My Major Accomplishments

[Charles Hamilton Houston]

My greatest accomplishment was ending the Jim Crow Laws. After studying at Harvard, I became the first African American to edit the Harvard Law Review. I didn't want to stop there though. I wanted to keep on moving on with my fight for civil rights. Shortly after, I became the vice-dean of Howard Law School. At Howard, I brought our country's most powerful African American litigators and teachers. Being a primarily white law school, them being professors would have most likely been denied. Some people say that Civil rights "was more or less invented under my leadership at Howard". Howard trained almost 25% of our country's African American law students. The school even trained civil rights activists like Thurgood Marshall. I was a mentor to Marshall and helped him become the excellent Supreme Court Justice he is known for today. In 1934, I was recommended to the NAACP, that at the time focused on segregated schools in the United States. The same year I was appointed a special council to the NAACP. I started an attack system on the doctrine "separate but equal" To me this doctrine was absurd, and down right false. I was part of the supreme court case University of Maryland v. Murray. Donald Gaines Murray was an African American man who wanted to attend the University of Maryland. He applied and got rejected. His letter of rejection stated "The University of Maryland does not admit Negro students and your application is accordingly rejected". Thurgood Marshall and I represented Murray and used this case to attack against the "separate but equal" doctrine. The Supreme Court ordered the University to allow Murray to study there. Another case I worked on was Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada. The Supreme court decided that they must allow blacks and whites to attend the same school if there is not a separate school for black students. It was step closer to ending the Jim Crow Laws. My victories led the foundation for later wins for the NAACP. In 1952 my goal became true. The Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education declared segregation in all public schools was illegal. It killed segregation and ultimately Jim Crow Laws. My work led to the victory and desegregation in the future.

 Here is my source:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0206_charleshouston...