This Week In Social Justice History September 2 – September 9
Charles Hamilton Houston and Clarance Darrow Archbishop Tutu
September 3, 1895 Charles Hamilton Houston, was born in Washington D.C. African American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School, NAACP Director, Houston was known as ‘The Man Who Killed Jim Crow” After facing and witnessing extensive racial discrimination as an officer World War I, Houston resolved to study law. He attended Harvard Law School and proved to be an exceptional law student. He earned him a position on the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review, the first African American to be so honored. A lawyer, in Houston’s view, was an agent for social change—“either a social engineer or a parasite on society.” As Dean of Howard Law School Houston developed and trained a group of students who became leading civil rights lawyers, the most illustrious of whom was Thurgood Marshall. Houston and his protégés developed a strategy to defeat Jim Crow segregation through bringing a series of cases establishing precedents that eventually resulted in Brown vs. Board of Education. Houston died on April 22, 1950, four years before his life’s work culminated when his mentee Marshall won Brown in the Supreme Court. Five U.S. Supreme Court justices attended Houston’s funeral in the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery. Houston’s work to end legalized segregation went largely unrecognized until after his death. The NAACP posthumously awarded him its prestigious Spingarn Medal in 1950. Howard Law School’s main hall was also dedicated posthumously to Houston. Prior to her appointment to the U.S.Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan held the Charles Hamilton Houston Professorship of Law at Harvard Law School. For more information go to:
http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2008/December/20090105175532jmnamdeirf0.3197138.html
http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-organized/charles-houston.html
September 3, 1981. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW, entered into force. Often described as an international bill of rights for women, CEDAW defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets forth an agenda for national action to end such discrimination.
September 6 1870, 69 year old Louisa Swain cast the first ballot by any woman in the United States in a general election. House Concurrent Resolution 378 recognized Louisa Ann Swain day on September 6, 2008 http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/hc378_eh.xml
September 7, 1986. Desmond Mpilo Tutu appointed as the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).