Law and mass politics in the making of the civil rights lawyer, 1931-1941

Journal of American History

Volumn 93, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 37-62

  Mack, Kenneth W ^a  

^a HARVARD LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 37849188204     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4486059     Document Type: Review

References (217)

1. National Bar Association, Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Convention and Eighth Annual Convention (Chicago, [1932?]), 8-54, esp. 54;
2. Pittsburgh Courier, Aug. 15, 1931, p. 1.
3. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
4. See, for example, Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New York, 2004), 95, 377-81;
5. Gerald N. Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? (Chicago, 1991), 340-41;
6. Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970 (Chicago, 1999), 133-34, 184-85;
7. and Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York, 1984), 35-37.
8. For more complex analyses of the relationship between the turn to law and social change, see Randall Kennedy, "Martin Luther King's Constitution: A Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott," Yale Law Journal, 98 (April 1989), 999-1067;
9. Robert Jerome Glennon, "The Role of Law in the Civil Rights Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1957," Law and History Review, 9 (no. 1, 1991), 59-112;
10. Mark V. Tushnet, The NAACP'S Legal Strategy against Segregated Education, 1925-1950 (Chapel Hill, 1987), 42-44;
11. and Patricia Sullivan, Days of Hope: Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era (Chapel Hill, 1996), 84-92, 141-49.
12. For responses to the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, see, for example, Kevin K. Gaines, "Whose Integration Was It? An Introduction," Journal of American History, 91 (June 2004), 19-20;
13. Lani Guinier, "From Racial Liberalism to Racial Literacy: Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Divergence Dilemma," Journal of American History ibid., 95, 101;
14. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, 377-81;
15. and Derrick Bell, Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (New York, 2004), 9.
16. Robert Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, "Opportunities Found and Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement," Journal of American History, 75 (Dec. 1988), 786-811, esp. 800.
17. The argument pervades the legal history of the labor movement. See Christopher L. Tomlins, The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880-1960 (Cambridge, Eng., 1985);
18. Katherine Van Wezel Stone, "The Post-War Paradigm in American Labor Law," Yale Law Journal, 90 (June 1981), 1509-80;
19. and Karl Klare, "The Judicial Deradicalization of the Wagner Act and the Origins of Modern Legal Consciousness," Minnesota Law Review, 62 (March 1978), 265-339.
20. See, for example, Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (Princeton, 2002), 178-211;
21. Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York, 1995);
22. Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, eds., The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (Princeton, 1989).
23. See, for example, Lichtenstein, State of the Union:
24. Guinier, "From Racial Liberalism to Racial Literacy";
25. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, 377-81.
26. This argument draws on the literature about "performance" to analyze lawyers' litigation stances. For other uses of the term, see Ariela J. Gross, "Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the Nineteenth-Century South," Yale Law Journal, 108 (Oct. 1998), 109;
27. and Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990), 171-90.
28. What Is the I.L.D.? ([New York], 1934), 13;
29. Labor Defense Manifesto, Resolutions, Constitution Adopted by the First National Conference Held in Ashland Auditorium, Chicago, June 28, 1925 (Chicago, [1925?]), 3-7, 10.
30. Liberals and radicals of various political persuasions made up the International Labor Defense's (ILD) membership, although the Communist party dominated its leadership. Charles H. Martin, "The International Labor Defense and Black America," Labor History, 26 (Spring 1985), 165.
31. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899; Philadelphia, 1996), 114-15;
32. Raymond Pace Alexander, typescript, Jan. 14, 1949, p. 1, box 1, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers (University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center, Philadelphia, Pa.). A litigation-centered model of law practice was also a male-centered model in this period. For the black women's analogue, see Kenneth W. Mack, "A Social History of Everyday Practice;
33. Sadie T. M. Alexander and the Incorporation of Black Women into the American Legal Profession, 1925-60," Cornell Law Review, 87 (Sept. 2002), 1405-74.
34. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, "Attorneys Black and White: A Case Study of Race Relations within the NAACP," Journal of American History, 62 (March 1976), 913;
35. Charles Flint Kellogg, NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Baltimore, 1967), 58-63;
36. Addresses Delivered before the Fifth Annual Convention of the National Bar Association (Incorporated) at Detroit, Mich. August 1st and 2nd 1929 (Philadelphia, 1930), 9-10,
37. box 85, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; Charles Houston to Thurgood Marshall, Sept. 21, 1935, in NAACP Papers (microfilm, University Publications of America, 1986), part 2, reel 3, frame 487.
38. For a contemporary analogue, see David B. Wilkins, "Doing Well by Doing Good? The Role of Public Service in the Careers of Black Corporate Lawyers," Houston Law Review, 41 (no. 1, 2004), 1.
39. "A Short Biographical Sketch of the Life of Raymond Pace Alexander," manuscript, 1925, box 1, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; Juan Williams, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (New York, 1998), 68-69;
40. Baltimore Afro-American, Aug. 16, 1930, p. 1.
41. The classic statement on repeat players, differently formulated, is Marc Galanter, "Why the 'Haves' Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change," Law and Society Review, 9 (Autumn 1974), 95.
42. Philip S. Foner and James S. Allen, eds., American Communism and Black Americans: A Documentary History, 1919-1929 (Philadelphia, 1987), 163-200;
43. Dan T. Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South (Baton Rouge, 1979), 3-103, esp. 64-65;
44. James Goodman, Stories of Scottsboro (New York, 1995), 32-38.
45. On the international dimensions of the campaign, see James A. Miller, Susan D. Pennybacker, and Eve Rosenhaft, "Mother Ada Wright and the International Campaign to Free the Scottsboro Boys, 1931-1934," American Historical Review, 106 (April 2001), 387.
46. What Is the I.L.D.?, 5-6. Emphasis in original.
47. National Bar Association, Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Convention and Eighth Annual Convention, 8-23, esp. 8, 19, and 22.
48. Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Convention and Eighth Annual Convention Ibid., 24-33, esp. 30 and 33.
49. Pittsburgh Courier, Aug. 15, 1934, p. 1;
50. National Bar Association, Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Convention and Eighth Annual Convention, 54.
51. Raymond Pace Alexander, "Address Topics Before the Congregation of the Synagogue Temple Beth Hillel," typescript, Jan. 15, 1971, box 100,
52. Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; Hilmar Ludvig Jensen, "The Rise of an African-American Left: John P. Davis and the National Negro Congress" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1997), 188, 294-96;
53. Gilbert Ware, William Hostie: Grace under Pressure (New York, 1984), 29-34;
54. Genna Rae McNeil, Groundwork: Charles Hamilton Houston and the Struggle for Civil Rights (Philadelphia, 1983), 49-53;
55. Benjamin Rivlin, "The Legacy of Ralph Bunche," in Ralph Bunche: The Man and His Times, ed. Benjamin Rivlin (New York, 1990), 6-7;
56. Ralph Bunche, "Marxism and the Negro Question," in Ralph J. Bunche: Selected Speeches and Writings, ed. Charles P. Henry (Ann Arbor, 1995).
57. On the larger intellectual ferment and the Howard University connection, see Jonathan Scott Holloway, Confronting the Veil: Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, 1919-1941 (Chapel Hill, 2002).
58. Sadie Alexander, "The Economic Status of Negro Women, an Index to the Negro's Economic Status," Feb. 1934,
59. box 71, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Papers (University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center). See Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, 1996).
60. For the black women's analogue, see Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1993);
61. and Victoria W. Wolcott, Remaking Respectability: African-American Women in Interwar Detroit (Chapel Hill, 2001).
62. Philadelphia Tribune, Dec. 24, 1931, p. 2;
63. Pauli Murray, Pauli Murray: The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet (Knoxville, 1989), 88-89;
64. Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langsten Hughes: 1902-1941, I, Too, Sing America (2 vols., New York, 1986), I, 235-58;
65. Richmond Planet, Nov. 30, 1937, p. 1.
66. The black Communist lawyer William Patterson, converted during the Sacco and Vanzetti agitation of the 1920s, had already traveled to the Soviet Union. William L. Patterson, The Man Who Cried Genocide: An Autobiography (New York, 1971), 100-112.
67. Philadelphia Tribune, Feb. 25, 1932, p. 1;
68. Harry S. McDevin, "Who Killed Dorothy Lutz?," True Detective Mysteries (n.d.), p. 105, clipping, 1931-1935 Scrapbook, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers.
69. On the radical presence in local black communities in the wake of Scottsboro, see Nell Irvin Painter, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South (Cambridge, Mass., 1979);
70. Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, 1990);
71. and Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem during the Depression (Urbana, 1983).
72. Philadelphia Independent, March 20, 1932, p. 1.
73. Meier and Rudwick, "Attorneys Black and White," 930-33;
74. Philadelphia Record, Feb. 25, 1932, p. 1;
75. H. Viscount Nelson, Philadelphia NAACP: Epitome of Middle Class Consciousness (Los Angeles, 1972), 24-27;
76. Philadelphia Independent, March 20, 1932, p. 1;
77. Philadelphia Public Ledger, March 28, 1932, p. 1.
78. Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, April 1, 1932, p. 1;
79. Philadelphia Daily News, April 1, 1932, p. 2;
80. Philadelphia Record, April 2, 1932, p. 1.
81. George Maxey to Raymond Alexander, June 1931, 1931-1935 Scrapbook, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; Pittsburgh Courier, Nov. 3, 1932, 2d ed., p. 9;
82. Maxey to Raymond Alexander, Jan. 11, 1933, 1931-1935 Scrapbook, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers.
83. Commonwealth v. Brown, 164 A. 726, 730 (Pa. 1933).
84. The language that Judge George Maxey quoted was not central to the holding of Powell, which was that the defendants had not been provided with adequate access to counsel. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932).
85. Houston to Alexander, Nov. 21, 1932, box 1357, Howard University Archives, (Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C.); Commonwealth v. Brown, 164 A. at 730.
86. See, for example, Felix Frankfurter, "A Notable Decision," New York Times, Nov. 13, 1932, p. E1.
87. Pittsburgh Courier, Nov. 3, 1932, 2d ed., p. 9;
88. Philadelphia Tribune, March 30, 1933, p. 1.
89. Alexander to Maxey, Jan. 10, 1933, 1931-1935 Scrapbook, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; Maxey to Alexander, Jan. 11, 1933, Philadelphia Tribune ibid.;
90. Commonwealth ex rel. Mattox v. Superintendent of County Prison (Phila. Ct. Quarter Sess. Oct. 14, 1942);
91. Philadelphia Tribune, Oct. 26 1933, p. 1.
92. Philadelphia. Tribune, Feb. 11, 1932, p. 1;
93. Philadelphia. Tribune ibid., March 30, 1933, p. 1;
94. Alexander to James C. Thomas, May 12, 1933, box 85, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; Philadelphia Tribune, May 25, 1933, p. 1.
95. Philadelphia Tribune, April 14, 1932, p. 16;
96. Charles H. Houston, "Commonwealth v. William Brown," Opportunity, 11 (April 1933), 111;
97. "The Negro and the Courts," Opportunity ibid., 103.
98. Helen Boardman, "The South Goes Legal," Nation, March 8, 1933, p. 258;
99. New York Times, April 25, 1933, p. 19;
100. New York Times ibid., Oct. 29, 1933, p. E1.
101. National Bar Association, Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Convention and Eighth Annual Convention, 53-54, esp. 71;
102. Meier and Rudwick, "Attorneys Black and White," 939-40.
103. "Shifting Lines of Attack to Meet the Needs of the Day," typescript in NAACP Papers, part 1, reel 9, frame 491;
104. "Address Delivered by Charles H. Houston Before the Twenty-fourth Annual Conference of the National Association for the Advencement of Colored People-Chicago Illinois, Sunday, July 2, 1933," NAACP Papers, Part 1 ibid., frame 548;
105. Kenneth Robert Janken, White: The Biography of Walter White, Mr. NAACP (New York, 2003), 177-78;
106. B. Joyce Ross, J. E. Spingarn and the Rise of the NAACP, 1911-1939 (New York, 1972), 179-85;
107. Registration Blanks, Second Amenia Conference, box 95-15, Joel Spingarn Papers (Moorland-Spingarn Research Center); Louis Redding to Roy Wilkins, Sept. 2, 1933, box 95-8, J. E. Spingarn and the Rise of the NAACP, 1911-1939 ibid.
108. Charles H. Houston and Leon Ransom, "The Crawford Case: An Experiment in Social Statesmanship," Nation, July 4, 1934, pp. 17-19;
109. Helen Boardman and Martha Gruening, The Crawford Case: A Reply to the "N.A.A.C.P." (New York, 1935);
110. Transcript of the Proceedings, Virginia v. Crawford (Cir. Ct., Loudoun Co., Va., Dec. 12 to 16, 1933), 23-470, 509-44 (Harvard Law School Library, Cambridge, Mass.);
111. New York Times, Dec. 17, 1933, p. 15;
112. Norfolk Journal and Guide, Dec. 23, 1933, p. 1.
113. Houston's co-counsel, Leon Ransom, argued to the jury that the confession was unreliable and should be disregarded but conceded that the prosecution was not trying to manufacture evidence or deceive the jury. Transcript, Virginia v. Crawford, 509.
114. Walter White, "George Crawford - Symbol," Craw, 41 (Jan. 1934), 15;
115. James L. McLemore to Editor, Nation, Aug. 8, 1934, p. 159;
116. Transcript, Virginia v. Crawford, 526-27';
117. Norfolk Journal and Guide, Feb. 10, 1934, p. 1.
118. Boardman and Gruening, Crawford Case;
119. Helen Boardman and Martha Gruening, "Is the N.A.A.C.P. Retreating?," Nation, June 27, 1934, pp. 730-32;
120. Houston and Ransom, "Crawford Case," 18-19.
121. Similar issues were raised in Houston's next major case, the defense of the International Labor Defense lawyer Bernard Ades against ethics charges in Maryland. After the court decided to reprimand Ades, Ades contended that Houston had not defended him aggressively enough and was more loyal to the fairness of the outcome than to the cause of his client. Bernard Ades to Houston, May 9, 1934, box 163-37, Charles H. Houston Papers (Moorland-Spingarn Research Center).
122. "The George Crawford Case: A Statement by the N.A.A.C.P. - Part I," Crisis, 42 (April 1935), 104;
123. "The George Crawford Case - A Statement by the N.A.A.C.P. - Part II," Crisis ibid. (May 1935), 143;
124. Martha Gruening, "The Truth about the Crawford Case," New Masses, Jan. 8, 1935, p. 9;
125. Martha Gruening to Editor, Nation, July 18, 1934, p. 75;
126. "Correspondence," Nation ibid., Aug. 8, 1934, pp. 157-59;
127. Boardman and Gruening, Crawford Case;
128. Mark Solomon, The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African-Americans, 1917-36 (Jackson, Miss., 1998), 363n26.
129. "George Crawford Case: A Statement by the N.A.A.C.P. - Part II," 156;
130. Boardman and Gruening, "Is the N.A.A.C.P. Retreating?," 730.
131. Transcript, Virginia v. Crawford, 538;
132. Houston to John W. Wanzer, Feb. 26, 1940, box 163-30, Houston Papers; "Memorandum in re Samuel Legions," Feb. 20, 1942, box 163-24, Virginia V. Crawford ibid.;
133. Charles Harrison to Colgate W. Darden, June 3, 1942, box 163-24, ibid.;
134. Houston to O. L. Emerick, Aug. 30, 1945, box 163-29, Virginia V. Crawford ibid.
135. Houston to Editor, Amsterdam News, May 27, 1933, clipping, box 163-26, Houston Papers;
136. Houston to William Patterson, Nov. 9, 1933, Amsterdam News ibid.;
137. Houston to Walter White, Nov. 10, 1933, Amsterdam News ibid.;
138. Houston to Patterson, June 22, 1933, ibid.
139. Gerald Home, Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party (Newark, Del., 1994);
140. Charles H. Martin, The Angela Hemdon Case and Southern Justice (Baton Rouge, 1976), 36-61;
141. Benjamin J. Davis, Communist Councilman from Harlem (New York, 1969), 40-81;
142. Kendall Thomas, "Rouge et Noir Reread: A Popular Constitutional History of the Angelo Herndon Case," Southern California Law Review, 65 (Sept. 1992), 2599.
143. Martin, Angela Herndon Case and Southern Justice, 36-61;
144. Davis, Communist Councilman from Harlem, 40-81;
145. Angelo Herndon, Let Me Live (New York, 1969), 342-48, 351-54;
146. Thomas, "Rouge et Noir Reread," 2637-45.
147. Five years later, the Supreme Court ruled that the application of the anti-insurrection statute to Angelo Herndon's case was unconstitutional. Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U.S. 242 (1937).
148. Benjamin Davis to Houston, June 12, 1933, box 163-26, Houston Papers; Gruening, "Truth about the Crawford Case," 15;
149. Ross, J. E. Spingarn and the Rise of the NAACP, 222-41;
150. Loren Miller, "How Left Is the NAACP," New Masses, 16 (July 1935), 13.
151. National Bar Association, Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Convention and Eighth Annual Convention, 14;
152. Leon A. Ransom, Edward P. Lovett, and Charles H. Houston, "Memorandum Report to the International Labor Defense, American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People," typescript, Oct. 13, 1933, box 163-7, Houston Papers;
153. "Resolutions of the National Bar Association," typescript, Aug. 3-5, 1933, box 163-19, Memorandum Report to the International Labor Defense, American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ibid.;
154. Redding to Wilkins, Sept. 2, 1933, box 95-8, Spingarn Papers; Marshall to Geraldine R. Segal, Feb. 27, 1963, quoted in Geraldine R. Segal, "A Sketch of the Life of Charles Houston" (M.A. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1963), 23;
155. Philadelphia Tribune, May 10, 1934, p. 20.
156. Philadelphia Tribune, Sept. 21, 1933, p. 1;
157. Philadelphia Tribune ibid., March 8, 1934, p. 1;
158. Philadelphia Tribune ibid., March 15, 1934, p. 2;
159. Philadelphia Tribune ibid., May 3, 1934, p. 16;
160. Wilkins to Herbert Millen, Oct. 10, 1933, in NAACP Papers, part 3, reel 8, frame 250.
161. "Extracts from Statement of Charles H. Houston in Debate with Bernard Ades," typescript, March 28, 1935, p. 1, box 163-26, Houston Papers;
162. Daily Worker, April 3, 1940, p. 7;
163. Mark V. Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961 (New York, 1994), 43-44;
164. Philadelphia Tribune, July 23, 1936, p. 1.
165. Kenneth W. Mack, "Rethinking Civil Rights Lawyering and Politics in the Era before Brown," Yale Law Journal, 115 (Nov. 2005), 256, 346-49.
166. For suggestions that the civil rights Popular Front coalition survived until the late 1940s and that its vestiges persisted into the 1950s, see Martha Biondi, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City (Cambridge, Mass., 2003);
167. Sullivan, Days of Hope;
168. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past," Journal of American History, 91 (March 2005), 1233-63.
169. John A. Davis, "We Win the Right to Fight for Jobs," Opportunity, 16 (Aug. 1938), 230;
170. New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery, 332 U.S. 552 (1938);
171. Adjudication, Stevens v. W. Phila Youth Civic League, No. 1179 (Ct. Com. Pleas. 1938), p. 4, box 56, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers;
172. "The Negro Industrial League," n.d., typescript in National Negro Congress Papers (microfilm, University Publications of America, 1988), reel 1, frame 254;
173. Jensen, "Rise of an African-American Left," 294-434;
174. "Dr. Sadie Alexander in Domestic Bill Fight," typescript, box 2, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Papers;
175. Eric Arnesen, Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), 94-95;
176. Beth Tompkins Bates, Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America, 1925-1945 (Chapel Hill, 2001), 126;
177. "Report of the Committee on Resolutions, NBA Convention," typescript, Aug. 22-24, 1934, box 85, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers;
178. "Resolutions Adopted by the NBA," typescript, Aug. 1-3, 1935, Report of the Committee on Resolutions, NBA Convention ibid.;
179. Constance A. Cunningham, "Homer S. Brown: First Black Political Leader in Pittsburgh," Journal of Negro History, 66 (Winter 1981-1982), 308.
180. "Extracts from Statement of Charles H. Houston in Debate with Bernard Ades"; Washington New Negro Opinion, April 28, 1934, p. 4.
181. Solomon, Cry Was Unity, 301-2;
182. Ware, William Hastie, 41;
183. Philadelphia Tribune, May 20, 1937, p. 1;
184. Philadelphia Tribune ibid., Dec. 23, 1937.
185. On the local councils, see Lawrence Wittner, "The National Negro Congress: A Reassessment," American Quarterly, 22 (Winter 1970), 883-901;
186. Bates, Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America, 138-42.
187. Jerold S. Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America (New York, 1976), 198-209;
188. Mortimer Riemer to Houston, Oct. 2, 1939, box 163-13, Houston Papers; "Lawyers Guild," typescript, 1937, 1931-1935 Scrapbook, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; National Lawyers Guild Lawyers Referral List, 1948-1949 (Washington, 1948-1949);
189. National Lawyers Guild, "Program for Ninth National Convention, Feb. 18-22, 1949," typescript, box 163-18, Houston Papers; William Henri Hale, "The Career Development of the Negro Lawyer in Chicago" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1949);
190. Ann Fagan Ginger and Eugene M. Tobin, eds., The National Lawyers Guild: From Roosevelt through Reagan (Philadelphia, 1988), 410.
191. Houston to George Counts, March 25, 1943, box 163-8, Houston Papers; U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs, Report of Proceedings Held Before Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs: Nomination of William H. Hastie for Appointment as Governor of the Virgin Islands, 79 Cong., 2 sess., April 5, 1946, p. 482;
192. Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law, 46.
193. Thurgood Marshall later represented himself and his colleagues as doctrinaire anticommunists from the beginning, but the reality is much murkier. Compare, for example, "The Reminiscences of Thurgood Marshall" in Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions, and Reminiscences, ed. Mark V. Tushnet (Chicago, 2001), 439-40;
194. with Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law, 44-46.
195. S. K. McKee to Director, FBI, Dec. 5, 1941, Charles Houston FBI File (in Kenneth W. Mack's possession); J. Edgar Hoover, Memorandum for Special Defense Unit, Feb. 28, 1942, Making Civil Rights Law ibid.;
196. Houston to John Boehne, April 4, 1942, box 163-7, Houston Papers; George Streator, "Governor Hastie Defends Radicals," New York Times, July 14, 1949. p. 19;
197. Raymond Alexander to Hastie, Oct. 24, 1949 (microfilm; frame 279, reel 40, part 2), William Hastie Papers (Harvard Law School Library); [Memorandum on] Mrs. Sadie T. Alexander, March 10, 1947, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander FBI File (in Mack's possession). The New York Times article was written by former NAACP staffer George Streator. Under pressure at the 1950 Senate hearings, William Hastie contended that he had been misquoted. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary: On Confirmation of the Nomination of Honorable William Henry Hastie, of Virgin Islands, to be Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 81 Cong., 2 sess., June 28, 1950, vol. III, 98;
198. Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary: on Confirmation of the Nomination of Honorable William Henry Hastie, of Virgin Islands, to Be Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ibid., July 13, 1950. vol. IV, 161; William Hastie FBI File (in Mack's possession).
199. Raymond Alexander to William Jason, March 16, 1935, box 9, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; "Communism in School Snarls District Chiefs," n.d. (frame 275, reel 38, part 2), Hastie Papers; Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940);
200. Stone v. Jones, 152 P.2d 19 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 1944);
201. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938). In the practice that Houston challenged, Missouri also paid black applicants to pursue their studies elsewhere.
202. Chicago Defender, Aug. 14, 1937, p. 2;
203. Pittsburgh Courier, Aug. 14, 1937, p. 1;
204. Baltimore Afro-American, Aug. 14, 1937, p. 1;
205. A. T. Walden, "Problems Confronting the Negro Lawyer in the South," 1937, p. 6, typescript, box 85, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers.
206. Houston to White, Jan. 2, 1940, box 163-18, Houston Papers; "I.L.D. National Conference, Proceedings and Report," typescript, 1939, p. 16, box 163-6, ibid.;
207. Raymond Pace Alexander, "The Next Decade," typescript, 1938, p. 11, box 95, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers;
208. Steele v. Louisville and Nashville Railroad, 323 U.S. 192 (1944);
209. Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, 323 U.S. 210 (1944);
210. National Bar Association, "Souvenir Program of the Sixteenth Annual Convention, Aug. 1-3, 1940,"
211. typescript, box 85, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers; Henry J. Capehart, "Negro Workers Face the American Labor Front under the National Labor Relations Act," National Bar Journal (no. 1, 1941), 65;
212. George W. Crockett Jr., "Employee Remedy under the Fair Labor Standards Act," National Bar Journal ibid., 16;
213. Nelson Lichtenstein, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (New York, 1995), 208-11; Maceo Hubbard to Interstate Commerce Commission, Sept. 3, 1940, box 49, Raymond Pace Alexander Papers.
214. "Excerpt of Tape Recording made by Charles Hamilton Houston," Dec. 1949,
215. typescript, box 208-3, William L. Patterson Papers (Moorland-Spingarn Research Center). For examples of this image of civil rights lawyering, see Guinier, "From Racial Liberalism to Racial Literacy";
216. Bell, Silent Covenants;
217. and Rosenberg, Hollow Hope, 339.