INFORMATION to USERS the Most Advanced Technology Has Been
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photo graph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the original text directly from the copy submitted. Thus, some dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from a computer printer. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyrighted material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are re produced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand ccmer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each oversize page is available as one exposure on a standard 35 mm slide or as a 17" x 23" black and white photographic print for an additional charge. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. 35 mm slides or 6" X 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Accessing theUMI World's Information since 1938 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA Order Number 8820869 Developing a “school” of civil rights lawyers: From the New Deal to the New Frontier White, Vibert Leslie, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1988 Copyright ©1988 by White, Vibert Leslie. All rights reserved. UMI SOON. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, îvîT 48106 PLEASE NOTE: In all cases this material has been filmed in the best pcssibic \ /ay from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark V 1. Glossy photographs or i>ages. 2. Coicred illustrations, paper or _____print n PhrtnnranhR with dark backorOLTd 4. Illustrations are poor copy______ 5. Pages with black marks, not original copy.y 6. Print shows through as there is text on both sides of page. 7. Indistinct, broken or small print on several pages 8. Print exceeds margin requirements______ 9. Tightly bound copy with print lost_______ in spine 10. Computer printout pages with indistinct print. 11. Page(s)____________lacking when materia! received, and not available from school or author. 12. Page(s)____________seem to be missing in numbering only as text follows. 13. Two pages num bered . Text follows. 14. Curling and wrinkled p_ ag es 15. Dissertation contains pages with print at a slant, filmed as received_ 16. O t h e r ______________________________________ lYAJL DEVELOPING A "SCHOOL" OF CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYERS: FROM THE NEW DEAL TO THE NEW FRONTIER DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Vibert Leslie White, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1988 Dissertation Committee: Approved by: Warren Van Tine Bradly Chapin adviser Amos Loveday Department of History Copyright by Vibert Leslie White 1988 To my Parents Lorraine D. White and Vibert L. White, Sr. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I express sincere appreciation to Dr. Warren Van Tine for his patience, guidance, and insight throughout the research. Thanks go to other members of my advisory commit tee, Drs. Brad-ley Chapin and Amos Loveday, for their sugges tions, comments, and encouragement. A "thank you" also goes to Drs. Henry Taylor and Austin Kerr for their timely advice on the project. Acknowledgments are also in line for Dr. Helen Edmonds for her inspirational guidance in plowing through the virgin field of constitutional and civil rights litigation. For technical assistance, I thank Marjorie Kaffner, Mike Szczepanik, and Lynn Hockaden. A "thank you" also goes to Abdul Akbar Muhammad, Bruce Cosby, Claudette McFadden, Cynthia Bellinger, Louis Farrakhan, and Janice Gulker, who always had a helpful and encouraging word. XIX VITA July 14, 1958 Born - New York, New York 1980 .... B.A., Bethune-Cookman College, Daytona Beach, Florida 1980-1981 . Research Assistant, Purdue University, West Lafay ette, Indiana 1981-1982 . Teaching Assistant, Purdue University, West Lafay ette, Indiana 1982 .... M.A., Department of His tory, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 1984-1987 . Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1987-1988 . History Researcher, Paul Laurence Dunbar Museum Project, Department of Education, Ohio State His torical Society, Columbus, Ohio June 1988-Present Assistant Professor of History, History Depart ment, Bloomsburg Univer sity, Bloomsburg; Pennsyl vania PUBLICATIONS "Black History and Archival Research." Ohio Historical Society Archives--Library Division Newsletter. Colum bus, Ohio: Ohio Historical_Society, February 1988. IV FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Twentieth-Century American History Studies in Constitutional and Legal History, Dr. Bradly Chapin; African-American History, Dr. Henry Taylor; Lrhor and Social History, Dr. Warren Van Tine; and Museum Studies, Dr. Amos Loveday. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................ iii VITA ..................................................... iv INTRODUCTION ............................................ 1 CHAPTER PAGE I. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR THE LITIGATION MOVEMENT ........................................ 13 II. PROFESSIONAL TRAINING AND CIVIL RIGHTS LAW . 54 III. THE LEGACY OF HOUSTON: THE RECRUITMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES AND ORGANIZATIONS . 78 IV. FORGING A NETWORK OF LAWYERS, ACADEMICIANS, AND ASSOCIATIONS ............................... 113 V. GATHERING THE FLOCK ...................... 143 VI. THE NETWORK AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE MIDWEST AND N O R T H ........................................ 179 VII. CONCLUSION: INTEGRATION AND SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE . ................................. 208 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................. 217 INTRODUCTION During the 1930s Charles Hamilton Houston, the first black dean of Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C., laid the foundation for twentieth-centui-y civil rights litigation when he transformed the school from a third-rate legal center to a nationally known research institution specializing in civil rights issues. This transformation was part of a larger movement among African-American intel lectuals to professionalize institutions of higher education. In order to better confront the social and political issues stemming from race discrimination in the United States, the two leading theorists of early twentieth-century black America, Booker T. Washington and William E. B. DuBois, created two major schools of thought that polarized Af rican-Americans in devising strategies for the achievement of racial pride and equality. On the one hand, Washington's philosophy focused on developing a core of vocational insti tutions to teach blacks technical crafts, economic conser vatism, and political abstinence. DuBois, on the other hand, urged blacks to seek an intellectual or liberal arts education and to be active in seeking political, 1 2 social, and economic equality. Charles Houston sided closer to the DuBois position as he labored to revitalize Howard University, and laid the foundation for a "School of Civil Rights Lawyers" which worked closely with Afro-American intellectuals to assault apartheid policies in the United States between 1930 and 1954- As a radical black historian, my interpretation of the civil rights litigation movement differs significantly from the position of more mainline scholars such as Richard Kluger, Gerna Rae McNeil, Darlene Clarke Mine, Mark V. Tushner, August Meier, and Louis Rudwick. These historians have slighted the local attorneys, scholars, and community organizations that supplied the impetus for the launching of a civil rights campaign in the state and national courts. Being a member of the "modern" new left, I believe that employing "grassroots history" will enable me to uncover new relics and reinterpret older facts in order to illus trate a broader and more complicated narrative of the civil rights litigation movement. To avoid the misinterpretation of past historians on civil rights litigation, it is imperative that a differ ent methodology be utilized to describe the role of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its lawyers in the argumentation of civil rights cases. The approach that will best illuminate the true nature of the movement is the "bottoms up" analysis to 3 history. Although radical historians such as Warren Van Tine, Herbert Gutman, and Eugene Genovese use such a frame work to discuss issues of slavery, women, and labor, histo rians in general dismiss the method when dealing with topics that focus on legal developments and constitutional concepts . The major monographs that are applicable to this topic lack clear and full analyses of the development of the civil rights litigation movement. In 1975, Geraldine R. Segal published her dissertation. In Any Fight Some Fall.^ This biography presents an overview of the accom plishments of Charles H. Houston, first as a civil rights agitator while a law school student at Harvard University, than as Dean of the Howard University Law School, and, finally, as general counsel of the NAACP and the Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDEF). Although Segal tells us much about Houston's impact on the modern civil rights movement and his status in the general field of constitu tional law, she falls short in providing a conceptual view of Howard's law clinic in relationship to the African-