Western Historical Quarterly Advance Access published July 22, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Loren Miller: Civil Rights Attorney and publications and debated the merits of Journalist. Race and Culture in the socialism, but Hassan presents conflicting in- American West Series. By Amina Hassan. formation as to whether Miller became a com- (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, munist or not (p. 123). In later years, after he Downloaded from 2015. xv. þ 294 pp. Illustrations, notes, purchased The Eagle in 1951, his politics were bibliography, index. $26.95.) more clearly liberal. Returning from the USSR, Loren Miller Amina Hassan presents us with an excel- sat for the California Bar and married Juanita lent synthesis of African American History Ellsworth who introduced him LA’s upper http://whq.oxfordjournals.org/ and the history of the West in her biography class African American community. Miller of Loren Miller. Miller’s origins were both spent considerable time writing for New humble and revolutionary. Miller’s father, Masses and other left-leaning publications; John Bird Miller, was born a slave and after but also developed a cottage industry pursuing the Civil War found work as a laborer on the restrictive covenant housing cases, particu- Union Pacific near Leavenworth, Kansas. larly in the 1940s when prominent African There he met Nora Herbaugh, a white woman Americans began purchasing homes in the West Adams district of LA. When Charles
and normal school teacher. The two married by guest on August 23, 2016 in1900IowaandquicklymovedtoPerder, Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall of Nebraska. There, Loren was born in 1903. the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Despite poverty and racial prejudice, young Fund began pursuing housing discrimination, Miller graduated from high school, and at- they approached Miller for help. Hassan pre- tended the University of Kansas and then sents convincing evidence that Miller took Howard University where he exhibited his lit- the lead in Shelley v. Kramer (1948), which erary skills and developed a life-long friend- outlawed restrictive covenants nationwide. ship with Langston Hughes. Eventually, After the Shelley decision, Loren Miller con- Miller returned to Kansas and graduated with tinued his law practice and was named as a a bachelor of laws degree from Washburn Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge by College in June 1928. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown in 1964. Governor After graduation, Miller joined his family Brown was effusive in his praise of Miller. It is in Los Angeles, but instead of sitting for the ironic that Loren Miller’s highest judicial ap- bar he pursued his literary interests writing pointment was to serve as a Municipal court news copy for The Eagle. During this time Judge, whereas Thurgood Marshall served as period, Miller traveled to the Soviet Union in both the U.S. Solicitor General and as an the company of Langston Hughes and others. Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Over the course of his subsequent career, Loren Miller was never fully recognized for his Miller wrote numerous articles for communist judicial talents.
The Western Historical Quarterly 0 (2016): 1–2. doi: 10.1093/whq/whw117 VC The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Western History Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. 2 2016 Western Historical Quarterly
Hassan’s biography reveals Miller as a hid- the most significant relationships of his life, den jewel in the history of California journal- with Langston Hughes and with Juanita ism and legal system, and an unsung hero of Ellsworth Miller. the national Civil Rights movement. Over LORN S. FOSTER the course of his lifetime, Miller saved most of Department of Politics his personal and professional correspondence. Pomona College Hassan was the first scholar to gain access to those papers. Hassan has opened doors into Downloaded from http://whq.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on August 23, 2016