February 19, 1885 Jonathan Jasper Wright, lawyer and South Carolina Supreme Court judge, died. Wright was born February 11, 1840 in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. After studying the law for three years and feeling himself qualified for the legal profession, Wright applied for admission to the Bar, but was refused an examination because of his race. […]
Tag Archives | Supreme Court
December 20th in African American History – George Edward Chalmer Hayes
December 20, 1968 George Edward Chalmer Hayes, lawyer, died. Hayes was born July 1, 1894 in Richmond, Virginia. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 1915 and earned his law degree from Howard University School of Law in 1918. While at Howard, he attained one of the highest academic averages on record there. […]
March 19th in African American History – Lloyd Lionel Gaines
March 19, 1939 Lloyd Lionel Gaines, the central figure in the 1938 Supreme Court case Gaines v. Canada, disappeared. Gaines was born in 1911 in Oxford, Mississippi and at the age of 15 moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated with honors from Lincoln University in 1935 with a bachelor’s degree in […]
January 24th in African American History – Thurgood Marshall
January 24, 1993 Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, died. Marshall was born July 2, 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Lincoln University in 1930 and his Bachelor of Laws degree from Howard University School of Law in 1933. […]
November 13th in African American History – Hansberry v. Lee
November 13, 1940 The United States Supreme Court ruled in Hansberry v. Lee The ruling states that whites could not bar African Americans from white neighborhoods, but did not rule that restrictive covenants based on race were void. It ruled for Hansberry on a legal technicality that Lee did not represent the entire class because […]
September 28th in African American History – Constance Baker Motley
September 28, 2005 Constance Baker Motley, civil rights activist, lawyer and judge, died. Motley was born September 14, 1921 in New Haven, Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University in 1943 and her law degree from Columbia Law School in 1946. She began her career as a law clerk at […]
June 12th in African American History – Supreme Court Case Loving v. Virginia
June 12, 1967 The United States Supreme Court in the case of Loving v. Virginia ruled that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statue, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, was unconstitutional. This ruling ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States. The Racial Integrity Act was a state law that banned marriage between any white […]