Spotlight on Charles Hamilton Houston

To be just in all actions--
Fair in every thought uttered and every step braved...
A journey past prejudice
Over the hills of wrongs never righted
Through a valley of forgiveness.
Far away, beyond the known world,
In a meadow flowered of each color
And each flower growing in its own light
Treated for it's own need
Basking in of love for it's own being.
Where no flower is judged for another flower
And a rose is not exalted above a daisy;
Held accountable for their own deeds
Forgiven but not forgotten
When they can  coexist in beauty.

Charles Hamilton Houston

The Man Who Killed Jim Crow

Nicknamed "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow," Charles Hamilton Houston was a black lawyer who fought for equality during the early civil rights movement. He was also the mentor and teacher of future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Houston played an active part in almost every civil rights case that went before the Supreme Court from 1930 until his death in 1950, just before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 (though his ideas would still influence the case). Houston earned his Bachelor and Doctorate of Law from Harvard Law School and was the first black to serve as an editor for the Harvard Law Review. Houston served as the Dean of the Howard Law School and stated that "a lawyer is either a social engineer or ... a parasite on society." His legacy is left in the form a professorship at Harvard as well as the namesake of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School and the Charles Houston Bar Association [1, 2, 3, 4].

References

1. "NAACP History: Charles Hamilton Houston". NAACP; visited February 2014
2. Douglas O. Linder. "Before Brown: Charles H. Houston and the Gaines Case". via University of Missouri-Kansas Law; visited February 2014
3. Charles Houston Bar Association; visited February 2014
4. "Our History". Harvard University School of Law; visited February 2014
5. "Thurgood Marshall Biography". Biography.com; visited February 2014