court battles design- qualities of Negro Education in South Carolina," June 16, ed to move Black people from racist oppres- 1935). I1."Segregated Educational System Hit..." (unidentified clip- sion and suppression, from segregation and ping), n.d. [ca. 1935]. PAGE 126 THE BLA CK LA W JO URNA L PAGE 126 THE BLACK LA WJOURNAL such treatment.1 2 He argued that: strengthening the will of local communities to fight for their rights and providing local com- ..discrimination in education is symbolic of all the more drastic discriminations which munities with model procedures for use in [Blacks] suffer in American life. And these ap- cases brought by them on their own initiative. parent senseless discriminations in education Houston was criticized during the 1930's against [Blacks] have a very definite objective and 1940's by some Black activists. Non- on the part of the ruling whites to curb the young [Blacks] and prepare them to accept an Communist activists considered Houston's in- inferior position in American life without directness and over-cautiousness in timing un- protest or struggle. In the United States the wise. Communist Black activists found fault [Black person] is economically exploited, with what they considered Houston's ex- politically ignored and socially ostr[a]cized. cessive reliance on the courts and the law His education reflects his condition; the dis- criminations practiced against him are no ac- when these were products of the same govern- cident.1 3 ment and socio-political-economic order What then would be the goal of the which had as its policy the denial of rights to Blacks. Yet Houston's co-workers and test NAACP's campaign against unequal, dis- of the fact that criminatory segregated public education? case litigants were cognizant Houston's answer was unequivocal: they would be extremely remiss to neglect summarily the means of appeals to the courts. oppor- Absolute identity of educational however, to prosecute test tunities as students, as teachers, as ad- Houston elected, ministrators. Equality of education is not cases both because he understood the necessi- enough. There can be no true equality under a ty of using every means available, and because segregated system. No segregation operates he was a skilled practitioner who in those fairly on a minority group unless it is a years believed that "the written constitution d[o]minant minority . . . The American and the inertia against constitutional amend- [Black] is not a dominant minority; therefore ment give the lawyer wide room for ex- he must fight for complete elimination4 of segregation as his ultimate goal.1 perimentation... [and] enable [Black people] reforms where [they] could have no Having set this goal, the Special Counsel, to force through politics."16 In spite of understanding that the "[ljaw [is] ... one in- chance carried out a legal cam- strumentality . . . effective . . . always obstacles, Houston within its limitations," viewed his second task paign for non-discriminatory education as as devising "positionary tactics [-] ... the part and parcel of the continuing struggle of steps [one] takes to move from one position to Black Americans against racist oppression. social change another" - and formulating the rationale for He viewed the use of the law for such tactics.' 5 The difficulty of a legal cam- as problematic, and he perceived the concept law as fraught paign against discriminatory education was of Black Americans' use of the immediately apparent as Houston confronted with difficulties when used as an instrument this two-fold task. He proceeded to outline a for change in their behalf. Given a largely dis- plan of attack consistent with his knowledge enfranchised group, however, there was little of and familiarity with specific realities of or no chance for radical legislative change. American society. He called for a protracted Thus, his response was to formulate a strategy legal struggle based upon the planned, deliberate prosecution of test cases to secure 12. Id. 13. Speech by C. Houston, National Bar Ass'n. Convention, favorable legal precedents, and thereby lay a "Proposed Legal Attacks on Educational Discrimination" Aug. 1,1935 (uncorrected typescript summary of speech) p. foundation for subsequent frontal attacks 2. against racist discrimination and segregation 14. Id. 15. [C. Houston], "Use of Law as an instrument available to a per se. In conjunction with the program of minority unable to adopt direct action to achieve its place in the community and nation" (typescript notes for lecture) litigation, he perceived as essential, constant Dec. 12, 1946, p. 6; Charles H. Houston, "Proposed Legal to keep the masses informed and in- Attack on Educational Discrimination," Aug. 1, 1935, p. 3. efforts 16. Letter from Charles H. Houston to Monroe Berger, Feb. 10, volved in the struggle: arousing people, 1948. THE BLA CK LA WJO URNA L PAGE 127 THE BLACK LAWJOURNAL PAGE 127 which would take into account three pivotal ...to abolish all segregated schools" was pur- problems. sued through a line of cases carefully con- First, Charles Houston recognized the sidered and deliberately prosecuted to es- judicial decision-making process in the United tablish specific legal/constitutional prin- States to be essentially characterized by stare ciples.' 8 Despite some adverse decisions in decisis, judicial self-restraint, and what lower courts, Houston worked unceasingly, Houston termed the law's evolutionary nature until his death in 1950, to guide, to advise and - i.e. (a) the law's prime function at any to inspire other lawyers. He refused to be given historical moment to preserve the ex- "discouraged by temporary defeats." After isting society, (b) the court's adherence to a all, he allowed, "[o]ur record in the United step-by-step process in the performance of its States has from the beginning been a record of duties, (c) the inherent limitation imposed by doing the impossible.' 9 the requirement that legal consequences of ac- The charted course began on the state level 20 tions be reasonably predictable, and (d) the with University of Maryland v. Murray, and fact that the system is not designed to directly Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada2 which challenge national conduct and dictate rapid reached the Supreme Court. These cases were and/or sweeping changes in the standard of basic to the foundation of the Supreme national conduct. Secondly, experience Court's epochal school desegregation ruling in demonstrated that several factors all too often 1954. In these cases, the "NAACP lawyers, in combined to adversely affect Black people's order to get the campaign underway, accepted - as an oppressed minority outside the the doctrine that the State could segregate mainstream and seeking change - use of the white and [Black] students provided equal ac- 2 law. Specifically, the law is frequently in commodations were afforded both." Thus, hostile and indifferent hands (e.g. judges, tentatively accepting Plessy v. Ferguson23 as a juries, commissioners, clerks); the law is so given, Charles Houston, Thurgood Marshall slow that frequently practical justice is and William Gosnell, on behalf of Donald thwarted and is so costly that it sometimes Gaines Murray, challenged the University of results in ruination. Finally, he realized that Maryland Law School's refusal to admit "the equal protection clause of the fourteenth Murray. In 1936, the Maryland Court of amendment furnishes the key to future Appeals affirmed the Baltimore Court's deci- policies and practices which should govern the sion holding that this young man who on the relationship of the federal government in all basis of race was refused admission to the its branches ... to [Black] separate University of Maryland's Law School should schools." 7 However in its dealings with be admitted to the one existing State Law Blacks, the American judicial system lacked a School since compliance with the Constitution tradition of interpretation for equality. could not be deferred at the will of the State, Historical facts and societal realities which, in and substantial equality of treatment had to addition to principles coming out of prior be furnished. Although no appeal to a higher judicial decisions, influenced justices' tribunal was made, Murray's attendance in decisions which lent little, if any, support to the University's Law School without racial in- the reinterpretation of the place of Blacks within the existing order. 17. C. Houston, "Future Policies and Practices Which Should Govern the Relationship of the Federal Government to Negro Schools" I (ms.) (1938). THE EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN.: 18. [C. Houston], "Use of Law as an instrument available to a minority unable to adopt direct action toachieve its place in EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAW the community and nation" (typescript notes for lecture) Dec. 12, 1946, p. 3. 19. C. Houston, "The Highway," Afro-American 4 (Nat'l. Ed. 1947.) 20. 169 Md. 478 (1936). H AVING DEVELOPED A LITIGATION 21. 305 U.S. 337 (1938). these un- 22. C. Houston, "The Highway," Afro-American 4 (Nat'l. Ed. program in the light of 1947). derstandings, from 1935-1954 the "real aim 23. 163 U.S. 537 (1896). PAGE 128 THE BLACK LA W JOURNAL PAGE 128 THE BLACK LA WJOURNAL

cident was a key social precedent in a later law basis of equality. The State could then be 24 school case, Sweatt v. Painter. compelled to either establish equal oppor- For additional monies toward the financing tunities or to admit Blacks to the school if of test case litigants' studies and the NAACP such training was made available to in- educational program in general, Houston dividuals from other groups. successfully appealed to Black fraternities and Between the Gaines decision and the failure sororities in 1935 during his first year as of his health in the autumn of 1949, Houston Special Counsel. In an effort to draw more litigated employment discrimination cases for Blacks into the campaign, Houston toured the Black railroad workers resulting by 1944 in South filming inequalities, making speeches landmark rulings in Steele v. Louisville & throughout the country, and writing articles to Nashville Railroad Company28 and Tunstall report and to explain the program.25 In 1936, v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and another test case was in the making concern- Enginemen,29 and housing discrimination 30 ing the admission of a Black student, Lloyd cases resulting in 1948 with Hurd v. Hodge Gaines, to the University of Missouri Law in which the Supreme Court declared that School. After nearly three years, Charles racially restrictive covenants were unconstitu- Houston - assisted by Sidney Redmond, tional. Henry Espy, Leon Ransom, Edward Lovett Throughout this period he maintained an and Thurgood Marshall - argued the un- active interest in education cases. The constitutionality of both out-of-state NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, under the im- scholarships and exclusion of Gaines on the petus of Gaines and with Houston's advice sole ground of his race from the tax-supported and counsel, carried to the courts the State University. Appealing to the Supreme grievance of Ada Lois Sipuel, applicant for Court of the United States, Houston ex- admission to the University of Oklahoma tracted an opinion in affirmance of his basic Law School. By 1948, a firmer foundation to contentions and reversing the judgment of the overrule Plessy was laid when the Supreme Supreme Court of Missouri. In December, Court handed down its opinion that not only 1938, the Court ruled that, " 'equal protection must Oklahoma provide Ada Sipuel with a of the law is a pledge of the protection of legal education but must also "provide it as equal laws.' . . . Manifestly the obligation of soon as it does for applicants of any other 3 the State to give the protection of equal laws group." 1 can be performed only where its laws operate, After 1947, Charles Houston prepared that is, within its own jurisdiction. ' 26 The cases arguing the unconstitutionality of the Court further stated, discriminatory dual school system in the District of Columbia. These were the precur- The question here is not of a duty of the 32 State to supply legal training ...but of its sors of Boiling v. Sharpe. He also par- duty when it provides such training to furnish ticipated with the NAACP in other higher it to the residents of the State upon the basis education cases such as McCready v. Byrd,33 of equality of right. Sweatt v. Painter,3 4 and McLaurin v. Here the petitioner's right was a personal Oklahoma State 3 5 one. It was as an individual that he was en- Regents. Having coor- titled to the equal protection of the laws and 24. 339 U.S. 629 (1950). the State was bound to furnish him within its 25. See XLII Crisis: 10, "Educational Inequalities Must borders facilities for legal education substan- Go!", XLII, 12, "'Cracking Closed University Doors", XLIII, 2, "How to Fight tially equal to those which the State .. .af- For Better Schools" and XLIII, 3, "Don't Shout Too Soon." forded persons of the white race .... 27 26. 305 U.S. 337 (1938). 27. Id. at 349. The implications were enormous. Based on 28. 323 U.S. 192 (1944). 29. 323 U.S. 210 (1944). Gaines, any southern state could be attacked 30. 334 U.S. 24 (1948). for failure to provide educational oppor- 31. 332 U.S. 631 (1948). 32. 347 U.S. 427 (1954). tunities, particularly graduate and 33. 195 Md. 131 (1950). 34. 339 U.S. 629 (1950). professional training, for all its citizens on a 35. 339 U.S. 639 (1950). THE BLA CK LA W JO URNA L PAGE 129 THE BLACK LA WIOURNAL PAGE 129 dinated programs and assisted with litigation through the legal wilderness of second class for nearly fifteen years, an over-extended but citizenship. He was ...the Moses of that '39 confident Charles Houston, in August, 1949, journey. wrote to assure Robert L. Carter, First Assis- tant Special Counsel: "These education cases "WE CANNOT DEPEND UPON THE are now tight sufficiently so that anyone LAW ALONE TO SOLVE OUR familiar with the course of the decisions PROBLEMS" should be able to guide the cases through. You and Thurgood can proceed without any fear of HE FACT THAT Charles Houston carried ' '36 T crossing any plans I might have. out a legal program did not mean that Charles Houston died as a result of a heart he had dismissed as having no validity the attack April 22, 1950. He was only 54 at the criticism of his radical brothers, i.e. that the time of his death. courts were but products of the existing op- On June 5, 1950, two more U.S. Supreme pressive system. It simply meant that he was Court victories were won in Sweatt and willing to explore the limits of the law within McLaurin. In the Sweatt appeal the Court the U.S. judicial system - according to his held that the Constitutional requirement of best understanding of it - as a weapon for his equal protection, qua a personal and present people against inequities, exploitation, op- right, could not be met in the "State Law pression and as a means of putting on the of- School for Negroes" established by the ficial record the legitimate demands of Black University of Texas. Therefore, substantial Americans. equality could only be provided by Sweatt's Charles Houston was convinced that the admission to the University's Law School. use of law as an instrument of change was Significant among the aspects considered in necessary when a minority was "unable to determining equality was the absence of white adopt direct action to achieve its place in the law students with whom Sweatt would even- community and nation" and when there was tually have to practice. Simultaneously the no other public forum where a Black man Court held in McLaurin that the State of could compel a white man to listen.40 Yet his Oklahoma could not provide "substantial development of and total involvement in the equality" for a Black student who was ad- litigation program for non-discriminatory mitted to the State University and at the same education led him to two significant con- time segregate him from the majority of his clusions on which he felt he had to act. First, fellow graduate students in the School of "[Any attack on educational discrimination Education. These decisions logically an- must align itself with attacks on other dis- ticipated Brown v. Board of Education37 and criminations against ...[Blacks] ...We can- its companion cases decided in 1954. not separate the school fight from all the Addressing the Forty-first Annual struggles to eradicate the other evils the Conference of the NAACP on June 20, 1950, [Black man] suffers."'" Black people must Roy Wilkins remarked, either wage an unceasing fight for physical As these unanimous opinions were handed security, full protection of the right to work down, our minds went back over the years, and "some semblance of order and justice in touching upon the sacrifices, the courage, the the processes of the administration of the skill, and the persistence of our people during the long battle. We thought instantly of our beloved 36. Letter from Charles H. Houston to Robert L. Carter, August 27, 1949. Charles H. Houston who missed by only a few 37. The consolidated school desegregation cases included: weeks the announcement of the victories for Delaware case, Gebhart v. Belton; Kansas case, Brown v. gave his life. 38 The Board of Education; South Carolina case, Briggs v. which he almost literally Elliott; Virginia case, Davis v. County School Board. 38. Address by R. Wilkins, NAACP's Forty-first Annual Con- Perhaps William Hastie best expressed the ference, p. 11, June 20, 1950. sentiments of the many lawyers who worked 39. w. Hastie, supra note 2. 40. (C. Houston], supra note 15, at 51. with Houston in the campaign: "He guided us 41. C. Houston, supra note 13, at 2 and 8. PAGE 130 THE BLA CK LA W JO UR NA L PAGE 130 THE BLACK LAWJOURNAL government," or perish.42 Secondly, Houston ternational issue worthy of the concern and concluded that, "We cannot depend upon the consideration of the United Nations as the law to solve our problems. '43 In 1935, he ad- question of the denial of democratic rights in dressed the National Bar Association in these Franco's Spain. Writing in the Afro- words: American, Houston contended, We must never forget that the public officers, [Tihe [Black] man is still on sufferance in the elective or appointive, are servants of the class South. He is tolerated, not accepted; and which places them in office and maintains when he makes a nuisance of himself he is them there. It is too much to expect the court promptly put in his place with or without the to go against the established and crystallized law ... [Moreover] discriminations and social customs, when to do so would mean denial of human and civil rights [have] professional and political suicide. We have got reach[ed] a national level [and] where the to do our own44 fighting and more of it by extra national government cannot or will not afford legal means. protection and redress for local aggressions Following his return to private practice, against [Black] people, the national policy of the United States itself becomes involved and with these convictions, Charles Houston's 46 service to his people was in over-lapping roles. Such service included his functioning as a Despite U.S. paranoia about "Reds" in general counsel representing two Black 1948, Houston restated and affirmed the posi- railroad workers' unions, an attorney for and tion of Paul Robeson who was under attack Roosevelt appointee to the Fair Employment for his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Practice Committee (FEPC), a columnist for Committee in which he emphasized the lack the Baltimore Afro-American, a frequent of progress for Blacks in the United States as spokesman for the rights of Black people compared with the results of programs for before congressional committees, an instruc- equality in Russia. Houston, in part, wrote, tor in civil rights at Howard's Law School, a For [Blacks] there is no liberty in the United private practitioner representing numerous States ...The United States should wake up clients in Washington, D.C. racial restrictive and realize [B]lack men are not interested in fighting to fasten chains of segregation around covenant cases, an advocate without compen- their necks ...[Blacks] have to fight bitterly sation for the parents of children dis- for all those rights which white Americans criminated against in the Washington, D.C. take for granted ...Segregation has to go the 7 Public School system (Consolidated Parent way chattel slavery went and go soon . Group, Inc.), Vice-President of the American Council on Race Relations, a proponent of "TO HA VE IDEOLOGY..." desegregation of the armed forces, and an un- tiring, outspoken critic of any administration You have to establish the political aims and[,] based on your own condition [.j the lax in its support of freedom and equality for ideological content of the fight. To have Black Americans. ideology doesn't necessarily mean that you Believing that his birth in America was one have to define whether you are communist, of the most compelling reasons for continual socialist or something like this. To have protest, Houston frequently used the press to ideology is to know what you want in your own condition. voice unambiguous castigations. Upon resign- -Amilcar Cabral(1972)r 8 ing from the FEPC, he accused President Harry Truman of paying "lip service [to the 42. Address by Charles H. Houston, National Conference of the International Labor Defense (typescript) Jul. 8,1939, p. 11. endeavor of] eliminating discrimination in 43. C. Houston, supra note 13, at 8. employment on account of race, creed, color 44. Id. 45. N. Y. Times, Dec. 4, 1945, "Assailing Truman, Negro Quits or national origin ... while doing nothing FEPC." 45 46. C. Houston, "The Highway," Afro-American 8 (Nat'l. Ed. substantial to make the policy effective. 1947). 47. C. Houston, "Along The Highway," Afro-American 4 Houston did not hesitate in 1947 to declare (Nat'l. Ed. 1948). that the national policy of the United States 48. Africa Information Service, Ed., Return To The Source; Selected Speeches of Amilcar Cabral 88 (New York: Africa toward Black Americans was as much an in- Information Service, 1973). THE BLACK LA W JOURNAL PAGE 131

isting system will permit the exercise of C ofHARLES public HAMILTONservice in generalHOUSTON'S and servicecareer freedom before it clamps down." 5' to his race in particular spanned only three For Black people in America, Charles decades. But they were decades in American Hamilton Houston's legacy is more than the history during which racism and facist oppres- foundation he laid for the historic 1954 sion still found expression in some of the decisions declaring school segregation in the highest offices of the land. They were, too, states and the District of Columbia un- decades when it remained difficult, if not im- constitutional. It is more than that cadre of possible, to militantly urge freedom, justice, Black lawyers trained or advised and inspired dignity and equality for all men in America by him to continue the fight. It is, perhaps without becoming the target of a most importantly, the challenge he addressed Congressional committee on un-American ac- to Black people based upon his years of tivities. They were, moreover, decades when struggle and understandings gleaned from labels all too often were put upon activists and those years, used to impede the struggle for liberty. In this So far as our struggle for civil rights is era Charles Houston refused to be a captive of concerned, I am not worried ... What I am labels or organizational lines. But concerned about is the fact that the Negro "recogniz[ing] ... the constructive potential shall not be content simply demanding an equal share in the existing system. It seems to of all of the forces he could see working me that his fundamental responsibility and his against racism, segregation, discrimination," historic challenge is to use his weight - since he moved with and defended those forces he has less to lose in the present system than which to his mind were most effectively anybody else or any other group - to make fighting for his people.49 It was as his own sure that the system which shall survive in the United States of America (I don't care what man that he argued for the NAACP in the you call it) shall be a system which guarantees Supreme Court, defended the International justice and freedom for everyone. The way I Labor Defense's handling of the Scottsboro usually put it is, 'sure, we're being invited now cases and criticized openly the indictment of to take a front seat, but there's no particular Henry Winston, Benjamin Davis, Gus Hall honor in being invited to take a front seat at one's own funeral ... We are fighting a and other Communists arrested after the system .... we are trying to remove the lid off Foley Square incident. the oppressed people everywhere ... So in this In Charles Hamilton Houston's life the day, while there is still time, the primary task struggle for liberty was preeminent. He view- is to probe, to struggle and ... teach the ed the oppressed condition of Black masses to think for themselves ... know their place, recognize their power and ... apply it 5 2 Americans, Native Americans, colonized intelligently. Africans, and others, as intolerable, and the struggle as indivisible. He spent his life fighting for a change in the conditions and quality of life for oppressed Afro-Americans. Houston worked at numerous levels within the system. (As Roy Wilkins recalled, "Charlie was always ... interested in getting America to treat his people right ... for his people ... and for America's sake." 50) Func- tioning in various roles within the system af- forded him an opportunity to gain and benefit 49. Interview with the Honorable William H. Hastie, from an expansive view of the system at work. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sept. 19,1972. Yet, Harvard doctorate, Supreme Court vic- 50. Interview with Mr. Roy Wilkins, New York, New York, Dec. 6, 1972. tories and Presidential appointment 51. C. Houston, Untitled Message [on Scottsboro and the con- tinuing Struggle] (tape recording), n.d. [ca. December, notwithstanding, he perceived himself simply 1949]. as "a technician probing ... how far the ex- 52. Id.