A00040 - The Omega Psi Phi Men of Amherst

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

List of Omega Psi Phi members - Wikipedia

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 231 Conclave adopted a National Social Action Program to further the fraternity’s cardinal principle: uplift.142 The program was designed to be a nation-wide initiative to find solutions for and educate communities on the needs of African Americans for improved health, housing, employment, social security, law, civil rights, public education, and cultural relations.143 The fraternity hoped to advise on pressing social concerns that would be taken up by the chapters in local efforts.144 Fraternity members involved in the program’s launch at Howard University in 1946 included: C.R. Alexander, F. Rivers Barnwell, J. B. Blayton, E. A. Bolling, George Branch, Brailsford Brazeal, Joseph T. Brooks, Roscoe Brown, Spurgeon Burke, John Calhoun, Montague Cobb (Amherst Class of 1925), Frank Coleman, George Cox, Don Davis, John A. Davis, Albert Dent, Edward Dixon, Charles Drew (Amherst Class of 1926), H. Naylor Fitzhugh, Mifflin Gibbs, William Hastie (Amherst Class of 1925), Frank Horne, DeHart Hubbard, Campbell Johnson, Charles Lawrence, Z. Alexander Looby, Edgar Love, Howard Mackey, Samuel McCoy, Clarence Mitchell, James Nabrit, Jr., Ben Olive, Lawrence Oxley, Howard Payne, Harry Penn, Theodore Poston, John F. Potts, Ira De A. Reid (Director), Julius Thomas, Willard Townsend, William Tyson, Frederick Weaver, Robert Weaver, James Arthur Weiseger, 

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY AND THE FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS WENDY MARIE LAYBOURN† & GREGORY S. PARKS†† I. INTRODUCTION he narrative of African Americans’ quest for racial equality and social justice in the twentieth century is typically construed in the context of main-line civil rights organizations— NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and the like. However, for decades, black fraternal networks helped lay the groundwork for the major civil rights campaigns that culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.1 Much of this history emerged from the efforts of the predecessors to black Greek-letter collegiate organizations—black secret societies. Black secret societies were created in response to the racialization and racism experienced by blacks in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.2 Blacks were subjected to legal, political, financial, and social exclusion, and this marginalization was institutionalized, which allowed for its perpetuation.3 As a result, black secret societies formed, not only as an act of self- and race-consciousness, but also to combat these oppressions.4 † Sociology Doctoral Student, University of Maryland-College Park. †† Assistant Professor of Law, Wake Forest University School of Law; National Chair, Commission on Racial Justice for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. This was a massive undertaking. Thank you to the Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy staff for the incredible work. Also, thank you to my research assistants for the tremendous effort: Alena Baker, Ashley Escoe, Steven Franklin, Ashlee Johnson, Brian Kuppleweiser, Eli Merger, Ryan McIntrye, Adam Nyenhuis, Hannah Rudder, and Sarah Walton. 1. Robert L. Harris Jr., Lobbying Congress for Civil Rights: The American Council on Human Rights, 1948–1963, in AFRICAN AMERICAN FRATERNITIES AND SORORITIES: THE LEGACY AND THE VISION 213, 228–29 (Tamara L. Brown et al. eds., Univ. Press of Kentucky 2d ed. 2012). 2. Anne S. Butler, Black Fraternal and Benevolent Societies in Nineteenth-Century America, in AFRICAN AMERICAN FRATERNITIES AND SORORITIES: THE LEGACY AND THE VISION 75, 75–76 (Tamara L. Brown et al. eds., Univ. Press of Kentucky 2d ed. 2012). 3. Id. at 76. 4. Id. T 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 214 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Through black secret societies, members entered into a bond of brotherhood and built a community among themselves and around the goals of racial uplift. Whereas black benevolent societies and churches also provided support, a key element that differentiated black secret societies was their organizing body.5 With an organizational structure that included local, regional, and national bodies, black secret societies provided an infrastructure for long-lasting organizations and impact, along with offering leadership training.6 This structure also solidified its power, which yielded a strong political voice.7 In addition to political voice, black secret societies’ power in numbers and solidarity enabled uplift through a multitude of objectives, such as buying and investing in real estate, providing educational opportunities, caring for the most marginalized within their communities, securing home and life insurance, and training for business ownership.8 Overall, the goal of black secret societies was threefold: first, it provided deep personal ties among members; second, it addressed exclusion both from white fraternal organizations as well as society generally; third, there was a focus on racial uplift.9 The influence of black secret societies can be seen through Black Greek Letter Organizations’ (“BGLOs”) organizational structure and purpose of providing support to members and the community-at-large.10 Black secret societies—along with other organizational, institutional, and cultural factors—gave rise to their collegiate ilk, Black Greek Letter Organizations. BGLOs share a commitment to service, scholarship, and fraternal bonds, yet they remain distinctive through their particular approach and style.11 While many of the unique characteristics of each organization may be masked by the overarching characteristics that they share, at their 5. Id. at 82. 6. Id. at 75, 82. 7. Id. at 82, 86, 95. 8. Id. at 86, 92–93. 9. See id. at 82 (discussing organizational goals). 10. Id. at 96–97. 11. See André McKenzie, In the Beginning: The Early History of the Divine Nine, in AFRICAN AMERICAN FRATERNITIES AND SORORITIES: THE LEGACY AND THE VISION 183, 183 (Tamara L. Brown et al. eds., Univ. Press of Kentucky 2d ed. 2012) (“Black students sought to emulate their white counterparts in organizational structure while at the same time incorporating aspects of racial identification, cultural heritage, and social uplift.”). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 215 founding, BGLOs had a significant and distinct purpose for chartering. BGLOs on predominately white campuses provided Black undergraduate students a sense of community and might in the face of exclusion and ostracism.12 These organizations provided support for scholarship, service, and socializing.13 Though the aims remained the same, BGLOs on predominately black campuses differed slightly in their impetus. Similar to white fraternities—which differed along lines of class, status, and pedigree—BGLOs also felt those same divisions.14 In fact, it was in response to the exclusivity and “snobbishness toward the darker students and those not from prominent families” by the Alpha Phi Alpha chapter at Howard University that Omega Psi Phi was created.15 That particular BGLO is the focus of this article. On November 17, 1911, Omega Psi Phi became the first BGLO founded at a historically black university.16 Three Howard University juniors, Edgar A. Love, Oscar J. Cooper, and Frank Coleman—affectionately known as the three musketeers due to their friendship and devotion to one another—along with Dr. Ernest E. Just, faculty advisor, founded the organization based on scholarship, manhood, perseverance, and uplift.17 The motto they 12. Id. at 190. 13. See id. at 190, 205 (discussing the purposes of establishing the fraternity). 14. Id. 15. Id. at 191; E. FRANKLIN FRAZIER, THE NEGRO IN THE UNITED STATES 383 (The Macmillan Co. 1949) (“Alpha Phi Alpha became an exclusive social set that was accused of snobbishness toward the darker students and those not from prominent families.”). 16. See HERMAN DREER, THE HISTORY OF THE OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY: A BROTHERHOOD OF NEGRO COLLEGE MEN, 1911–1939, at 12 (Omega Psi Phi Fraternity 1940) (establishing the fraternity in 1911). 17. McKenzie, supra note 11, at 189. Edgar A. Love, born in 1891, was the son of a Methodist minister raised in Harrisburg, Virginia. Judson L. Jeffries, The Last Shall Be First: The Founders of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, in BLACK GREEK LETTER ORGANIZATIONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY: OUR FIGHT HAS JUST BEGUN 67, 72 (Gregory S. Parks ed., 2008). Love graduated cum laude from Howard University in 1913, received a second undergraduate degree in divinity in 1916, and bachelor’s degree in sacred theology from Boston University. Id. at 73. Although he began graduate school at the University of Chicago, Love did not complete his studies. Id. Instead, he entered the United States Army Officer’s Training School in Des Moines, Iowa. Id. After receiving his commission, Love was assigned as Chaplain to the 368 Infantry. Id. He also helped organize a school for illiterate black soldiers. Id. After his discharge from the Army in 1919, he became a Professor of Bible and History at Morgan State College in Baltimore, Maryland. Id. Additionally, Love was a pastor and received “wide recognition as the director of the famous John Wesley M.C. Church in Baltimore.” Id. Morgan State College gave Love an honorary doctorate of divinity in 1935 due to his dedication and strength as an instructor. Id. Maryland Governor Albert C. Ritchie appointed Love to the Maryland Interracial Commission due to his social activism. Id. He passed away in 1974. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 216 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 chose, “Friendship is essential to the soul,” was reflective of the close bond held between Love, Cooper, and Coleman.18 Although BGLOs existed before Omega Psi Phi’s founding and chapters were present at Howard University,19 Omega’s founders faced an uphill battle as secret fraternal college-based organizations were viewed with trepidation. Faculty questioned the effect of such an organization, particularly in respect to the moral Oscar J. Cooper, born in 1888, was a native of Washington, D.C., and attended M Street High School with Frank Coleman. Id. at 69. In 1909, Cooper enrolled at Howard University and continued his education there until ultimately earning a doctor of medicine degree in 1917. Id. Cooper practiced medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and built a strong reputation as an outstanding physician across the state of Pennsylvania. Id. at 70. He is said to have had “one of the most successful practices in Philadelphia.” Id. In addition to being a founding member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated, Cooper was also the fraternity’s first Grand Keeper of Records (National Secretary). Id. at 69. He passed away in 1972. Id. at 70. A native of the District of the Columbia, born in 1890, Frank Coleman attended the famous M Street High School, now Dunbar High School. Id. at 68. Coleman matriculated to “Howard University where he earned a B.S. in physics in 1913.” Id. Although he was offered a position at Howard as a physics instructor, he declined the offer. Id. Instead, he pursued a graduate degree at the University of Chicago. Id. After completing his master’s degree, he attended the University of Pennsylvania. Id. Coleman joined the Army during World War I and was commissioned as a first lieutenant at Fort Des Moines; Coleman was one of only a handful of black officers in the United States Army at that time. Id. Most notably, he served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Id. at 69. Coleman’s commitment to Omega continued throughout his life. Id. In addition to helping create the fraternity, “[h]e also served as its first Grand Keeper of Seal (National Treasurer).” Id. He passed away in 1967. Id. Dr. Ernest Everett Just was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1883 to Charles Frazier, a dockworker, and Marry Matthews, a schoolteacher. Id. at 70. Just attended “Kimball Union Academy, an elite boarding school in Meriden, New Hampshire,” graduating in three years with degrees in both biology and history. Id. He went on to graduate magna cum laude—the only student in his class to earn the honor—from Dartmouth College in 1907, when he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Id. at 70–71. He joined Howard University’s Biology Department in 1910, then began heading the Department of Zoology in 1912—a position he held until his death. Id. at 71. Just earned his doctorate in experimental psychology from the University of Chicago in 1916. Id. In addition to the many accolades he received, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1915, the highest honor given by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to a person of notable achievement. Id. at 71–72. Dr. Everett was invited to serve as Scholar in Residence at a highly regarded academy, the Kaiser Wilheim Institute of Biology in Germany, becoming the first American invited. Id. at 72. Love was also selected for the Schomberg Collection of Black History’s Honor Roll as one of the twelve most outstanding African Americans and was cited as “the best investigator in the field of biology that the Negro people have produced in America.” Id. In 1996, Just was immortalized with a commemorative U.S. Postal Service stamp. Id. He passed away in 1941. Id. 18. McKenzie, supra note 11, at 191 (“Omega Psi Phi[] was formed from the initials of the Greek phrase meaning ‘Friendship is essential to the soul.’”). 19. ROBERT L. GILL, A HISTORY OF THE OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY 1 (Omega Psi Phi Fraternity 1963) (“Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity’s Beta Chapter had been established at Howard University in 1907.”). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 217 development of young college men.20 In preparation for the founding of Omega, Love, Cooper, and Coleman conducted research on fraternities and fraternity critiques—particularly concerns of faculty and administration.21 Fully aware of the potential concerns of the university and opposition they may face, the soon-to-be founders committed themselves formally to establishing the fraternity.22 Immediately thereafter, the three undergraduate founders went about identifying potential charter members. After careful consideration, they selected ten men “who were considered to be worthy from the point of view of scholarship, ability to fraternize, courage, and the other cardinal principles already agreed upon.”23 The founders and charter members then drafted their organization’s constitution and presented it to the university administration for approval, but the university council rejected it.24 The founders and charter members were not dissuaded, however, and continued to discuss the matter with the council.25 Faculty approval was slow going and the brothers were impatient to receive what they believed would be inevitable—university approval—and, as a result, went on to announce the fraternity themselves.26 By posting three and a half by six-inch placards around campus listing the fraternity’s name and the names of the founders and charter members, the men announced their existence.27 The next day, then-Howard University president, Dr. Wilbur P. Thirkield, addressed the campus regarding the young men’s actions by declaring that Omega Psi Phi did not exist at Howard University.28 With their commitment and belief in the fraternity unflagging, the brothers of Omega Psi Phi began lobbying faculty to approve the budding organization.29 The Howard administration remained slow to respond to the brothers’ request for recognition, and the brothers—being men of action— 20. See DREER, supra note 16, at 19. 21. Id. at 12. 22. Id. 23. Id. at 13. 24. Id. at 22. 25. Id. at 23. 26. Id. at 19. 27. Id. at 19–20. 28. Id. at 20. 29. Id. at 22. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 218 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 continued to move forward by voting in another class of members.30 After much deliberation, the faculty was prepared to recognize the fraternity, but only as a local organization and with recommendations for changes to the group’s constitution.31 Though the organization was amenable to addressing the faculty’s recommendations for changes to the constitution, the founders had always maintained national aspirations and would not bend on this point.32 Although they submitted a revised constitution, the administration persisted with its caveat that the fraternity remain local. Despite the many recommendations from faculty to maintain a local-only organization, the brothers were insistent on maintaining a national scope, and their dogged persistence eventually succeeded. Omega Psi Phi became recognized as a national organization and approved by the University council.33 In this article, the authors examine BGLOs’ contribution to social justice—specifically through civic activism and policy initiatives. Because an examination of all BGLOs is outside of the scope of this article, we take one fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, as a model and present how social justice and racial uplift were approached within that BGLO. II. OMEGA MEN AND CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM DURING THE 1930S AND 1940S During the fraternity’s first fifty years, Omega men played a significant role in advancing civil rights, especially through litigation and legal support. During the 1930s, Omega Psi Phi brothers made their mark in the area of civil rights. In 1931, Roy Wilkins became involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (“NAACP”) as an assistant secretary under Walter Francis White.34 W.E.B. Du Bois would 30. Id. at 22–23. 31. Id. at 23. 32. Id. at 24. 33. History: This is  Chapter, U. MINN. OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, http://www.xique s1921.com/#!this-is-xi-chapter/c1yb (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 34. Id. Roy Wilkins was a noted journalist and civil rights leader in the United States for five decades. NAACP History: Roy Wilkins, NAACP, http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-his tory-Roy-Wilkins (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). Born in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri, Wilkins would go on to study sociology at the University of Minnesota, where he was initiated into the Xi Phi chapter of Omega Psi Phi fraternity in 1921. Id. He graduated in 1923 and began his post-graduate career in journalism with The Minnesota Daily. Id. Wilkins then 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 219 leave the NAACP in 1934,35 and Wilkins replaced Du Bois as editor of The Crisis, the NAACP’s flagship publication.36 His work with the NAACP would set Wilkins on his multi-decade civil rights engagement. For example, in 1950, Wilkins co-founded the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a civil rights coalition that has organized and executed a national legislative campaign for every major civil rights law since 1957.37 Wilkins is perhaps best known for his leadership of the NAACP from 1955 to 1977.38 He became the executive secretary of the organization in 1955,39 before ultimately becoming the executive director of the NAACP in 1964.40 Wilkins had extensive roles in the passage of key civil rights lawmaking, such as Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.41 He also met and advised Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter on civil rights legislation.42 In 1932, after graduating from Morehouse College, Emory O. Jackson went on to join the Birmingham World, a publication that shared news largely ignored by the national media, including stories about black achievement and accomplishments.43 He became managing editor and wrote about Brown v. Board of became Editor of the African American newspaper, The Appeal. Id. Wilkins retired from the NAACP at the age of 76 in 1977, and would be succeeded as the organization’s leader by Benjamin Hooks. Id. After his retirement, Wilkins was honored as the Director Emeritus of the NAACP. Founders of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, LEADERSHIP CONF., http://www.civilrights.org/about/the-leadership-conference/founder s.html (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). Wilkins died on September 8, 1981, due to problems with his pacemaker. Albin Krebs, Roy Wilkins, 50-Year Veteran of Civil Rights Fight, Is Dead, N.Y. TIMES (Sept. 9, 1981), http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/09/obituaries/roy-wilkins50-year-veteran-of-civil-rights-fight-is-dead.html?pagewanted=all. 35. NAACP History: Roy Wilkins, supra note 34. 36. Id. 37. Id. 38. Id. 39. Id. 40. Id. 41. Id. 42. Id. 43. Mary Stanton, Emory O. Jackson, ENCYCLOPEDIA ALA., http://www.encyclopediaof alabama.org/article/h-1837 (last updated Aug. 15, 2012). Emory Overton Jackson was born on September 8, 1908, in Buena Vista, Georgia, to Will Burt Jackson and Lovie Jones Jackson. Id. He was raised—along with his seven siblings—in Birmingham, Alabama, where he attended Industrial High School, known as one of the first black high schools in the South. Id. In 1928, he enrolled at Morehouse College, where he served as president of the student government and editor of the Maroon Tiger. Id. He graduated with degrees in English, economics, and education in 1932. Id. Jackson was never married, and remained editor of the Birmingham World until his death on September 10, 1975, at the age of 67. Id

220 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Education among many other topics.44 After serving in World War II, Jackson joined Birmingham’s NAACP chapter.45 There, he led a successful challenge against Birmingham’s discriminatory municipal zoning laws,46 though those civil right successes led to the terrorization of the Black community at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan between 1948 and 1957.47 He tirelessly fought for voting rights and believed that true change would come with voter registration, amassing black power in politics, and working for permanent change in courts and legislatures.48 Also during the 1930s, Omega Psi Phi brothers argued several important voting rights cases.49 In 1932, the Texas Democratic Convention adopted a resolution that effectively barred African Americans from voting in democratic primaries.50 The Democratic Party resolution, as adopted by their State Convention, stated that “all white citizens of the State of Texas . . . shall be . . . entitled to participate in [the party’s] deliberations.”51 In response, Jasper Alston Atkins, former Grand Basileus, argued Grovey v. Townsend before the United States Supreme Court.52 The Court considered whether the U.S. Constitution or Texas law prohibited the refusal of absentee ballots to African American 44. Id. 45. Id. 46. Id. 47. Id. 48. Id. 49. GILL, supra note 19, at 21. 50. Id. 51. Id. 52. Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45, 45 (1935). J. Alston Atkins was born on August 8, 1898, and died on June 28, 1982. Guide to the Jasper Alston Atkins Papers, YALE U. LIBR., http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.18 11 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). He was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Id. He attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Id. While at Fisk, he joined Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. DREER, supra note 16, at 36. In 1919, he graduated magna cum laude. Guide to the Jasper Alston Atkins Papers, supra. He went on to attend Yale Law School, where he was one of the first black males to serve as editor of the Yale Law Journal. Id. After graduating from Yale, he moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma, and opened a law firm. J. CLAY SMITH JR., EMANCIPATION: THE MAKING OF THE BLACK LAWYER, 1844–1944, 509–10 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). The firm later relocated to Houston, Texas, and became Nabrit, Atkins & Wesley. Id. He also assisted with the founding of Delta Chapter of Omega Psi Fraternity and was a charter member of Chi Chapter at Yale. DREER, supra at 16. He was an integral source to the expansion and success of the Omega chapter under which he created the office of Vice Grand Basileus, amended the role of the Grand Keeper of Records (National Secretary) to Grand Keeper of Records and Seals, added the position of Grand Keeper of Finance, established five geographic regions and districts, and revised the ritual to be composed at Chi Chapter in New Haven. Id. at 38, 52, 53. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 221 men in the primary election.53 Petitioners argued that the Democratic Party’s acts constituted a violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution.54 The Court held that no constitutional right was violated because the party’s actions could not be construed as a state action.55 Furthermore, the Court cited Texas Supreme Court cases in reasoning that the state cannot interfere with the party’s right to organize or determine the qualifications—here, whiteness—of its members.56 Because the Court did not recognize the party’s action as an extension of the state, and because private political groups have a right to assemble as they wish, the Court reasoned that there were no Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendment violations.57 Six years after Grovey, the Supreme Court held that primary elections were an integral part of state elections in United States v. Classic. 58 In 1944, the Court changed course with regard to Grovey and Classic. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity member and future United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, along with William H. Hastie, argued another Texas case, Smith v. Allwright, 53. Grovey, 295 U.S. at 46–47. 54. Id. at 47. 55. Id. at 54. 56. Id. at 52. 57. Id. at 54. 58. United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 (1941) (“Interference with the right to vote in the Congressional primary . . . [is] in fact an interference with the effective choice of the voters at the only stage of the election procedure when their choice is of significance.”). More specifically, the primary issue in United States v. Classic was whether there is a constitutional right of qualified voters to vote in the Louisiana primary, and by extensions primaries in all states, to have their ballots counted. Id. at 308. The Democratic Party of Louisiana altered eighty-three primary election ballots cast for one candidate and fourteen cast for another by changing the votes to a third candidate. Id. at 308. The allegation is that this deprived voters of their right to select a Congressman. Id. at 308–09. The Eastern District of Louisiana sustained a demurrer to the allegations that was appealed directly to the Supreme Court under the Criminal Appeals Act, which provides that the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded can be appealed directly. Id. at 309. The Supreme Court reversed the district court by holding that the right to participate through the primary in choice of congressional representation is a right secured by the Constitution to the same extent and manner as the general election. Id. at 323–24. By manipulating the votes of ninety-seven votes in the Democratic primary, the voters were deprived of their Constitutional right to select their representatives. Id. at 324. The key rationale behind this holding is that the practical operation of the primary election is to secure the election of the Democrat candidate for Congress; thus, by interfering with voter selection for a desired candidate, it affects voter ability to have any meaningful choice in representation in Congress. Id. at 313–14. In other words, “the primary is by law made an integral part of the election machinery, whether the voter exercises his right in a party primary which invariably, sometimes, or never determines the ultimate choice of the representative.” Id. at 313. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 222 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 before the Court.59 Similar to Grovey, Allwright involved an African American citizen denied a ballot or the chance to cast a ballot in the 1940 Texas Democratic primary election for the senate, house, and state gubernatorial candidates.60 The District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled against the prospective voter and the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling on the grounds of Grovey. 61 The Supreme Court granted certiorari in order to resolve the conflict between Grovey and Classic. 62 The Court reversed by holding that primaries had become such an essential part of candidate selection that the right to vote was violated when racial discrimination occurs in primary elections.63 The rationale applied was largely the same as Classic in noting that racial discrimination within primaries “adopts and enforces the discrimination against Negroes.”64 This was decided despite objections that Texas primaries were less state funded than those in Louisiana (under United States v. Classic), which indicated that it was the selective power within primaries that matters, not the level of direct state 59. Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944); GILL, supra note 19, at 21. William H. Hastie was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on November 17, 1904. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, THE GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW 212 (Donna Batten ed., 3d ed. 2010). He lived in the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C. Id. at 212–13. He practiced law in D.C. until he was appointed assistant solicitor in the Interior Department from 1934 to 1937. Id. at 213. While at the Department, the judge of the District Court of the Virgin Islands retired, which resulted in the appointment of Hastie as the judge of the District Court. Id. He would have served all four years, but he took a few years off to serve as the dean of Howard Law School in Washington, D.C. Id. However, he took leave as dean to serve as a Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War. Id. Helping to shape the policies of the military, Hastie worked to prevent discrimination against African Americans serving in the military. Id. The Command of Negro Troops, prepared under his supervision and published by the War Department, was a guide for all Army commanding officers. See generally U.S. WAR DEP’T, COMMAND OF NEGRO TROOPS (1944). He was an adamant civil rights advocate, which lead him to receive the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in 1943. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, supra, at 214. In 1946, he was nominated by President Harry S. Truman to serve as the governor of the Virgin Islands, and he became the first black governor of any United States territory. Samantha Nicholas Kealoha, Hastie, William Henry (1904–1976), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackpast.org/a ah/hastie-william-henry-1904-1976 (last visited Oct. 23, 2015). In 1949, he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, supra, at 214. In 1968, he was promoted to the position of Chief Judge until he retired in 1971. Id. Hastie died on April 14, 1976. Id. 60. Smith, 321 U.S. at 650–51. 61. Id. at 652. 62. Id. 63. Id. at 664. 64. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 223 involvement in the primary elections.65 Justice Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in Grovey, unsurprisingly dissented.66 Hastie litigated, and would go on to litigate, numerous other cases to advance African Americans’ quest for social justice.67 In the 1939 Mills v. Board of Education case, an African American teacher sued the board of education alleging that African American teachers were paid less solely on the basis of race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.68 The Maryland District Court analyzed whether the statutes had a disparate impact on the plaintiff by analyzing whether the difference in salaries occurred on account of race.69 The court found that the disparity stemmed from racial discrimination.70 The board was subsequently enjoined from discrimination in salaries based on race, but not the practice of applying judgment to determine the respective salary amounts for teachers.71 In 1940, Hastie and Oliver Hill litigated Alston v. School Board of City of Norfolk. 72 In that case, Melvin O. Alston, a black teacher, and the Norfolk Teachers’ Association sued the school board to obtain a declaratory judgment and fix the salary disparity between African Americans and equally qualified, equally experienced, white teachers in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.73 The lower court dismissed the claim and stated that Alston waived her constitutional rights through her written contract with the school board.74 On appeal, the Fourth Circuit considered whether unconstitutional discrimination led to salary fixing, whether the rights of the plaintiffs were infringed by this discrimination, and whether the Constitutional rights were in fact waived.75 The Fourth Circuit found that there was unlawful discrimination by citing Mills v. Board of Education. 76 Further, the court found that this discrimination infringed upon the teachers’ 65. Id. 66. Id. at 666 (Roberts, J., dissenting). 67. See, e.g., Mills v. Bd. of Educ. of Anne Arundel Cty., 30 F. Supp. 245 (D. Md. 1939) (holding that black teachers in Maryland deserve the same pay as white teachers). 68. Id. at 246. 69. Id. at 249. 70. Id. 71. Id. at 251. 72. Alston v. School Bd. of City of Norfolk, 112 F.2d 992, 993 (4th Cir. 1940). 73. Id. at 993–94. 74. Id. at 994. 75. Id. 76. Id. at 996. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 224 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 rights to be subject to the discretion of the authorities regarding wages lawfully and constitutionally.77 Finally, the court found no preclusion from suing by virtue of having signed contracts with the school board.78 The court thus reversed and remanded the case.79 In Hastie’s 1942 Thomas v. Hibbits case, schoolteacher Harold Thomas, an African American, filed a lawsuit against the school board of Nashville seeking a declaratory judgment as to the legality of the board of education’s practice of fixing different salary scales for white and black teachers, which resulted in paying equivalently qualified black teachers less than their white counterparts.80 The Middle District of Tennessee found that this practice was unconstitutional discrimination within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.81 The court further found that the plaintiff’s acceptance of the salary did not estop him from questioning the salary scale’s validity.82 The court stated that Thomas would be entitled to a declaratory judgment because the act was unlawful and that an injunction restraining the board of education from continuing this practice could be obtained.83 In Hastie’s 1944 Railway Mail Association v. Corsi case, the question before the court was whether the association was in violation of Civil Rights Law Section 43, which prohibited discrimination of labor organizations.84 The court first addressed the fact that the plaintiff was a labor union under § 43.85 With that determination, the court turned to the issue of whether the association violated the anti-discrimination statutory provisions.86 The association’s constitution stated that “[a]ny regular male . . . who is of the Caucasian race, or a native American Indian, shall be eligible to membership.”87 The court found this was discriminatory and reversed the order of the lower court that declared the Railway Mail Association was not a labor union.88 77. Id. at 996–97. 78. Id. at 997. 79. Id. 80. Thomas v. Hibbitts, 46 F. Supp. 368, 368–69 (M.D. Tenn. 1942). 81. Id. at 371. 82. Id. 83. Id. 84. Ry. Mail Ass’n v. Corsi, 267 A.D. 470, 470 (N.Y. App. Div. 1944). 85. Id. at 473. 86. Id. 87. Id. at 473. 88. Id. at 473–74. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 225 The same year as the Corsi case, in Tunstall v. Bhd. of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, Oliver Hill wrote the brief to the Fourth Circuit for Tunstall, a railway fireman of the Norfolk & Southern Railway (“Railway”) and a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen (“Brotherhood”).89 The Brotherhood was a labor union and the designated bargaining representative under the Railway Labor Act.90 Tunstall sued the Railway and the Brotherhood after they entered into a contract on behalf of the entire Brotherhood containing discriminatory provisions.91 The provisions deprived Tunstall of his preexisting seniority rights and moved him from the better interstate passenger routes to more arduous and difficult work in yard service.92 Tunstall requested a declaratory adjudication of his rights, an injunction restraining the discriminatory practices, and damages.93 The district court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, which the Fourth Circuit affirmed.94 The Supreme Court granted certiorari to settle whether the Railway Labor Act imposes a duty to represent all employees without racial discrimination and whether federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain non-diversity suits for the failure of the union to perform the duty imposed on it by the Act without discrimination.95 The Court held that Tunstall’s right—derived from the duty imposed by the Railway Labor Act—is a federal right implied from the statute.96 Furthermore, the lack of administrative remedies available to Tunstall allows him to obtain equitable relief in federal court.97 The following year, Hastie litigated two other cases—Mays v. Burgess and Morris v. Williams. In Mays, the D.C. Circuit affirmed a second appeal of a case involving the validity of a restrictive covenant running with the land.98 The covenant stated that only 89. Tunstall v. Bhd. of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 140 F.2d 35 (4th Cir. 1944), rev’d 323 U.S. 210, 211–12, 214 (1944). 90. Ry. Mail Ass’n., 323 U.S. at 212. 91. Id. 92. Id. 93. Id. 94. Id. 95. Id. at 211. 96. Id. at 213. 97. Id. at 213–14 (citing Goldsmith v. U. S. Board of Tax App., 270 U.S. 117, 123 (1926)). 98. Mays v. Burgess, 152 F.2d 123, 123 (D.C. Cir. 1945). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 226 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 white individuals could occupy the property in question. On initial appeal, the judgment of the lower court decision was affirmed.99 On this second appeal, the appellant argued that she failed to obtain another home to live in despite her diligent efforts, as well as the fact that four African American families had purchased properties in the adjoining block.100 The court rejected both arguments and affirmed the original judgment.101 In dissent, Justice Edgerton stated that changed circumstances would warrant reversal.102 In Morris, plaintiff Susie Morris, on behalf of others similarly situated, sued the board of directors of the Little Rock School District regarding the policy of paying African American teachers less than their comparably qualified white counterparts.103 The district court entered a judgment for defendants,104 but the plaintiffs appealed by raising the following questions: whether the disparate pay scale that discriminates on the basis of race exists and whether there was a subsequent custom of doing so.105 The court found that the practice of differential salaries based solely upon race or color was prohibited.106 The court also found that there was a policy or custom in Little Rock of paying African American teachers less than white teachers.107 An injunction was granted,108 and the judgment was reversed and remanded without prejudice so that the plaintiffs could apply for another order if their rights were further violated.109 Then in the 1945 Morgan v. Virginia case that Hastie litigated, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a Virginia statute requiring all motor vehicle carriers to separate white and African American passengers.110 The plaintiff was riding a bus and refused to move back in the bus in order to allow white passengers to sit.111 The Supreme Court of Virginia upheld the 99. Id. 100. Id. at 123–24. 101. Id. at 124–25. 102. Id. at 125–128 (Edgerton, J., dissenting). 103. Morris v. Williams, 149 F.2d 703, 704 (8th Cir. 1945). 104. Id. at 705. 105. Id. 106. Id. at 708. 107. Id. 108. Id. at 709. 109. Id. 110. Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373, 374 (1946). 111. Id. at 37475.

2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 227 conviction of the plaintiff.112 The Supreme Court of Virginia stated that where separation of races in vehicles is required, a method of identification of race must be employed.113 The Supreme Court analyzed whether the Virginia law was a matter of interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and ruled that there must be a uniform rule to promote and protect national travel.114 As a result, the Virginia statute was ruled to be invalid by a 6–1 decision.115 Also in 1946, Hastie litigated Farrall v. D.C. Amateur Athletic Union. 116 In that case, African American members of the D.C. Amateur Athletic Union (“AAU”) sued over a provision stating that the AAU did not sanction mixed racial competition.117 The lower court dismissed the action for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).118 Essentially, plaintiffs felt they were unlawfully barred from the eventual selection of local, national and international champions because of this sanction and believed it was beyond the power of the AAU to enforce it.119 The D.C. Circuit found at least three material issues of fact presented in an affidavit and held that there was a claim stated on which relief could be granted; the claim entitled to relief was that AAU members’ rights were invaded by an “ultra vires act of a committee of the organization.” 120 As a result, the motion to dismiss was reversed.121 While Omega Psi Phi members like Atkins and Hastie were fighting for African Americans’ voting rights on the national stage, activists like Dr. Luther Porter Jackson were engaged locally in places like Virginia.122 During the 1940s, Jackson supported the 112. Id. at 37576. 113. Id. at 38283. 114. Id. at 38386. 115. Id. at 386. For additional information on the story of Irene Morgan Kirkaldy and the Court’s 61 decision, see Irene Morgan Kirkaldy (1917–2007), ARCHIVES MD., http://ms a.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/015200/015242/html/15242bio. html#15end (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 116. Farrall v. D.C. Amateur Athletic Union, 153 F.2d 647, 647 (D.C. App. 1946). 117. Id. at 648. 118. Id.; see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). 119. Id. at 64950. 120. Id. at 650. 121. Id. 122. GILL, supra note 19, at 21. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 228 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 work of the NAACP in Virginia.123 He also organized the Petersburg League of Voters, which became the Virginia League of Voters.124 Jackson also published an annual report on the voting status of Virginia’s African Americans.125 This work led to the Southern Regional Council commissioning him in 1948 to study the voting rights of blacks throughout the South.126 On other fronts, the Achievement Week Project was inaugurated at Omega Psi Phi’s 1920, Ninth Grand Conclave in Nashville, Tennessee.127 The project continued until 1924 at the Thirteenth Conclave, held in Washington, D.C.128 Members voted Dr. Luther Porter Jackson was born July 11, 1892, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Delilah (Culverson) Jackson and Edward Jackson. Lucious Edwards, Jr., A Guide to the Luther Porter Jackson Papers, 1772–1960, VA. ST. U., http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view ?docId=vsu/vipets00009.xml#top (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). He attended Chandler Normal School before attending Fisk University, where he received both his A.B. and A.M. degrees. Id. In 1915, he started teaching at the Vorhees Industrial School in Denmark, South Carolina, and later became director of the academic department. Id. Next, he became an instructor of history and music at the Topeka Industrial Institute in Topeka, Kansas. Id. He went on to graduate from Columbia University in 1922, and the University of Chicago in 1937 with a Ph.D. in history. Id. He died on April 20, 1950, in Virginia. Michael Dennis, Luther Porter Jackson (1892–1950), ENCYCLOPEDIA VA., http://www.encyclo pediavirginia.org/Jackson_Luther_Porter_1892-1950 (last updated Mar. 23, 2014). Jackson took over as director at the College High School from 1923 through 1928. Edwards, supra. At the school, Dr. Jackson led the history department from 1930 to 1950, formed the “League of Negro Voters” in 1934, and created the organization that ultimately become the Virginia Trade Association. Id. The League’s purpose was to increase black voting, which led his support for the “Durham Manifesto,” a document condemning segregation. Dennis, supra. He also championed and wrote in support of Alston v. Board of Education. Id. In addition to being chairman of the Virginia chapter’s Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Jackson conducted the Petersburg Community Choir of 100 Voices and wrote a column for The Journal and Guide based out of Norfolk, Virginia, titled the “Rights and Duties in a Democracy,” between 1942 until 1948. Edwards, supra. In 1944, he was appointed to the Virginia World War II History Commission, later worked with the NAACP, and received a plaque for service in 1948. Id. 123. A Guide to the Luther Porter Jackson Papers, 17721960, VA. HERITAGE, http://ead.li b.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vsu/vipets00009.xml;query= (last visited Jan. 10, 2016). 124. Id.; see also, Miles M. Jackson, Jackson, Luther Porter (1892–1950), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/jackson-luther-porter-1892-1950 (last visited Nov. 9, 2015). 125. Michael Dennis, Luther Porter Jackson (1892–1950), ENCYCLOPEDIA VA. (Apr. 15, 2009), http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Jackson_Luther_Porter_1892-1950. 126. See MICHAEL DENNIS, LUTHER P. JACKSON AND A LIFE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS (2004) (stating that in 1947, under the SRC, Jackson studied black voting in the South); see also J. H. Johnston, Luther P. Jackson, 35 J. NEGRO HIST. 3 (1950) (discussing the Association’s meeting). 127. History of Achievement Week, ZETA OMEGA CHAPTER OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC., http://zetaomega.com/2013-achievement-week-gala/history-of-achievement-week/ (last visited Oct. 25, 2015). 128. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 229 to suspend the project until 1925.129 In 1925, Dr. Carter G. Woodson changed the name of the project from “Negro History and Literature Week” to “Negro History Week,” and changed the time of the celebration from April to February; the week evolved into Black History Month.130 In December 1925, the Achievement Week Project was revived after a vote by the fraternity at the Fourteenth Annual Conclave at the Tuskegee Institute.131 At the Sixteenth Annual Conclave, which took place in December 1927 in New York, Omega Psi Phi member Linwood G. Koger was named director of the project—the first brother appointed as chiefly responsible for Achievement Week.132 By the early 1930s, Omega Psi Phi member Robert D. Baskerville began re-outlining the fundamentals of the Negro Achievement Project.133 The project was intended to provide Americans with opportunities, resources, knowledge, and a vision, as well as a sense of racial consciousness.134 The main components of the project included an 129. Id. 130. Jacquelin Goggin, Woodson, Carter Godwin, AM. NAT’L BIOGRAPHY ONLINE (Feb. 2000), http://www.anb.org/articles/14/14-00718.html. Dr. Carter G. Woodson was born in Virginia in 1875. Id. He entered high school at twenty years of age and graduated from Berea College in Kentucky in 1903. Id. He studied for some time at the Sorbonne University in Paris, but received his M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1908, and his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1912. Id. In 1933, he published The Mis-Education of the Negro. Id. Furthermore, he founded and served as editor of the Journal of Negro History. Id. He championed the importance of learning and promoting past accomplishments of members of their race, which led him to be the founder of Negro History and Literature Week. Id. In 1915, he and several friends in Chicago established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Id. In 1937, he published the first issue of the NEGRO HISTORY BULLETIN, one of many books he wrote throughout his lifetime. Id. Woodson died in 1950. Id. 131. History of Achievement Week, supra note 127. 132. Id. 133. Id. 134. See id. Linwood G. Koger was born in Reidsville, North Carolina, on March 10, 1889. Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series), Linwood G. Koger (1889–1973), MD. ST. ARCHIVES (Aug. 16, 2010), http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3 520/015200/015298/html/15298bio.html. His parents were James F. and Margaret Koger. Id. He had one sibling named A. Briscoe Koger. Id. Koger attended Howard University and Howard University Law School. Id. During his time at Howard University as an undergraduate student, Koger was initiated into the Alpha chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. Pi Omega Chapter History, OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC., http://piomega .org/content.aspx?page_id=9&club_id=129066 (last visited Nov. 17, 2015). He went on to become a founder of the Pi Chapter at Morgan State University. Bloody Pi Chapter, OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC., http://www.opp2d.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=267 853&module_id=58485 (last visited Nov. 17, 2015). He was admitted to the Maryland Bar Association in November 1923. Archives of Maryland, supra. Koger served as president of the Baltimore Branch of the NAACP from 1927 to 1930. Id. Additionally, he served as 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 230 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 essay contest open to all college and high school students across the country and the observance of November’s “National Negro Achievement Week.”135 The project, along with other initiatives, encouraged African Americans to take advantage of opportunities and be a part of a movement to inspire racial awareness and appreciation. By the early 1940s, the Fraternity had established three major projects: the Achievement Project, the Housing Authority, and the Scholarship Commission.136 II. OMEGA PSI PHI AND BUILDING AN INTERNAL STRUCTURE FOR ADVANCING CIVIL RIGHTS In the mid-1940s, the fraternity formed a National Action Committee for the purpose of promoting improvement in the cultural, social, economic, and political status of African Americans.137 At the time, however, the committee met some opposition.138 Within the organization, disagreement existed as to whether the national Fraternity ought to play a role in social activism.139 At the Thirty-First Grand Conclave, Z. Alexander Looby, then-Grand Basileus, warned Omega Psi Phi against excursion into social action and social welfare activities.140 These activities, according to Looby and others, were the social obligations of the Omega men—not of the national organization.141 Warnings were not heeded; the Thirty-First Grand president of the Monumental Bar Association (1941 to 1942 and 1953 to 1955). Id. Koger served as the justice of the peace for Baltimore City’s 14th Ward from 1937 to 1939. Id. He then went on to serve on the Governor’s Commission Studying Problems Affecting Colored People from 1941 to 1944. Id. He left this position to become the assistant city solicitor of Baltimore for four years. Id. In 1955, Koger became the city’s police magistrate—a position he maintained until 1959. Id. Koger ran for the House of Delegates in 1930, but was defeated. Id. However, he served on the Baltimore City Council (1939), Maryland Senate (1942 and 1946), and the U.S. House of Representatives (1954). Id. Koger passed away in Baltimore, Maryland, in August 1973. Id. 135. Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. (1911–), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackpast.org /aah/omega-psi-phi-fraternity-inc (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 136. Report of Past Grand Basileus, ORACLE, at 20–25. 137. GILL, supra note 19, at 30. 138. Id. at 30–32. 139. Id. at 30–32. 140. Id. at 31. 141. Id. Z. Alexander Looby was born on April 8, 1899, to John Alexander and Grace Elizabeth Joseph Looby in Antigua, British West Indies. Linda T. Wynn, Zephaniah Alexander Looby, TENN. ENCYCLOPEDIA HIST. & CULTURE (Feb. 21, 2011), https://tennesse 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 231 Conclave adopted a National Social Action Program to further the fraternity’s cardinal principle: uplift.142 The program was designed to be a nation-wide initiative to find solutions for and educate communities on the needs of African Americans for improved health, housing, employment, social security, law, civil rights, public education, and cultural relations.143 The fraternity hoped to advise on pressing social concerns that would be taken up by the chapters in local efforts.144 Fraternity members involved in the program’s launch at Howard University in 1946 included: C.R. Alexander, F. Rivers Barnwell, J. B. Blayton, E. A. Bolling, George Branch, Brailsford Brazeal, Joseph T. Brooks, Roscoe Brown, Spurgeon Burke, John Calhoun, Montague Cobb, Frank Coleman, George Cox, Don Davis, John A. Davis, Albert Dent, Edward Dixon, Charles Drew, H. Naylor Fitzhugh, Mifflin Gibbs, William Hastie, Frank Horne, DeHart Hubbard, Campbell Johnson, Charles Lawrence, Z. Alexander Looby, Edgar Love, Howard Mackey, Samuel McCoy, Clarence Mitchell, James Nabrit, Jr., Ben Olive, Lawrence Oxley, Howard Payne, Harry Penn, Theodore Poston, John F. Potts, Ira De A. Reid (Director), Julius Thomas, Willard Townsend, William Tyson, Frederick Weaver, Robert Weaver, James Arthur Weiseger, eencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=807. Lobby moved to the United States and graduated from Howard University, then continued on to earn his law degree at Columbia University. Id. Upon graduation, he worked at Fisk University as assistant professor of economics, where he remained until 1928. Id. Then, in 1929, he began practicing law in Memphis for three years. Id. There, he met a schoolteacher named Grafta Mosby, whom he married in 1934. Dorothy Granberry, Looby, Z. Alexander (1899–1972), BLACK PAST.ORG, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/looby-z-alexander-1899-1972 (last visited Oct. 25, 2015). He helped to found the Kent College of Law. Wynn, supra. In 1946, the NAACP hired Looby, Maurice Weaver, and Thurgood Marshall to represent the blacks of Columbia, Tennessee, who were charged with murder following recent race riots in that town. Id. Looby’s “legal defense helped acquit twenty-three of the defendants.” Id. Looby and attorney Robert E. Lillard were elected to the city council in 1951, the first blacks to be elected. Id. After the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Looby filed a suit on behalf of A. Z. Kelly against the local public schools. Id. Kelly’s son Robert was denied access to a nearby white school. Id. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Looby and other black attorneys gave funding and legal assistance to local college students who had been arrested. Id. In 1962, he ran for a seat on the Tennessee Supreme Court but lost. Id. In 1963, he joined the Metropolitan Charter Commission. Id. In 1971, Looby retired after serving on the old city council and the new Metropolitan Council for a total of twenty years. Id. He died on March 24, 1972. Id. 142. GILL, supra note 19, at 32. 143. Id. 144. Id. at 73. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 232 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 E. P. Westmoreland, Nathaniel Williams, and Paul Williams.145 The efforts of the National Action Committee are seen throughout Omega Psi Phi’s philanthropy, local outreach, and community service. Many members of the Committee were local and national activists in the area of African American Civil Rights or prominent in their own right—bringing their unique and individual talents to bear on Omega Psi Phi’s social justice mission. Ira De A. Reid was born in 1901 in Clifton Forge, Virginia, to David Reid and Willie James.146 He moved to Georgia, where he attended high school at Morehouse Academy and continued to study at Morehouse College.147 Reid studied at the University of Chicago during the summer of 1923.148 He was also a teacher at Douglass High School in Huntington, West Virginia.149 In 1924, Ira De A. Reid worked as the industrial secretary of the New York Urban League (“NUL”) and later became NUL’s director of research and editor of its journal, Opportunity. 150 From 1934 to 1946, he taught at Atlanta University and worked as a consultant on minorities for the Manpower Commission.151 From 1925 to 1935, he directed the study titled The Training and Employment of White Collar and Skilled Negroes. 152 From 1933 to 1935, he was the forum leader for the Harlem Adult Education Committee.153 In addition to teaching, he was assistant editor of the American Sociological Review from 1947 to 1949 and editor of the journal Racial Desegregation and Integration in 1956.154 He also wrote for regularly for publications such as The Nation, Opportunity, and Virginia Quarterly, in addition to the ten books on African American social conditions he wrote throughout his life.155 Reid passed away in 1968.156 145. Id. at 32. 146. Jessica Salo, Reid, Ira de Augustine (1901–1968), BLACK PAST.ORG, http://www.bla ckpast.org/aah/reid-ira-de-augustine-1901–1968 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 147. Id. 148. Id. 149. Alain Locke, Editorial Foreward, in IRA DE AUGUSTINE REID, ADULT EDUCATION AMONG NEGROES (J.B. Lyon Press 1936). 150. Salo, supra note 146. 151. Id. 152. Locke, supra note 149. 153. Id. 154. Id. 155. Id. 156. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 233 Albert Dent, an Atlanta and Morehouse College alumnus, had been elected by the Board of Trustees of Dillard University as superintendent of Flint-Goodridge Hospital in 1932.157 “He drew on his experience as an executive with the Black-owned Atlanta Life Insurance Company, and began offering a six-dollar-a-year hospitalization plan to the city’s colored teachers and postmen.”158 He installed an innovation plan, which provided Blacks coverage with the help from the Rosenwald Fund.159 In 1941, he became the third president of Dillard University—a position that he held for twenty-eight years.160 James Nabrit, Jr., a Morehouse College and Northwestern University Law School graduate, began teaching at Howard University Law School in 1936.161 By 1938, he created and began teaching the first formal civil rights law course ever taught at an American law school.162 He served as dean of Howard University School of Law from 1958 to 1960.163 From 1960 to 1969, he served as the president at Howard University.164 In the 1940s and in the early 1950s, Nabrit, Jr. handled a number of civil rights cases165 He was one of the lead counsel on Bolling v. Sharpe—a companion case to Brown v. Board of Education—out of Washington, D.C.166 In 1966, he represented the United States as a deputy to chief delegate to the United Nations.167 He is credited with playing a part in the desegregation of the University of Oklahoma and University of Texas.168 He successfully argued 1939’s Lane v. Wilson, which considered voter registration in Oklahoma169 and 1955’s Terry v. Adams, which considered African American rights to vote in primary elections in Texas.170 157. Curing Ailments & Conquering Adversity: Flint-Goodridge Hospital 1896–1983, CREOLEGEN (Aug. 28, 2012), http://www.creolegen.org/2012/08/28/curing-ailments-con quering-adversity-flint-goodridge-hospital-1896-1983. 158. Id. 159. Id. 160. Id. 161. Eric Pace, James M. Nabrit Jr. Dies at 97; Led Howard University, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 30, 1997, at B8. 162. Id. 163. Id. 164. Id. 165. Id. 166. Id. 167. Id. 168. Id. 169. Id. 170. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 234 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 For some of his life, Frank Horne lived in Washington, D.C.171 There, he served on the Black Cabinet, a group led by Mary McLeod Bethune.172 The Black Cabinet was a group of black men who would provide potential solutions to the Roosevelt administration.173 Furthermore, he worked for the United States Housing Authority, the Housing and Home Finance Agency, and the Office of Race Relations.174 Horne was part of the Harlem Renaissance through his writings for the NAACP’s Crisis and the National Urban League’s Opportunity magazine.175 He won second place in Crisis’s 1925 Poetry Contest with Letters Found Near a Suicide. 176 He also worked as a reviewer for Opportunity. 177 In 1926, he began teaching at Fort Valley High and Industrial School, where he would serve as instructor, track coach, dean, and acting president.178 Campbell Johnson was born in 1921.179 In 1942, he graduated with a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.180 While in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, he was introduced to quality control.181 He continued to work with quality control at the Aerojet General Corporation.182 He is credited with manufacturing special purpose test equipment like electronic switches, power supplies, oscilloscopes, test jigs, and test racks.183 Furthermore, he helped establish registration criteria for professional engineers in quality engineering.184 “He served as chairman of the Expert Examiners in Quality Engineering for the State of California.”185 During the “Great Transition,” a period during the Golden Age of the 171. A Man of Many Talents, Frank Horne, AFR. AM. REGISTRY, http://www.aaregistry.or g/historic_events/view/man-many-talents-frank-horne (last visited Nov. 9, 2015). 172. Id. 173. Id. 174. Id. 175. Id. 176. Id. 177. Jimmy B. Fenison, Horne, Frank Smith (1899–1974), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www. blackpast.org/aah/horne-frank-smith-1899-1974 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 178. A Man of Many Talents, Frank Horne, supra note 171. 179. Robert B. Sanders, Contributions of African American Males to the Sciences and Medicine, in THE BLACK MALE IN WHITE AMERICA 61, 87 (Jacob U. Gordon ed., 2002). 180. Id. 181. Id. 182. Id. 183. Id. at 8788. 184. Id. at 88. 185. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 235 fraternity, Johnson served as Grand Basileus.186 In 1928, Johnson became the editor of the Omega Bulletin, which was established that same year.187 William Montague Cobb graduated from Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., in 1921.188 Cobb received a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in 1925 and a M.D. from Howard University in 1929.189 He later received his Ph.D. in anatomy and physical anthropology from Western Reserve University in 1932.190 He went on to teach anatomy at the College of Medicine at Howard University.191 From 1942 to 1969, Cobb served as chairman of the department of anatomy and, in 1970, was appointed Howard’s first Distinguished University Professor.192 In addition to teaching, he served as president of the National Medical Association and its Washington, D.C. chapter, editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association, and a scholar in many fields.193 Dr. Cobb fought for black physicians to be admitted to the predominantly white hospitals and societies of the district, and he was admitted to the Medical Society of the District of Columbia in 1953.194 He organized seven annual national conferences on hospital discrimination and integration.195 The conferences both acknowledged racial policies in health facilities nationwide and advocated for equal access to facilities for both African American patients and physicians.196 He was active in the National Urban League and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.197 He served as president of the NAACP from 1976 to 1982.198 186. Fraternity History, OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC. THETA EPSILON CHAPTER, http://www.thetaepsilonchapter.com/history.html (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 187. The History of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC., ALPHA CHAPTER, http://www.pearlofomega.org/HistoryofOmega (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 188. Walter J. Lear, William Montague Cobb: Medical Professor, Civil Rights Activist, 92 AM. J. PUB. HEALTH 193, 193 (2002). 189. Id. 190. Id. 191. Id. 192. Id. 193. Id. 194. Id. 195. Id. 196. Id. 197. Today in Black History, 10/12/2014, CHARLES H. WRIGHT MUSEUM AFR. AM. HISTORY (Oct. 12, 2014), https://thewright.org/index.php/explore/2015-08-21-20-31-09 /today-in-black-history-10122014. 198. Lear, supra note 188, at 188

236 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 John Calhoun attended Hampton Institute in Virginia.199 In the 1940s, he and others formed the Atlanta Negro Voters League.200 He was also active in the NAACP and became president of its Atlanta branch in 1956.201 As an activist, he filed many lawsuits to broaden the rights of blacks, including Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 202 which helped in the desegregation of parks and golf courses.203 From 1974 to 1978, he served as an Atlanta city councilman.204 As a councilman, he assisted with the employment of blacks into public office.205 Spurgeon Burke graduated from Howard University.206 Thereafter, he worked as the business administrator of the Tuskegee Veterans Administration Hospital in Alabama, which was the first veterans hospital for blacks.207 Before returning to Washington, D.C., in 1942, Burke worked for an appliance firm in New York.208 During World War II, he was appointed manager of Lucy D. Slowe and George Washington Carver Halls at Howard University.209 The two hotels were built for blacks who traveled to Washington to work in the defense effort and were converted into dormitories for Howard University after the war.210 Burke retired in 1956 as director of service enterprises.211 In 1966, Burke became the director of the Metropolitan Washington Neighborhood Youth Corps, but retired from that position in 1969.212 Charles R. Drew was born in Washington, D.C., on June 3, 1904.213 His father, Richard, was a carpet layer, and his mother, 199. John Calhoun, 88; A Longtime Fighter For Rights in South, N.Y. TIMES, May 10, 1988, at D26. 200. Id. 201. Id. 202. Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 350 U.S. 879 (1955) (per curiam). 203. John Calhoun, 88; A Longtime Fighter for Rights in South, supra note 199. 204. Id. 205. Id. 206. Walter Burke, Ex-Official at Howard, Dies, WASH. POST (June 12, 1985), http://www .washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1985/06/12/obituaries-walter-burke-ex-official-at-ho ward-dies/79c9587d-339d-4257-be42-bdf562f1d36a. 207. Id. 208. Id. 209. Id. 210. Id. 211. Id. 212. Id. 213. Bro. Charles R. Drew, OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC.: MIGHTY SECOND DIST., http://www.opp2d.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=267853&module_id=42081 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 237 Nora Burell, was a teacher.214 He won an athletic scholarship to attend Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1926.215 Upon graduation from Amherst, Drew accepted a position teaching biology at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.216 During this time, he was also the university’s athletic director and helped to turn the basketball and football programs into collegiate champions.217 In 1928, Drew decided to pursue his interest in medicine and began school at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.218 He graduated in 1933 with master of surgery and doctor of medicine degrees.219 Drew began working in Canada but returned to the United States in 1935 to work as an instructor of pathology at Howard University.220 Drew is most well known for his long-term blood storage techniques in plasma separation that he created while studying at Columbia University.221 He then became the first African American to receive a doctor of medical science degree from Columbia.222 During World War II, Drew was named supervisor of the Blood Transfusion Association for New York City.223 Later, he was named a project director for the American Red Cross; however, he resigned after the United States War Department issued a directive to segregate blood from white donors from that of black donors.224 He then returned to Howard University in 1942 to head the Department of Surgery.225 He was also the chief of surgery at Freedmen’s Hospital and would later be named chief of staff and medical director for the hospital.226 Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 1922.227 His father, Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, was an official 214. Dr. Charles Drew was a Lifesaver Through His Blood Plasma Discoveries, AFR. AM. REGISTRY, http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/dr-charles-drew-was-lifesaver-th rough-his-blood-plasma-discoveries (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 215. Id.; Gaius Chamberlain, Charles Drew, BLACK INVENTOR ON-LINE (Mar. 23, 2012), http://blackinventor.com/charles-drew. 216. Gaius Chamberlain, supra note 215. 217. Id. 218. Id. 219. Id. 220. Id. 221. Id. 222. Id. 223. Id. 224. Id. 225. Id. 226. Id. 227. Roscoe C. Brown, HISTORYMAKERS, http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biograph y/roscoe-c-brown-39 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 238 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 in the United States Public Health Service.228 Brown attended Springfield College in Massachusetts where he graduated at the top of his class in 1943.229 After serving in World War II, he resumed his education at New York University and earned a M.A. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1951.230 After graduating, he became a professor at New York University and president of Bronx Community College.231 He later received an honorary degree from his alma mater, Springfield College.232 Brown currently resides in New York.233 He is currently the director of the Center for Urban Education Policy at the Graduate School and University Center of CUNY.234 William DeHart Hubbard was born on November 25, 1903, in Cincinnati, Ohio.235 He attended Walnut Hills High School, and his achievements, both inside the classroom and on the track, caught the attention of Michigan University.236 Through his success on the track, he won a spot on the 1924 U.S. Olympic Team and there won an individual gold medal, making him the first African American to do so. 237 Hubbard graduated from Michigan with honors in 1927.238 Upon graduation, Hubbard worked as a supervisor at the Department of Colored Work for the Cincinnati Public Recreation Commission.239 He also worked as a manager of a housing project in the city.240 Then, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked for the Federal Public Housing Authority.241 Paul Revere Williams was born on February 18, 1894.242 At the age of four, Williams was orphaned and became the only 228. JONATHAN D. SOUTHERLAND, AFRICAN AMERICAN WAR HEROES 28 (James B. Martin ed., 2014). 229. Id. 230. Roscoe C. Brown, supra note 227. 231. Id. 232. SOUTHERLAND, supra note 228, at 30. 233. See Roscoe C. Brown, supra note 227. 234. Id. 235. Hubbard, William DeHard (1903–1976), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackpast.or g/aah/hubbard-william-dehart-1903-1976 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 236. Id. 237. Id. 238. Id. 239. Id. 240. Id. 241. Id. 242. About: Paul R. Williams, Architect, PAUL R. WILLIAMS PROJECT, http://www.paulrwi lliamsproject.org/about/paul-revere-williams-architect (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 239 African American student at his elementary school.243 He went on to study at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design and at the Los Angeles branch of New York’s Beaux-Arts Institute of Design Atelier.244 After completing school, he began working as an architect and later continued his education at the University of Southern California’s School of Engineering.245 In 1921, he became a certified architect.246 In 1920, Williams served on the first Los Angeles City Planning Commission.247 Beginning in 1921, he worked for Los Angeles architect John C. Austin for three years.248 Williams became the first black member of the American Institute of Architects (“AIA”) in 1923.249 In 1951, he would be recognized with Omega Psi Phi’s highest honor for a member, winning the Man of the Year Award.250 He also received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP two years later.251 Williams was also awarded honorary doctorates from Howard University, Lincoln University of Missouri, and the Tuskegee Institute.252 Howard Hamilton Mackey was born on November 25, 1901, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Henry Bardon and Anna Willis Mackey.253 Mackey earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1924.254 Upon graduation, he began teaching at Howard University.255 By 1929, he had become chairman of Howard’s Department of Architecture.256 In 1931, Howard University established the School of Engineering and Architecture; Mackey served as its director.257 He later left Howard to return to the University of Pennsylvania to 243. Id. 244. Paul R. Williams, OUR STORY, INC., http://ourstoryinc.com/paul-r-williams (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 245. KAREN E. HUDSON, PAUL R. WILLIAMS, ARCHITECT: A LEGACY OF STYLE 13 (Rizzoli Int’l Pub. ed., 1993). 246. Paul R. Williams, supra note 244. 247. Id. 248. HUDSON, supra note 245, at 14. 249. About: Paul R. Williams, Architect, supra note 242. 250. Paul R. Williams, supra note 244. 251. Id. 252. HUDSON, supra note 245, at 228–29. 253. Mackey, Howard Hamilton (1901–1987), AM. ARCHITECTS & BLDG. PROJECT, https:/ /www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/23563 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 254. Id. 255. Id. 256. Id. 257. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 240 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 earn his master’s degree in 1937.258 Upon graduating, he returned to Howard and served as director of the School of Engineering and Architecture for thirty-two years.259 In 1962, Mackey earned fellowship status with the AIA.260 He received the Whitney M. Young, Jr. Citation from the AIA for his influence on African American architects in 1983.261 John Foster Potts was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1908, to Leila Snead and John Moultrie Potts.262 Potts was known as an African American educator and author.263 Following his graduation from Benedict College in 1930, he started as a substitute teacher, worked his way to the full-time teacher position, and eventually became a principal over the course of teaching at many schools.264 He then earned his master’s degree from Cornell University in 1937.265 However, he held other jobs as a United States Navy recruiter; author on civil rights, education, and religion; director of the Avery Institute in Charleston, South Carolina; and the Grand Basileus of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity in 1953.266 Tau Chi, a chapter of Omega Psi Phi, was founded in Monrovia, Liberia, during his tenure.267 Potts was married to Muriel Logan and had five children.268 Mifflin Gibbs was born on April 17, 1823, in segregated Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Jonathan and Maria Gibbs.269 In 1830, he attended Free School, a public school.270 His father died when Gibbs was young, which led Gibbs to drop out of school to support his family.271 Around the age of sixteen, he learned the 258. Id. 259. Id. 260. Id. 261. Id. 262. Inventory of the John F. Potts, Sr. Papers, 1885–2005, AVERY RES. CTR. FOR AFR. AM. HIST. & CULTURE, http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Potts_John_F_Sr.html (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 263. Id. 264. Id. 265. Id. 266. Id.; Bryan Cox, Tau Chi, INT’L 13TH DIST. OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC. (June 23, 2010), http://www.oppf13th.org/13thdistrict/chapters/tau-chi. 267. Cox, supra note 266. 268. Inventory of the John F. Potts, Sr. Papers, 1885–2005, supra note 262. 269. Tom W. Dillard, The Black Moses of the West: A Biography of Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, 1823–1915, at 13 (1975) (unpublished M.A. dissertation, The University of Arkansas) (on file with ProQuest Information and Learning Company). 270. Id. at 5. 271. Id. at 6. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 241 carpentry trade and helped construct the new Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.272 While working as a carpenter, he attended night school and joined two black literary societies.273 In the late 1850s, he moved to Victoria, then-capital of British Columbia, Canada.274 In 1859, he returned to the United States and married Maria A. Alexander of Kentucky, but the two were later estranged; they shared five children together.275 In 1862, he ran for a seat on the Victoria City Council but did not win.276 However, in 1866, he ran again, was elected, and served for two years.277 In 1868, Gibbs was the Saltspring Island delegate to the Yale Convention.278 He is credited with organizing an all-black unit militia in British Columbia.279 Upon returning to the United States once again, he graduated from Oberlin Law School,280 passed the bar in Little Rock, Arkansas, and practiced law there until he became involved in government.281 In 1873, Gibbs was elected city judge as a Republican; in that position, Gibbs was the first black judge elected in the United States.282 In 1877, he was appointed Register of the United States Land Office for the Little Rock District of Arkansas by President Hayes.283 At the 1880 Arkansas Republican State Convention, he was elected a delegate to the National Convention.284 As a Republican, he was appointed U.S. Consul in Madagascar by President William McKinley in 1897.285 In 1901, he retired and returned to the United States, where he published his autobiography, Shadow and Light. 286 In 1915, he died in Little Rock at the age of 92.287 272. Id. at 8. 273. Id. at 9. 274. MIFFLIN W. GIBBS, SHADOW AND LIGHT: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5960 (Arno Press ed., 1968). 275. Id. at 64. 276. Stephan Ruttan, Tales from the Vault: Victoria Served by All-Black Militia, VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST (Nov. 11, 2012), http://www.timescolonist.com/life/tales-from-the-vaultvictoria-served-by-all-black-militia-1.12891. 277. Id. 278. Id. 279. Id. 280. GIBBS, supra note 274, at 111. 281. See id. at 136. 282. Id. at 13637. 283. Id. at 185. 284. Id. at 188. 285. Id. at 223. 286. Ruttan, supra note 276; see GIBBS, supra note 274. 287. GIBBS, supra note 274. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 242 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Frederick S. Weaver was born in Kansas City, Missouri.288 He earned a law degree at Howard University School of Law in 1937.289 While at law school, he worked as a messenger at the Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia.290 He continued to work in that office upon graduation and received presidential appointments as deputy and acting recorder of deeds.291 He moved to New York City and opened his first public-relations firm in 1946.292 He married Carol Maria with whom he shared four sons.293 Weaver served under Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri as the City’s Deputy Commissioner of Housing and Buildings in the 1950s.294 In 1952, Weaver played an important role in an inspection campaign in Harlem and the Bronx against firetrap tenements.295 In 1982, he died at the age of 69.296 John Aubrey Davis, Sr. was born in Washington, D.C.297 “Davis graduated from Williams College in 1933.”298 He earned two political science degrees: a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1934 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1949.299 In the 1930s, he taught at Howard University and Lincoln University.300 He married Mavis Wormley Davis with whom he shared two sons.301 He was an editor of a new quarterly, African Forum. 302 He was a political science professor at City College and president of the American Society of African Culture (“AMSAC”).303 In 1961, he became the professor of government in the graduate faculty of City University and chairman of the 288. Wolfgang Saxon, Frederick S. Weaver; Did Public Relations and Wrote Column, N.Y. TIMES (Apr. 5, 1982), http://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/05/obituaries/frederick-s-weave r-did-public-relations-and-wrote-column.html. 289. Id. 290. Id. 291. Id. 292. Id. 293. Id. 294. Id. 295. Id. 296. Id. 297. Wolfgang Saxon, John A. Davis, 90, Advocate in Major Civil Rights Cases, N.Y. TIMES (Dec. 21, 2002), http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/21/us/john-a-davis-90-advocate-inmajor-civil-rights-cases.html. 298. Id. 299. Id. 300. Id. 301. Id. 302. See American Society of African Culture, in ORGANIZING BLACK AMERICA: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ASSOCIATIONS 50, 51 (Nina Mjagkij ed., 2001). 303. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 243 Department of Political Science, a position from which he retired in 1980.304 In addition to teaching, he was a civil rights activist.305 He was a leader of the New Negro Alliance and greatly influenced the outcome of the New Negro Alliance vs. Sanitary Grocery Company, Inc. 306 In addition, Davis’s research assisted with the outcome in Brown v. Board of Education. 307 Davis participated in government panels to assist with issues of fair employment and racial integration.308 In 1957, he was named to the New York State Commission Against Discrimination and served as president of AMSAC.309 He died in 1993.310 James Blaine “Jim” Blayton was born in Oklahoma in 1905.311 He earned both his undergraduate and medical degrees from Howard University.312 He practiced medicine in the segregated Virginia peninsula.313 In 1931, he set up his medical practice in Williamsburg where he attended patients at his office and on house calls.314 He served as a New Deal public health physician and led the building of the two bed Blayton Maternity Hospital, existing for the African American community.315 He built another black-only hospital with an emergency room in Williamsburg in 1952.316 Until the 1961 opening of the Williamsburg Community Hospital, Blayton’s hospital was the only facility in the region that treated Blacks.317 He received the Williamsburg Community Health Foundation’s Healthcare Heroes Recognition Award in 1999 as one of the first three recipients.318 Furthermore, he was appointed to the Virginia State Board of Medical Examiners.319 In addition to medical work, he was also 304. Id. 305. Id. 306. Id. 307. Id. 308. Id. 309. Id. 310. Id. 311. School Profile: About J. Blaine Blayton, J. BLAINE BLAYTON ELEMENTARY SCH., http:/ /wjccschools.org/web/jbb/our-school/school-profile (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 312. Id. 313. Id. 314. Id. 315. Id. 316. Id. 317. Id. 318. Id. 319. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 244 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 very active in many civic matters.320 He was the James City Council School Board’s first black member.321 He co-chaired the campaign to raise $250,000 Quaterpath Park’s construction.322 He was also director of Health and Safety for the Peninsula Boy Scouts for twenty-five years and a life member of the NAACP.323 Blayton died in December 2002, at the age of 97.324 H. Naylor Fitzhugh attended Harvard University at the age of sixteen on a scholarship.325 He graduated as one of four blacks in the class of 1931.326 Immediately after graduation, Fitzhugh enrolled at Harvard Business School, which made him one of the first blacks to attend the business school.327 He graduated in 1933, but returned to Harvard as a professor in 1934 and remained there for the next thirty years.328 In 1965, he was hired by PepsiCola to improve race-related issues for the company.329 He eventually became vice president for Special Markets at PepsiCola.330 In 1974, he was named “the dean of black businessmen” by Black Enterprise magazine.331 In 1975, he was given a special Black Enterprise Achievement Award by Vice President Rockefeller.332 He was a founding member and president of the National Association of Market Developers and acted as a consultant for major corporations and for the Census Bureau from 1975 to 1981.333 An endowed professorship was created by the African American Alumni Association at Harvard University Business School in Fitzhugh’s honor.334 320. Id. 321. Id. 322. Id. 323. Id. 324. Id. 325. Susan Basalla, African Americans Who Broke the Color Barrier at America’s Leading Business Schools, 6 J. BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUC. 81, 81 (1994–1995). 326. Id. 327. Id. 328. Id. 329. Id. 330. Wolfgang Saxon, H. Naylor Fitzhugh, 82, Educator and Pioneer in Target Marketing, N.Y. TIMES (July 29, 1992), http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/29/nyregion/h-naylor-fitz hugh-82-educator-and-pioneer-in-target-marketing.html. 331. Id. 332. Id. 333. Id. 334. AASU History, AASU, http://www.hbsaasu.com/history (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 245 E. P. Westmoreland was a former Washington, D.C., school board supervisor.335 He was also the chief advisor of technical training to the Indonesian Ministry of Education; he was recommended by the Tuskegee Institute.336 During World War I, Willard Townsend served as first lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s 372nd Infantry in France.337 When he returned from the war, he studied at the University of Toronto and later the Royal Academy of Science.338 He moved from city to city, from Texas to Chicago, in search of work.339 In 1930, he began working as a redcap at the Northwestern Railroad Terminal.340 During that period, most redcaps were blacks.341 He joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations (“CIO”), became one of its best organizers, and acted as one of the pioneers of redcap unionization of the Midwest.342 He led many redcaps across the Midwest while constantly challenging the racist polices of organized white labor.343 In 1942, Townsend became the first black man elected to the executive board of the CIO as the international president of the United Transport Service Employees of America at the time.344 Clarence Mitchell, Jr. was born in segregated Baltimore, Maryland, in 1911.345 Mitchell graduated from Douglass High School in 1928, and Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania, in 1931.346 Upon graduation, he reported for the Baltimore AfroAmerican. 347 He became executive secretary of the Urban League in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1937.348 The next year he married 335. E. P. Westmoreland, Names Aide to Indonesia, JET, Sep. 2, 1954, at 6. 336. Id. 337. Eric Arnesen, Willard Townsend: Black Workers, Civil Rights, and the Labor Movement, in PORTRAITS AFRICAN AMERICAN LIFE SINCE 1865, at 14950 (Nina Mjagkij ed., 2003). 338. Id. at 150. 339. Id. 340. Id. 341. Id. at 151. 342. Id. at 152. 343. Id. 344. Yesterday in Negro History, JET, Jun. 7, 1956, at 11. 345. James Ralph, Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, in ORGANIZING BLACK AMERICA: ENCYCLOPEDIA AFRICAN AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 300, 301 (Nina Mjagkij ed., 2001); Paul McCardell, Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., BALT. SUN (Feb. 9, 2007), http://www.balti moresun.com/features/bal-blackhistory-mitchell-story.html. 346. McCardell, supra note 345. 347. Id. 348. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 246 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Juanita Jackson.349 He worked for the National Full Employment and Practices Commission beginning in 1941.350 He went to serve as the NAACP Labor Secretary.351 In that capacity, he led the NAACP’s struggle for passage of the civil rights laws and adoption of constructive national policies for the protection of the civil rights of African Americans by the executive branch.352 His influence in the Senate led to him being known as the 101st Senator.353 In the 1950s, he directed the NAACP’s Washington Bureau.354 He worked closely with the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, a combination of sixty non-partisan organizations, and became its legislative chairman in 1963.355 He donated the Southern Tenant Farmers Union’s papers of the organization to the University of North Carolina in the 1970s.356 He also supported the documentary film Our Land Too: The Legacy of the STFU. 357 Until his death, he lectured at colleges and universities.358 President Carter awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 1980.359 A courthouse in Baltimore was named after him in 1985.360 Edward Dixon was born on May 23, 1931, in Dayton, Ohio.361 He graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1949 and the Central State University in 1954.362 He was employed as a deputy sheriff for Montgomery County, Ohio, where he proudly served for forty-two years.363 He served for over thirty years as vice president of the Dayton NAACP.364 He was awarded the President’s Award and the Miley O. Williamson Award of 349. Id. 350. Id. 351. Id. 352. See id. 353. Id. 354. Ralph, supra note 345, at 301. 355. Id. 356. Id. 357. Id. at 64546. 358. Id. at 646. 359. McCardell, supra note 345. 360. Id. 361. Edward T. (Dodo) Dixon, DAYTON DAILY NEWS (May 5, 2015), http://www.legacy.c om/obituaries/dayton/obituary.aspx?pid=174784028. 362. Lawrence Budd, Former Vice President of Dayton NAACP Mourned; Dixon One of First Blacks to Work in Sheriff’s Office, DAYTON DAILY NEWS, May 6, 2015, at B4. 363. Id. 364. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 247 Distinction from the Dayton Unit NAACP awards.365 He passed away May 1, 2015.366 James Arthur Weiseger is known for breaking records in track and field.367 Weiseger held records in the 880 event, in which led to his selection as the first black team captain of a sport at his university.368 As he attended the University of Minnesota, he became a member of Omega Psi Phi’s Xi chapter and that chapter’s Keeper of Records and Seal and Basileus.369 Upon his graduation with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Weiseger was appointed as the eighth Grand Keeper of Records and Seal following Mazyck and proved himself to be a great asset for improving the fraternity’s accounting and financial records.370 At the Norfolk Conference on May 19, 1934, Weiseger represented the Supreme Council, and on May 17 and 18, 1935, he also attended the conference in Lynchburg, Virginia.371 He truly improved Omega Psi Phi through expansion by serving as Grand Keeper from 1933 to 1936 and 1946 to 1948.372 In fact, he received Omega Psi Phi Fraternity’s Man of the Year Award in 1946 for his hard work and dedication.373 Joseph T. Brooks was the second Vice Grand Basileus, serving in 1946, and the sixteenth First Vice Grand Basileus, serving in 1955.374 He also served as a district representative for Alabama from 1940 to 1965.375 365. Awards and Honors: Past Recipients of Dayton Unit NAACP Awards, NAACP, http:// www.naacpdayton.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=26&Itemid=126 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 366. Budd, supra note 362. 367. Xi History, UNIV. MINN. OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC., http://www.xiques1921 .com/#!history/c19ta (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 368. Id. 369. Id. 370. Id. 371. Vernon E. Johnson, Third District History: Origins of the Current Third District, OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC. 3RD DIST., http://www.3rddistrictques.org/content.aspx? page_id=22&club_id=405976&module_id=62421 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 372. Xi History, supra note 367. 373. GILL, supra note 19, at 69. 374. History of the Mighty Mu Omega, MIGHTY MU OMEGA CHAPTER OF OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC., http://www.muomegaques.com/history1.html (last visited Oct. 31, 2015). 375. Past DRs, OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC. 7TH DIST., http://www.oppf7d.com/p ast-drs (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 248 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Robert Weaver is often known for being the first African American to serve on a presidential cabinet.376 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to be the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.377 Weaver was born on December 29, 1907, in Washington, D.C.378 Following in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather—the first black to graduate from Harvard with a degree in dentistry379—Weaver attended Harvard University where he earned three degrees: his bachelor of science degree, received cum laude in 1929; his master of arts degree earned in 1931; and his doctorate in economics earned in 1934.380 During his studies, he became a member of Omega Psi Phi.381 As both an academic and economist, Dr. Weaver advised President Roosevelt on New Deal federal programs.382 During World War II, Dr. Weaver focused on building the most expansive program in United States history by building up American industrial capabilities to defeat Germany and Japan.383 Sidney Hillman, head of Labor Division of the National Defense Advisory Commission, placed Dr. Weaver in charge of a Labor Division Commission on Race Relations during the summer of 1940.384 Dr. Weaver encouraged President Roosevelt toward equal rights for blacks, especially in regards to more jobs and better education opportunities.385 In order for the United States to prosper during the war and in the future, Dr. Weaver saw the need for equal rights to result in “full utilization of Negro labor.”386 As a civil rights advocate and national chairman of the NAACP, Dr. Weaver also advised President Kennedy.387 He returned to federal service 376. James Barron, Robert C. Weaver, 89, First Black Cabinet Member, Dies, N.Y. TIMES, Jul. 19, 1997, at L50. 377. Id. 378. Id. 379. Id. 380. Walter B. Hill, Jr., Finding Place for the Negro: Robert C. Weaver and the Groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement, PROLOGUE MAG. (Spring 2005), http://www.archives.gov/pu blications/prologue/2005/spring/weaver.html. 381. Robert Clifton Weaver, Ph.D.-Harvard University, OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC. MIGHTY SECOND DIST., http://www.opp2d.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=26785 3&module_id=42952 (last visited Nov. 14, 2015). 382. Robert Weaver Biography, BIOGRAPHY.COM, http://www.biography.com/people/ro bert-weaver-9525780 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 383. Hill, supra note 380. 384. Id. 385. Barron, supra note 376. 386. Hill, supra note 380. 387. Barron, supra note 376. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 249 in 1961 when President Kennedy appointed him to head the Housing and Home Finance Agency.388 In addition, Dr. Weaver was one of the original directors of the Municipal Assistance Corporation that helped rescue New York City from financial crises during the 1970s.389 Following his work with the government, Dr. Weaver became president of the Bernard Baruch College and professor of urban affairs at New York’s Hunter College.390 Unfortunately, Dr. Weaver passed on at the age of eighty-nine in New York, New York, on July 17, 1997.391 E.A. Bolling was a district representative of Omega Psi Phi known for helping expand the number of chapters in the Fourth District, consisting of Ohio and West Virginia, in 1946.392 From 1943 to 1948, E.A. Bolling was a principal correspondent from the Army Specialized Training Program established during World War II.393 In addition, he led the district’s adoption of the Social Action Program.394 Theodore Poston was born on July 4, 1906, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.395 Unfortunately, his mother passed away when he was only ten years old.396 Still an ambitious child, Poston began writing at fifteen for his family’s newspaper, Hopkinsville Contender. 397 He later graduated from Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College with a degree in journalism in 1928.398 To continue his writing career, Poston moved to New York and worked for his brother Ulysses on the newspaper New York Contender. 399 His writing career continued as he wrote the column “Harlem Shadows” for the Pittsburgh Courier in 1931, and later became the 388. Hill, supra note 380. 389. Barron, supra note 376. 390. Hill, supra note 380. 391. Barron, supra note 376. 392. From Where We Have Come: The Fourth District (1922–1949), OMEGA PSI PHI 4TH DIST. OHIO & W. VA. (Feb. 2, 2014), http://www.omega4thdistrict.org/4thDistrictJourney E-2.pdf. 393. Eric H. Doss, A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of African Americans in the Military, at 9 (Robert E. Lester ed., 2006), http://cisupa.proquest.com/ksc_assets/catalog/102181. pdf. 394. From Where We Have Come: The Fourth District (1922–1949), supra note 392. 395. Mackenzie Lanum, Poston, Ted (1906–1974), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackp ast.org/aah/poston-ted-1906-1974 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 396. Id. 397. Id. 398. Ted Poston, REPORTING C.R. 1941-1973, http://reportingcivilrights.loa.org/autho rs/bio.jsp?authorId=63 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 399. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM

250 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 city editor for Amsterdam News in 1935.400 After being fired for leading a strike against the newspaper guild, he joined the staff of the Federal Writers’ Project and wrote freelance articles for the New York Post in 1936.401 Notably, Poston was one of the few African American reporters hired full-time.402 In addition, he served as a member of the “Black Cabinet,” an informal African American group of policy advisors to President Franklin Roosevelt403 and as head of Negro News Desk in the Office of War Information aimed at integrating the defense industry workforce.404 Poston continued to write about civil rights, social justice, and racial discrimination.405 Unfortunately, Poston died in New York City on January 11, 1974, at the age of sixtyseven.406 However, his book of short stories, The Dark Side of Hopkinsville, was published posthumously in 1991.407 Brailsford Brazeal was born in 1905.408 In 1927, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College with honors.409 He went on to receive his master’s degree in 1928.410 He also earned his doctorate in economics in 1942 from Columbia University.411 Brazeal became the first official academic dean and a professor of economics at Morehouse.412 He was dean when then-fifteen-yearold Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. entered Morehouse College, and Brazeal became his mentor.413 Today, there is a scholarship award in Brazeal’s name for nominated students at Morehouse College who demonstrate honesty, integrity, moral character, and community involvement.414 Brazeal also served as president of the 400. Id. 401. Id. 402. Lanum, supra note 395; Ted Poston, supra note 398. 403. Ted Poston, supra note 398. 404. Lanum, supra note 395. 405. Id.; Ted Poston, supra note 398. 406. Lanum, supra note 395; Ted Poston, supra note 398. 407. Ted Poston, supra note 398. 408. 23 March 1948: Brailsford R. Brazeal to Charles E. Batten, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. & GLOBAL FREEDOM STRUGGLE, http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/doc umentsentry/doc_480323000 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015) [hereinafter Brailsford R. Brazeal]. 409. Id. 410. Id. 411. Id. 412. 2014 B.R. Brazeal Award Contest, MOREHOUSE COLL. ALUMNI ASS’N (Mar. 4, 2014), http://www.morehousecollegealumni.com/2014/03/04/2014-b-r-brazeal-award-co ntest; see also Brailsford R. Brazeal, supra note 408. 413. 2014 B.R. Brazeal Award Contest, supra note 412. 414. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 251 Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and the National Association of Collegiate Deans and Registrars.415 He was very active and involved in many political, economic, and social communities, such as: the Advisory Council of Academic Freedom Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Academy of Political Science, American Economic Association, Atlanta’s Friendship Baptist Church, the Board of Directors of Atlanta’s Mutual Federal Savings & Loan Association of Atlanta, and the Board of Southern Regional Council, Delta Sigma Rho, the NAACP, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Sigma Pi Phi, and the Southern Sociological Society.416 In 1981, Brazeal passed away, leaving behind a series of accomplishments.417 Lawrence Oxley attended public schools in Boston and Cambridge and received special tutoring from Harvard University instructors.418 During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army and earned the rank of lieutenant.419 After working in various community service positions in varying states, Oxley was appointed as director of the new Division of Work Among Negroes in North Carolina in 1925.420 This position was a branch of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare and soon became a model for other states.421 In 1934, Oxley joined the U.S. Department of Labor.422 In 1937, Oxley published “Government Employment and Negro Youth,” an article that encouraged the use of U.S. Employment Services opportunities.423 He continued to serve with the federal government until 1957.424 He was the director of the North Carolina State Board of Public Welfare–Negro Division,425 was responsible for a Rockefeller study on African American child 415. Brailsford R. Brazeal, supra note 408. 416. Id. 417. Id. 418. John L. Bell, Jr., Oxley, Lawrence Augustus, NCPEDIA (Jan. 1, 1991), http://ncpedi a.org/biography/oxley-lawrence-augustus. 419. Id. 420. African American Pioneers: Lawrence Augusta Oxley, BPD UPDATE ONLINE (Fall 2003), http://bpdupdateonline.bizland.com/fall2003/id63.html. 421. Id. 422. Id. 423. See Lawrence A. Oxley, PROJECT GUTENBERG SELF-PUB. PRESS, http://self.gutenber g.org/articles/lawrence_a._oxley (last visited Nov. 7, 2015). 424. Id. 425. Bell, supra note 418. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 252 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 life, and led the relief program in North Carolina.426 He would go on to be Omega Psi Phi’s fourteenth Grand Basileus.427 While there is little information available on the other members of the National Action Committee, it is known that William Tyson served as Basileus of the Chi Rho Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.428 Julius Thomas was a charter member of the first chapter of Omega Psi Phi in Ohio, Zeta Omega.429 C.R. Alexander had been active in Omega Psi Phi in Baltimore, Maryland.430 III. OMEGA MEN AND CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM FROM THE 1940S TO 1960S On February 26, 1946, a white mob gathered around the Maury County Courthouse, while African American citizens and military veterans gathered a block south along the segregated business section known as the “Mink Slide.”431 When four highway patrolmen were sent to the Mink Slide, shots were fired that wounded all four.432 The next day, a sweep of the Mink Slide District resulted in the arrest of over one hundred African Americans—who were all were denied bail and legal counsel.433 The NAACP, through Thurgood Marshall, hired Z. Alexander Looby and Maurice Weaver to represent twenty-five African Americans arrested in connection with the shootings.434 Looby and his legal defense team ultimately achieved the unthinkable— the acquittal of twenty-three defendants by an all-white jury.435 The other two men were found guilty.436 426. Id. 427. See Grand Officers from Beta Phi, BETA PHI CHAPTER OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, INC., http://starstuddedbetaphi.com/chap_accomps.htm (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 428. 2nd District Graduate Chapters, ORACLE, Spring 2009, at 66. 429. Fourth District History, OMEGA PSI PHI 4TH DIST. OHIO, http://www.omega4thdistr ict.org/new_page_9.htm (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 430. District Representatives, ORACLE, July 1937, xvi, xvii. 431. Carrol Van West, Columbia Race Riot, 1946, TENN. ENCYCLOPEDIA HIST. & CULTURE (Dec. 25, 2009), https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=296. 432. Id. 433. Id. 434. Id. 435. Charles K. Grant, From the President: On Moving Forward, NASHVILLE BAR J., Nov. 2013, at 2. 436. Van West, supra note 431. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 253 On October 10, 1947, Grant Reynolds,437 along with Phi Sigma Fraternity member A. Phillip Randolph, organized the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training.438 Reynolds became a World War II chaplain for the U.S. Army in 1941.439 However, he resigned in early 1944 because of the prevalent racism throughout the military.440 The Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training ultimately secured President Truman Executive Order 9981 signed on July 26, 1948.441 On that date, Truman spoke of equality for all persons in the armed forces and outlined ten legislative objectives for strengthening constitutional rights of minorities.442 During the same period, Lincoln J. Ragsdale443 was integrating the Army Air Corps.444 Ragsdale graduated from 437. Grant Reynolds, best known for being a leader for ending segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces, was born on July 29, 1908, to Frank Reynolds and Emma Flowers in Key West, Florida. Catherine Roth, Reynolds, Grant (1908–2004), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www. blackpast.org/aah/reynolds-grant-1908-2004 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). Reynolds graduated from the Eden Theological Seminary in Webster Groves, Missouri in 1938, making him the first African American to receive a bachelor of divinity degree. Id. He became pastor at Mount Zion Congregational Temple in Cleveland, Ohio. Id. He later became ordained as a minister in 1939, and served as president of the local branch of the NAACP. Id. Aside from advocating for civil rights within the military, Reynolds went to Columbia Law School. Id. He was also appointed New York State Commissioner of Correction in 1944. Id. Reynolds became a practicing attorney in 1951 and the president of the local branch of the NAACP in 1954 while residing in White Plains, New York. Id. Despite his successes, Reynolds lost when he ran for Harlem’s Twenty-Second District in Congress and for candidacy for president in 1964 against Barry Goldwater. Id. As a Republican with defeat, Reynolds encouraged his party to constantly advocate civil rights and reject ideas of the far right. Joshua D. Farrington, Forgotten Republicans: African Americans and the Party of Lincoln, 1948–1972, at 5 (2011) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, Lexington). Jackie Robinson, a good friend of Reynolds, stayed by his side in these endeavors. Id. at 3. Unfortunately, Reynolds passed away on August 30, 2004, at the age of ninety-six after a heart attack. Roth, supra. His efforts as a civil rights activist will never be forgotten. 438. Roth, supra note 437. 439. Id. 440. Id. 441. Id. 442. Harry S. Truman, Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights (Feb. 2, 1948) (transcript available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13006). 443. Lincoln J. Ragsdale was a civil rights advocate who served as one of 2.5 million black soldiers of World War II and one of the first African Americans to serve as a pilot and fly plane during WWII. Matthew C. Whitaker, Ragsdale, Lincoln J., Sr. (1926–1995), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/ragsdale-sr-lincoln-j-1926-1995 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). Ragsdale trained as a pilot and graduated from the Tuskegee Flying School in Alabama. Id. He also graduated from Arizona State University and Union Graduate School in Cincinnati with a doctorate in business administration. Lincoln J. Ragsdale, 69, A Pilot Who Broke Many Color Barriers, N.Y. TIMES (June 16, 1995), http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/16/obituaries/lincoln-j-ragsdale-69-a-pilot-who-broke- 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 254 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Tuskegee flying school in Alabama.445 Although he was unable to fly a military combat mission, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps.446 He encountered severe racism within the military and went on to become very active in securing civil rights.447 On December 15, 1947, the Virginia Civil Rights Organization held a “Convention of Delegates” at the Leigh Street Methodist Episcopal. Church in Richmond, Virginia.448 The all-day session included devising a number of resolutions—which were later adopted by the Virginia Rights Organization—and a “Things You Can Do” discussion.449 The resolutions were implemented in order to promote full and equal shares in the rights, privileges, and immunities for all American citizens guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.450 Leading the Convention and cause were Grand Basileus Dr. Harry T. Penn, Chairman Attorney many-color-barriers.html [hereinafter Lincoln J. Ragsdale]. He went on to become a leader of the NAACP Arizona chapter, the Phoenix Urban League, and the Great Phoenix Council for Civic Unity. Whitaker, supra. He served on more than a dozen boards in his efforts to end racism in his Phoenix home. Lincoln J. Ragsdale, supra. Ragsdale desegregated the Encanto District High Schools—Phoenix’s most affluent and segregated neighborhood—before the Brown v. Board of Education case. Whitaker, supra. He also worked to desegregate major corporations like Motorola, General Electric, and Sperry Rand. Id. He fought for diversity in both the public and private sectors. Id. He also advocated for the creation of a Martin Luther King holiday and was successful when Arizona became the first state to implement the holiday after a popular vote in November 1992. Id. At the age of sixty-nine, Ragsdale passed away from colon cancer. Lincoln J. Ragsdale, supra. However, he will never be forgotten for his achievements for breaking many color barriers. 444. Lincoln J. Ragsdale, supra note 443. 445. Whitaker, supra note 443. 446. Lincoln J. Ragsdale, supra note 443. 447. Whitaker, supra note 443. 448. Thomas H. Henderson, The Virginia Civil Rights Organization, ORACLE, March 1948, at 28. 449. Id. In December 1947, Oliver W. Hill was among the primary organizers of the Virginia Civil Rights Organization, a group formed to push for changes in American civil rights law through legislative and executive channels instead of the through the courts. WALLENSTEIN, BLUE LAWS AND BLACK CODE: CONFLICTS, COURTS, AND CHANGE IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY VIRGINIA 99 (2004). Some of the main concerns of the group included segregation on public transportation and in instances of public assembly. Id. The organization also took action against segregation in higher education. Id. at 100. In addition, the group’s organizers advocated for bills that would establish a state commission on race relations in Virginia. Id. However, the push for such legislation proved ineffective as Virginia continued to support segregation. Id. at 101. Increasingly, black Virginians were forced to rely on the federal courts and changes in legislation in Washington, D.C., as the means for achieving equality in their state. Id. 450. WALLENSTEIN, supra note 449, at 99–101. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 255 Oliver W. Hill, Vice-Chairman Dr. T.H. Henderson, and Treasurer J Rupert Picott, Treasurer.451 In 1949, Grand Basileus Dr. H.T. 451. Henderson, supra note 448, at 27–28. Harry T. Penn was both a dentist and proprietor of drug stores. Chapter History, GAMMA ALPHA CHAPTER, http://gamma-alpha.org/chapter-history/ (last visited Nov. 10, 2015). He served as both the Grand Basileus and national president of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity over his lifetime. Id.; Roanoke Links Cite Five Citizens During Celebration of “Link Week,” PITTSBURGH COURIER, Feb. 7, 1959, at 4. As the Grand Basileus, Dr. Penn welcomed all of the brothers personally into the Fraternity when the Fourth District met in West Virginia for the business session in the 1940s. Fourth District Meets in West Virginia, ORACLE, Sept. 1948, at 8. He also served as Chapter Basileus when the last meeting of the Virginia Omega State Conference was hosted by the Gamma Alpha Chapter on May 9–10, 1941, at Roanoke, Virginia. Vernon E. Johnson, Third District History, KAPPA IOTA CHAPTER, http://www.ques-kii.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=131367&module_i d=68025 (last visited Nov. 10, 2015). Overall, he served as a representative for the Gamma Alpha Chapter for five years, then was consecutively elected Grand Basileus during the 34th and 35th Grand Conclaves. Chapter History, supra. Oliver W. Hill is often known for being an African American attorney and civil rights advocate. Larissa Smith Fergeson, Oliver W. Hill (1907–2007), ENCYCLOPEDIA VA., http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hill_Oliver_W_1907-2007 (last visited Nov. 10, 2015). He was born in 1907 in Richmond, Virginia. Id. He earned his law degree from Howard University in 1933, where he met his good friend and later Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Id. Hill was second in his graduating class behind Marshall. Oliver W. Hill (1907–1974), PBS, http://www.pbs.org/beyondbrown/history/oliverhill.html (last visited Nov. 10, 2015). Together, they became attorneys for the NAACP. Fergeson, supra. Hill began working with the separate-but-equal framework of Plessy v. Ferguson and filed more lawsuits challenging segregation than any other attorney in the South. Oliver W. Hill, Sr. Memorial Service, HOWARD U., http://www.law.howard.edu/1040 (last visited Nov. 10, 2015); Fergeson, supra. In fact, his team had seventy-five cases pending at once. Oliver W. Hill (1907–1974), supra. Hill was a leading attorney in Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward, which was later absorbed into the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Fergeson, supra. In 1948, he also became the first African American on the city council of Richmond, Virginia. Id. Hill’s accomplishments can truly be seen by the number of awards that he received, including: Lawyer of the Year Award from the National Bar Association in 1959, the Simple Justice Award from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in 1986, the American Bar Association Justice Thurgood Marshall Award in 1993, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999, the American Bar Association Medal for 2000, and the Harvard Medal of Freedom, an award he received with the other Brown attorneys. Oliver W. Hill (1907–1974), supra. He officially retired in 1998 and passed on in 2007 after living a long, successful life. Fergeson, supra. J. Rupert Picott is best known for being both an educator and civil rights advocate. Chris Osher, Pioneer Black Virginia Educator Dies, DAILY PRESS, Oct. 13, 1989, http://articles.dailypress.com/1989-10-13/news/8910130201_1_black-teachers-black-histo ry-month-history-week. Picott graduated from Virginia Union University with his bachelor’s degree, from Temple University with his master’s degree, and from Harvard University with his doctorate. Id. Picott constantly fought for equal pay between black and white teachers. J. Rupert Picott Dies; Teacher Advocate, 77, N.Y. TIMES (Oct. 13, 1989), http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/13/obituaries/j-rupert-picott-dies-teacher-advocate-77 .html. Because of his advocacy, Picott was fired as principal of a Newport News Elementary School during the 1940s. Osher, supra. He later became executive secretary of the Virginia Teachers Association for twenty-two years, a position that enabled him to continue fighting for equal pay. Id. In addition, Picott became the vice president of the National Education Association and executive director of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. J. Rupert Picott Dies; Teacher Advocate, 77, supra. During the 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 256 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Penn announced in a pre-Conclave address that Omega Psi Phi would pledged their support to the American Council on Human Rights, an organization composed of seven fraternities with the goal to secure human and civil rights to all American citizens.452 Also in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Harold R. Boulware, Sr. litigated a number of race cases.453 In 1947, he litigated Rice v. Elmore, 454 which arose when the Democratic Party in South Carolina refused to allow George Elmore, an African American, to vote in the primary elections.455 The District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina held that African Americans were entitled to vote in primary elections and enjoined defendants from excluding African Americans from the voting process.456 On appeal, the two pertinent issues were whether the decree giving African Americans the right to vote in the South Carolina Democratic primary elections was valid and whether the corresponding injunction was binding.457 The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that citizens had a fundamental right to 1960s, Picott founded and led the Independent Voters League in Virginia, a black political organization. Osher, supra. “He also served on the Virginia State Advisory Committee on Civil Rights.” Id. Picott was one of the advocates for Black History month. J. Rupert Picott Dies; Teacher Advocate, 77, supra. At the age of seventy-seven, Picott died of prostate cancer in 1989. Id. However, his legacy and advocacy for equality in education will never be forgotten. 452. Harry T. Penn, Fraternity Leadership: A Pre-Conclave Message from the Grant Basileus, ORACLE, Dec. 1949, at 3. 453. Harold R. Boulware, Lawyer; Was A Pioneer in Civil Rights, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 30, 1983, at 26 [hereinafter Harold R. Boulware]. 454. Rice v. Elmore (Rice II), 165 F.2d 387, 388 (4th Cir. 1947). Harold R. Boulware, Sr. was a lawyer and civil rights leader who played a key role in the 1954 landmark decision made in Brown v. Board of Education. Harold R. Boulware, supra note 453. In the 1940s, Boulware became a lawyer with a firm in Columbia, South Carolina. Id. He was later appointed associate judge in the City Municipal Court, which made him the first African American in such a position in Columbia. Id. In the 1950s, he became the lawyer for the South Carolina branch of the NAACP. Id. One of his most important cases was one in which he defended a group of black parents who brought a discrimination lawsuit against the Clarendon County Board of Education. Id. The particular case sought to enroll African American students in schools that were segregated at the time. Id. Boulware’s case ultimately reached the Supreme Court where it became one of several similar cases that were combined into what eventually became Brown v. Board of Education. Id. The opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education determined that racial segregation would end in American schools. Id. Boulware died in January of 1983 after battling cancer. Id. Boulware was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity and was initiated into the fraternity’s Gamma Omicron chapter in 1947. CARL A. BLUNT ET AL., DISTINGUISHED OMEGAS IN CIVIL RIGHTS 6 (2008). 455. Elmore v. Rice (Rice I), 72 F. Supp. 516, 517 (E.D.S.C. 1947). 456. Id. at 528. 457. Rice II, 165 F.2d at 388. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 257 participate in the political process and affirmed the right of African Americans to vote in the South Carolina primaries.458 Two years later, the Baskin v. Brown case emerged similarly.459 Resulting from the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Rice II, the South Carolina Democratic Party formed political clubs to control the primaries.460 These clubs refused to admit African American applicants.461 The District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina subsequently granted an injunction against the South Carolina Democratic Party.462 The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction by reasoning that political primaries were part of the election process and, therefore, subject to constitutional mandates prohibiting racial discrimination.463 Then in 1955, Boulware litigated Briggs v. Elliott. 464 There, the plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief on the grounds that African American schools had unequal facilities.465 They asserted that this inequality violated the Fourteenth Amendment.466 The District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina held that while the specific schools at issue had unequal facilities, racial segregation in schools did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.467 The district court ordered defendants to provide a status report within six months documenting improvement in the schools.468 Plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which vacated the judgment and ordered the district court to reissue a new holding after reviewing the status report.469 After considering the status report, the district court held that racial segregation in schools did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, but ordered that African American schools remain equal to other educational facilities.470 Three years later, after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the district court reversed its holding and declared that 458. Id. at 389. 459. Brown v. Baskin (Baskin I), 80 F. Supp. 1017, 1018 (E.D.S.C. 1948). 460. Id. at 1019. 461. Id. 462. Id. at 1021. 463. Baskin v. Brown (Baskin II), 174 F.2d 391, 394 (4th Cir. 1949). 464. Briggs v. Elliott (Briggs III),132 F. Supp. 776, 777 (E.D.S.C. 1955). 465. Id. 466. Id. at 778. 467. Id. at 776. 468. Id. at 778. 469. Briggs v. Elliott (Briggs I), 342 U.S. 350, 351 (1952). 470. Briggs v. Elliott (Briggs II), 103 F. Supp. 920, 922 (E.D.S.C. 1952). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 258 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 racial segregation in schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment.471 During the 1950s, Benjamin Hooks participated in the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, which included a roundtable discussion days before the Brown v. Board of Education decision was handed down to discuss litigation strategies with Thurgood Marshall.472 He also joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.473 Decades after his initial foray into civil rights advocacy in 1976, the NAACP elected Hooks as executive director, a position he held until 1992.474 In 2007, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush.475 He was also inducted into the National Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site.476 Hayzel B. Daniels was another Omega Psi Phi member who was a fierce advocate for school integration.477 In 1952, he litigated Phillips v. Phoenix Union High School District.478 At the time, the 471. Briggs III, 132 F. Supp. 776, 776 (E.D.S.C. 1955). 472. Honoring the Life and Achievements of Rev. Benjamin Lawson Books, 111th Cong., 156 CONG. REC. H2659 (daily ed. Apr. 20, 2010). Benjamin L. Hooks was born in Memphis, Tennessee, as the fifth of seven children to Robert B. and Bessie Hooks. Id. The family had a middle-class upbringing as a result of his father’s photography studio. Steven A. Holmes, Benjamin L. Hooks, Leader of N.A.A.C.P. for 15 Eventful Years, is Dead at 85, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 16, 2010, at A19. He attended LeMoyneOwen College in Memphis, where he studied pre-law from 1941 to 1943. 156 CONG. REC. at H2659. He later graduated from Howard University and joined the U.S. Army. Id. at H2660. Upon returning from the Army, Hooks attended DePaul University School of Law because no law school in Tennessee would admit him. Id. He also became an ordained minister and preached at the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis. Id. Hooks passed away on April 15, 2010, at the age of eighty-five from heart failure. Holmes, supra. 473. BENJAMIN L. HOOKS & JERRY GUESS, THE MARCH FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: THE BENJAMIN HOOKS STORY 68 (2003). 474. Holmes, supra note 472. 475. Id. 476. 156 CONG. REC at H2664. 477. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 10. Hayzel B. Daniels was a lawyer, politician, major NAACP supporter, and activist in the Civil Rights Movement. See BLACK AMERICA: A STATE-BY-STATE HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, VOLUME 1: AM, at 4950 (Alton Hornsby, Jr. ed., 2011). Daniels was the first African American to pass the Arizona State Bar after completing his service in World War II and becoming the first African American to graduate from the University of Arizona Law School. Id. at 49. In 1950, he became one of the first African Americans, along with Carl Sims, to be elected to the Arizona State legislature. Id. at 50. Daniels later became the first African American judge in Arizona when he was appointed Phoenix City Judge in 1965. Id. Daniels passed away in 1992. Id. He was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity and was initiated in 1947 into the Fraternity’s Phi Iota chapter. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 10. 478. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 259 Carver High School was the only legally segregated high school in Arizona.479 With the support of the NAACP, Daniels served as pro bono counsel.480 In an initial ruling, the Superior Court of Arizona provided that there was no legal authority for segregation at Carver High School and that “a half century of intolerance is enough.”481 Daniels and Finn went on to obtain a broader ruling in 1953 with Heard v. Davis, a case against the Wilson Elementary School District, which established that school segregation was an unconstitutional deprivation of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.482 Many believe that this ruling was pivotal to the development of Brown v. Board of Education because the Supreme Court requested a copy of Judge Bernstein’s opinion before issuing its landmark ruling in 1954.483 While these men were litigating cases, individuals like Jesse Champion, Sr. fought for African American civil rights on a different front.484 During the 1950s and 1960s, Champion became a familiar voice on Birmingham radio as one of the first African American news announcers in the city.485 Champion proved controversial at the time on radio in the Deep South.486 He broadcast against racial segregation and developed a genius strategy that encouraged civic participation and activism over the radio.487 He became a key source of information concerning civil rights events and helped pave the way for greater equality over time.488 Champion was ultimately forced to leave the city by Birmingham’s infamous Sheriff Bull Connor as a result of his actions.489 479. Complaint at 7, Phillips v. Phoenix Union High Schools, No. 72909, (Ariz. Super. Ct. Feb. 9, 1953). 480. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 10. 481. Phillips v. Phoenix Union High Schools, No. 72909, slip op. at 2 (Ariz. Super. Ct. Feb. 9, 1953). 482. Heard v. Davis, No. 77497, slip op. at 3, 5 (Ariz. Super. Ct. May 5, 1954). 483. BLACK AMERICA: A STATE-BY-STATE HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, supra note 477, at 50. 484. BLUNT, supra note 455, at 9. 485. Julian Williams, Black Radio and Civil Rights: Birmingham, 1956–1963, 12 J. RADIO STUD. 47, 53 (2005). 486. See id. at 5556. 487. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 9. 488. Id. 489. See Williams, supra note 485, at 56. Jesse Champion, Sr. was a radio disc jockey, teacher, and jazz artist that was active in the Civil Rights Movement. See id. at 53. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Champion 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 260 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Aaron Henry490 was another Omega Psi Phi member who used his personal business ventures to fight for civil rights.491 After graduating from the pharmacy school at Xavier University, Henry returned to his hometown of Coahoma, Mississippi, and, with his wife Noelle Henry, opened the only black-owned drug store in the area, Fourth Street Drug Store.492 Many civil right activists gathered there.493 During that time, Henry organized a boycott of stores in the Clarksdale area that refused to promote integration.494 He and seven others were arrested for conspiring to withhold trade, but the charges were reversed.495 Later, Henry was charged with sexual harassment, but that charge was also reversed.496 Henry’s boycott remained active—even after his pharmacy’s windows were broken and his house was firebombed— until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.497 Henry organized the local branch of the NAACP in Mississippi and then was elected graduated from Alabama A&M University in the late 1940s. Jesse Champion, Sr. 1927–2007, BIRMINGHAM PUB. LIBR. DIGITAL COLLECTIONS: ARCHIVES (Nov. 9, 2007), http://cdm160 44.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15099coll5/id/685. After completing college, Champion began teaching in the Gadsden School System as well as at a school in Birmingham. Id. After fleeing Birmingham, Champion relocated to the Midwest. Williams, supra note 485, at 56. He then entered graduate school at Notre Dame University and the University of Michigan. Jesse Champion Sr., 1927–2007, supra. He would return to Birmingham in 1970 and resume his role as a regular figure on radio. Id. Champion died in 2007. Id. He was survived by three children, nine grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. Id. He was a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and was initiated into their Nu Epsilon chapter in 1948. Id. 490. Aaron Henry, civil rights activist, was born on July 2, 1922, to sharecroppers Ed and Mattie Henry in Coahoma County, Mississippi. AARON HENRY & CONSTANCE CURRY, AARON HENRY THE FIRE EVER BURNING xiix (2000). During this time of segregation, Henry worked in the cotton fields on plantations, but later faced more serious segregation after being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. See id. at 58. After serving in World War II as a staff sergeant in the Pacific Theater, he attended the Pharmacy School at Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and graduated in 1950. See id. at 65. Henry served in the Mississippi State House of Representatives from 1982 until 1996. Constance Curry, Aaron Henry: A Civil Rights Leader of the 20th Century, MISSISSIPPI HIST. NOW, http://mshist orynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/363/aaron-henry-a-civil-rights-leader-of-the-20th-centu ry (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). However, his retirement was cut short as he suffered from a stroke in 1996 and died on May 19, 1997, in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Id.; see also Robert M. Thomas, Jr., Aaron Henry, Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 74, N.Y. TIMES (May 21, 1997), http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/21/us/aaron-henry-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-74.html. His memory and work for African American voters will never be forgotten. 491. HENRY & CURRY, supra note 490, at 69. 492. Id. at 68. 493. See id. at 69. 494. Id. at 112. 495. Id. at 113. 496. Id. at 128. 497. See id. at 142. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 261 president in 1959.498 He also helped pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965 by establishing the statewide Council of Federated Organizations and hosting a “freedom vote,” a mock election that taught African American voters how to participate in the actual U.S. elections.499 Throughout the 1950s, Omega men were engaged in the work of eliminating racial discrimination, and the Conclaves were dominated by support for social activism.500 George L. Vaughn and Francis Morse Dent litigated Shelley v. Kraemer and McGhee v. Sipes, respectively, which eliminated the enforcement of racial restrictive covenants on real property in courts.501 The notion to challenge 498. Curry, supra note 490. 499. Id. 500. GILL, supra note 19, at 53. 501. Id.; Kraemer v. Shelley, 355 Mo. 814 (1946); Sipes v. McGhee, 316 Mich. 314 (1947). George L. Vaughn was born in Kentucky in 1885 to two former slaves. Herbert G. Ruffin II, Vaughn, George L. (1885–1950), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/vaugh an-george-l-1885-1950 (last visited Nov. 23, 2015). After attending elementary and high school in Kentucky, Vaughn went on to attend Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. Id. He furthered his education at Walden University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he earned his law degree. Id. After serving as a first lieutenant during World War I, Vaughn relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, where he began practicing law. Id. In 1919, he became a co-founder of the Citizen Liberty League, an organization that sought to get more African Americans elected into public office. Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, U. KY. LIBR., http://nkaa.uky.edu/record.php?note_id=1825 (last visited Nov. 23, 2015). In 1936, Vaughn was appointed to serve as a St. Louis justice of the peace. Id. Vaughn is most wellknown for his role in the Supreme Court case Kraemer v. Shelley. Id. Vaughn was initiated into the Upsilon Omega chapter of Omega Psi Phi. Brief History of the Eighth District, 8TH DISTRICT OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY, http://omegapsiphi8d.org/district-history (last visited Nov. 23, 2015). He also served as the chapter’s 11th Grand Basileus from 192526. Id. During his time in the role, he approved the charter for the creation of nineteen Omega chapters. Id. Vaughn passed away in St. Louis in 1950. Ruffin, supra. Francis Morse Dent was born on February 19, 1894, in Rome, Georgia. Dent, Francis Morse, 1894–1964, SOC. NETWORKS & ARCHIVAL CONTEXT, http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu /ark:/99166/w6d81nb1 (last visited Nov. 23, 2015). His parents, Thomas Marshall Dent and Ella M. Dent, were both college educated. Id. His father graduated from Atlanta University in 1880 and went on to attend Howard University Law School. Id. His mother was a graduate of Spelman College. Id. Dent attended Amherst College and graduated in 1916. Id. After leaving the service in World War I in 1919, he enrolled in Detroit Law School. Id. He graduated in 1923 and was admitted to the Michigan Bar. Id. He began his professional career in Detroit as a lawyer and community leader. Francis M. Dent Collection, WRIGHT ARCHIVES, http://thewright.org/archives/francis-m-dent-collection (last visited Nov. 23, 2015). He is most well-known for his role in the case McGhee v. Sipes, which was used to overthrow restrictive covenants. Id. Dent was an active member of Omega Psi Phi, both locally and nationally. Francis M. Dent, Fraternity Brother, WRIGHT ARCHIVES, http://thewright.org/archives/francis-m-dent-fraternity-brother (last visited Nov. 23, 2015). In 1923, he helped to found the Nu Omega graduate chapter in Detroit. Id. He also served as representative to the national Grand Conclave. Id. Dent passed away on December 4, 1964. Dent, Francis Morse, 1894–1964, supra. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 262 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 the constitutionality of racial segregation itself—instead of inequality in facilities—was crafted by James Nabrit, Jr., Spottswood Robinson,502 and Oliver Hill.503 The issue in Shelly v. Kraemer was whether a private restrictive covenant that discriminates on the basis of race is constitutionally prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.504 More specifically, the Court considered whether a judicial enforcement of such a covenant is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.505 The facts of the joint cases involved private restrictive covenants that prohibited African Americans from owning title to or occupying the premises of the restricted land.506 In both cases—one from Missouri and another from Michigan—African Americans purchased properties on the restricted land.507 In the Missouri case, the trial court denied the request of the other restricted property landowners on the grounds that the covenant had not become final.508 However, the Supreme Court of Missouri reversed the judgment of the trial court.509 In the Michigan case, the African Americans who acquired title to the property were ordered to vacate their properties within ninety days by the Circuit Court of Wayne County; the Supreme Court of Michigan affirmed.510 502. Spottswood W. Robinson, III was a civil rights attorney known for his relationship with attorney Oliver Hill and their work to achieve legal success in the fight for equal rights. Spottswood W. Robinson III (1916–), PBS, http://www.pbs.org/beyondbrown/history /spottswood.html (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). Robinson and Hill defended a group of African American students attending the segregated R.R. Moton High School who had walked out of the school due to its poor conditions. Id. The lawsuit, Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board, made it to the Supreme Court, where it was a combined with a number of other cases into what would become Brown v. Board of Education. Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 294 (1955). Robinson would make the first argument on behalf of the plaintiffs. Id. at 338. Robinson died on October 11, 1998, in Richmond, Virginia. See Eric Pace, Spottswood W. Robinson 3d, Civil Rights Lawyer, Dies at 82, N.Y. TIMES (Oct. 13, 1998), http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/13/us/spottswood-w-robinson-3d-civi l-rights-lawyer-dies-at-82.html. He was initiated into the Alpha Omega chapter of Omega Psi Phi in 1961. GILL, supra note 19, at 53. 503. GILL, supra note 19, at 53. 504. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 4 (1948). 505. Id. at 8. 506. See id. at 47. 507. Id. 508. Id. at 6. 509. Id. 510. Id. at 7. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 263 On appeal, the Supreme Court held that a private restrictive covenant cannot be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, but that judicial enforcement of such a covenant constitutes a state action and is, therefore, a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.511 Thus, restrictive covenants were rendered effectively meaningless.512 The Court reversed both the Missouri and Michigan decisions.513 The Court first reasoned that the acquisition, enjoyment, ownership, and disposition of property are among the basic civil rights intended for protection by the Fourteenth Amendment as a precondition to the realization of other basic civil rights and liberties.514 The Court noted that the issue in these cases—unlike previous cases in which statutory discrimination on racial grounds was invalidated—dealt with private agreements and not statutory regimes.515 Thus, the Court could not invalidate such agreements.516 Citing Twining v. New Jersey, however, the Court stated that “[t]he judicial act of the highest court of the State, in authoritatively construing and enforcing its laws, is the act of the state.”517 Because the difference between judicial enforcement and non-enforcement of restrictive covenants is the difference to other members of the community— specifically the African American appellants—in the accordance of the full rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.518 Therefore, judicial enforcement of a racially discriminatory covenant is state endorsement of a discriminatory covenant and a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.519 In Arkansas, Wiley Branton fought to ensure the Supreme Court’s desegregation principles were upheld in schools.520 In a 511. Id. at 1213, 20. 512. Id. at 23. 513. Id. 514. Id. at 10. 515. Id. at 1213. 516. Id. at 13. 517. Id. at 15 (quoting Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 9091 (1908)). 518. Id. at 19. 519. Id. at 20. 520. See GILL, supra note 19, at 53. “Wiley Austin Branton was born on December 13, 1923, in Pine Bluff[,] Arkansas.” Judith Kilpatrick, Wiley Austin Branton Sr. (1923–1988), ENCYCLOPEDIA ARK. HIST. & CULTURE, http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.asp x?entryID=1598 (last updated May 22, 2012). His parents were Pauline Wiley and Leo Andrew Branton. Id. His grandfather and father ran a taxicab business, and before being married, his mother was a schoolteacher. Id. Branton received his elementary and secondary education in the public, segregated schools on Pine Bluff. Id. Afterwards, he 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 264 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 voting rights case, Charles Gomillion, president of the Tuskegee Civic Association, successfully challenged Alabama’s gerrymandering process by which African American voting rights were violated.521 In Ohio, notable Omega men—including Charles continued his education at a nearby African American college, Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal, now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Id. In 1943, Branton was drafted into the U.S. Army. Id. His time in the Army opened his eyes to prejudice and led to his civil rights activities. Id. In addition to his activism, he operated his family business. Id. In 1950, Branton was admitted to the University of Indiana School of Law. Id. In 1953, he was the third black student to graduate from the law school. Id. He then operated a general practice from 1953 to 1962. Id. In 1956, Branton filed a [law]suit against the Little Rock School Board failure to integrate public schools after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Id. This suit was ultimately heard by the Supreme Court as Cooper v. Aaron in 1958. Id. This case brought Branton into the national spotlight and “led to his recruitment as executive director of the Voter Education Project in 1962.” Id. Following his success in this position, Vice President Hubert Humphrey asked Branton to serve as executive director of the President’s Council on Equal Opportunity. Id. After this council was abolished by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, Branton was appointed to serve in the Department of Justice as the president’s representative and continued to work on the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Id. In December 1977, Branton accepted the position of Sean of Howard University School of Law. Id. He served this position for five years, before returning to working in a law firm. Id. Branton was initiated into the Lambda Gamma Gamma Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. See Famous Omega Men, LAMBDA GAMMA GAMMA CHAPTER OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY http://www.ques-lgg.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=781981&mo dule_id=133943 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). Branton passed away on December 15, 1988, from a heart attack. Kilpatrick, supra. 521. William A. Elwood, An Interview with Charles G. Gomillion, 12 CALLALOO: A J. AFRO-AM. & AFR. ARTS & LETTERS 577, 577 (1989). Charles Gomillion was best known for being the plaintiff and civil rights advocate in Gomillion v. Lightfoot and helping bring about the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Id. He was born on April 1, 1900, in Johnston, South Carolina. Gomillion, Charles G. (1900–1995)—Civil rights activist, Chronology, JRANK.ORG, http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/4 261/Gomillion-Charles-G-1900-1995.html (last visited Nov. 10, 2015) [hereinafter Gomillion Chronology]. Gomillion’s father was born a slave in 1855 and remained a slave until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863; thus, Gomillion was raised with a constant awareness of the inequalities that faced African Americans on a daily basis. Elwood, supra, at 583. Schooling was very expensive, so Gomillion was forced to constantly drop out of school until his caring mother decided to homeschool him. Id. at 58081. Later, Gomillion was able to graduate from both Paine High School and College, despite leaving college sometime to take care of his parents. Id. at 581. Gomillion married Ms. Hermyne Jones, his college girlfriend. Gomillion Chronology, supra. Unfortunately, their marriage dissolved, and Gomillion was left to raise their two daughters on his own until he remarried. Elwood, supra, at 583. He briefly attended Chicago University before graduating with his doctorate in sociology from the Ohio State University in 1959. Gomillion Chronology, supra. Not only did Gomillion earn respect through his position as a sociology professor and dean at Tuskegee University, but he was also looked upon his work where he helped African Americans vote. Robert McG. Thomas Jr., Charles Gomillion, 95, Figure in Landmark Remap Case, Dies, N.Y. TIMES (Oct. 12, 1995), http://www.nytimes.c om/1995/10/12/us/charles-gomillion-95-figure-in-landmark-remap-case-dies.html. As a member of the Men’s Club in Tuskegee, Gomillion recognized how difficult it was for Blacks to be able to vote as there was the poll tax, intelligence test, and the voucher system. Gomillion Chronology, supra. Even he had a difficult time voting; in fact, he was 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 265 P. Lucas, NAACP secretary; Charles V. Carr, councilman; Charles White, Common Pleas Court Judge; Harry Bonaparte, attorney; and Chester J. Gray of the Ohio State Employment Service paved the way for a Fair Employment Practices Commission.522 forced to build a white contractor a house in order to gain the right to vote. Id. In light of this injustice, Gomillion and eleven other association members filed a federal suit in the hope to bar Mayor Philip M. Lightfoot and other city officials from enforcing that state statute that limited voting rights. Thomas, supra. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor by ruling that the Fifteenth Amendment had been violated. Id. This was a landmark Supreme Court case leading to the legislative map of the nation being redrawn and politics began to rapidly change as Blacks began to vote. Elwood, supra. Charles Gomillion lived a long life to the age of ninety-five and he passed away on October 4, 1995. Thomas, supra. 522. GILL, supra note 19 at 54. Charles P. Lucas, Sr. was born on April 18, 1911, in Cadiz, Ohio. Lucas, Charles P., Sr., ENCYCLOPEDIA CLEVELAND HIST., http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=LCPS (last modified July 10, 1997). He attended Wilberforce University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1933, and the University of Kansas, where he earned his master’s degree in education in 1936. Id. During this time, he was a member of Omega Psi Phi. Distinguished from the 4th District, CHRONICLE, Fall 2007, at 1, 3, http://www.omega4thdistr ict.org/Newsletter%20Fall%202007.pdf. Upon his graduation, he returned home and became a teacher and later a principal of Dunbar Elementary and Junior High. Lucas, Charles P., Sr., supra; Biography of the Lucas Family, OHIOLINK FINDING AID REPOSITORY, http://ead.ohiolink.edu/xtf-ead/view?docId=ead/OCLWHi2071.xml;chunk.id=bioghist_ 1;brand=default (last visited Nov. 10, 2015). In 1939, he married Hazel Jones, with whom he shared one son, Charles P. Lucas, Jr. Lucas, Charles P., Sr., supra. Lucas held many positions throughout his life, including his work as an educator, a federal housing administrator, a real estate broker, a civil rights leader and advocate. Biography of the Lucas Family, supra. He also served as a member of Cleveland Transit System board, the executive director of the NAACP chapter in Cleveland, Ohio, and the first black man on the Ohio Board of Education. Id.; Lucas, Charles P., Sr., supra. He was successful in all of his duties. Throughout his career, he doubled the membership of his NAACP chapter, organized protests against segregated facilities at Euclid Beach Park, and promoted fair housing practices. Lucas, Charles P., Sr., supra. As a civil rights advocate, he wrote columns for both The Call and The Post and guest starred on many radio talk shows. Biography of the Lucas Family, supra. Despite his successful career, he lost a Republican Congressional seat in November 1968 to Louis Stokes. Lucas, Charles P., Sr., supra. He was also put on trial, which resulted in the loss of his tenure in the Federal Housing Administration despite his innocence. Id. His health significantly declined later, causing him to retire in 1989 and pass away on September 14, 1989. Id. Charles Carr was born on October 9, 1903, in Clarksville, Texas. Carr, Charles Velmon, ENCYCLOPEDIA CLEVELAND HIST., http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=CCV (last modified July 1, 1997). His parents were Will and Pauline Carr, educators who traveled often. Id. Carr graduated from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, then went on to attend John Marshall Law School in Cleveland, Ohio. Id. He was known for helping create black politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Dave Davis, Charles V. Carr Served 30 Years on Cleveland City Council: Black History Month, CLEVELAND.COM (Feb. 17, 2013, 6:00 AM), http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/02/charles_v_carr_served_30_years.ht ml. As the Democratic Majority Leader of the Cleveland City Council, Carr assisted in passing civil rights legislation relating to desegregation, fair housing, and employment practices. Carr, Charles Velmon, supra. Carr found both Democrats and Republicans seeking his help with their campaigns because he was a very strong political figure in all

266 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Contributing to the desegregation of public facilities in Ohio by winning cases before the Ohio Supreme Court were Steve Simmons, president of the NAACP Dayton Branch, and William Howard.523 Bringing about the Morgan v. Virginia decision, which found bus segregation to be a burden on interstate commerce, Bayard Rustin was a leader in the “Journey to Reconciliation.”524 levels of government. See Mansfield B. Frazier, Carr Talk, CLEVELANDMAGAZINE.COM (Nov. 2009), http://www.clevelandmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=E73ABD6180B44 874871A91F6BA%205C249C&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle& mid=1578600D80804596A222593669321019&tier=4&id=0FBEBCF6DC37432EA313F4698 DB39613. Although he lost his council seat in 1975, he moved on to serve on the Regional Transit Authority’s Board of Trustees. Davis, supra. He continued that position until he died at the age of eighty-three years old in 1987. Id. Charles White became a judge for the Common Pleas Court of Cuyahoga County of Ohio with the help of Arnold Pinkney in his 1966 campaign. See Donna J. Miller, Arnold Pinkney Ran Political Campaigns: Black History Month, CLEVELAND.COM (Feb. 11, 2013, 6:17 AM), http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/02/arnold_pinkney_ran_politica l_c.html. Harry Bonaparte helped in paving the pathway for the Fair Employment Practices Commission in Ohio during the 1950s. Bonaparte, Harry E 1959, CLEVELAND PUB. LIBR. DIG. GALLERY, http://cplorg.cdmhost.com/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4014coll1 8/id/5544/rec/40 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). Chester J. Gray of the Ohio State Employment Service helped create the Fair Employment Practices Commission. See National Report, JET, April 16, 1953, at 8. He pointed out a serious disparity in Ohio, as ninety percent of blacks were unemployed. Id. Before the House and Senate, Grey specifically explained how blacks constituted 6.5% of Ohio’s population; meanwhile, they received 16% of unemployment benefits. Id. African Americans made up most of the unemployed population as a result of discrimination, and yet, they were barely recognized for unemployment benefits. Grey both recognized this and wanted to make a difference by bringing this issue to the U.S. Government. The Fair Employment Practices Committee was an organization implemented in 1941 that prevented companies that were contracted to the government from discriminating on the basis of race or religion. Fair Employment Practices Committee, ELEANOR ROOSEVELT PAPERS PROJECT, https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/gloss ary/fepc.cfm (last visited Nov. 10, 2015). The committee was formed to help minorities, namely African Americans, to find employment on the home front during World War II at a time when there was a labor shortage at home and the military was still segregated. Id. The committee was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a decision that was heavily influenced by the demands of A. Philip Randolph, founding president of the hood of Sleeping Car Porters, who called for changes to employment practices in the American defense industry. Id. Despite the implementation of these new employment practices, the FEPC did little to alleviate the problem of racial discrimination throughout the war years. Id. Nonetheless, the FEPC did have a lasting effect on the Civil Rights Movement and provided a first step forward to addressing the atrocities of the Jim Crow era. 523. GILL, supra note 19, at 54. As president of the NAACP Dayton Branch, Steve Simmons helped win cases in regards to the desegregation of public facilities in Ohio before the Ohio Supreme Court. Id. William Howard helped win cases regarding desegregation of public facilities in Ohio before the Ohio Supreme Court. Id. 524. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Who Designed the March on Washington?, PBS, http://www. pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/100-amazing-facts/who-des igned-the-march-on-washington (last visited Oct. 23, 2015). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 267 The issue in Morgan v. Virginia was whether a Virginia statute requiring all common motor vehicle carriers (interstate and intrastate) to separate “without discrimination” the passengers on a racial basis was unconstitutional.525 Failure to Bayard Rustin, best known for organizing the 1963 March on Washington, was a man who fought for what he believed in despite the constant criticism he received from American citizens, even other African American leaders. Id. Rustin was born on March 17, 1912, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Bayard Rustin Biography, BIOGRAPHY.COM, http://ww w.biography.com/people/bayard-rustin-9467932 (last visited Oct. 23, 2015). He was raised by his grandparents because he was unaware that Florence, who he believed to be his sister, was actually his mother. Id. Having Quaker religious beliefs inherited from his grandparents and learning about nonviolent protests from Muhatma Gandhi, Rustin played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Id. In fact, Rustin was the individual who taught Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the basics of civil disobedience, which helped propel the Civil Rights Movement. Id. Rustin, however, suffered from setbacks because he was a former Communist-sympathizer. Gates, supra. He was also very open about his homosexuality and fought against the discrimination of both Blacks and homosexuals. Bayard Rustin Biography, supra. Rustin was arrested multiple times for protests and displaying his homosexuality. Id. Unfortunately, Dr. King stopped working with Rustin for a period of time because Black leader and New York Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr. blackmailed Dr. King by threatening to announce that Dr. King and Rustin were gay lovers. Gates, supra. This was Powell’s effort to prevent a march outside of Los Angeles’s Democratic National Convention. Id. Fortunately, the March on Washington became a reality when A. Philip Randolph brought the idea back into light. Id. Both King and Rustin worked together again as Rustin focused the march around “Jobs and Freedom.” Id. This march was highly successful for Rustin as were his writing about civil rights, Down in the Line (1971) and Strategies for Freedom (1976). Bayard Rustin Biography, supra. Bayard Rustin’s beliefs still have an impact on the United States today as we continue to battle over racial and homosexual equality, peace, economic justice, and human rights. He was a member of Omega Psi Phi. Gaius Chamberlain, Bayard Rustin, GREAT BLACK HEROES (Feb. 1, 2015), http://www.greatblackheroes.com/civil-rights/baya rd-rustin. While the Freedom Rides are celebrated as one of the most courageous and great achievements of non-violent, direct action taken by African Americans to challenge the existing segregation on interstate buses at the time, it is often forgotten that those protests were modeled after a similar act known as the “Journey to Reconciliation.” Gates, supra. While the Freedom Rides were greater in scope, carried out across the Deep South, and the Journey to Reconciliation was limited to just four states of the Upper South, the two events hold strikingly similar characteristics. John Simkin, Journey of Reconciliation, SPARTACUS EDUC. (Sept. 1997), http://spartacus-educational.com/USAjor.htm (last updated Aug. 2014). The central idea of traveling on Greyhound and Trailways buses in interracial groups—showing contempt toward Southern custom—to gauge compliance with the Supreme Court’s earlier segregation in interstate transportation decisions remained a common thread through the two acts. August Meier & Elliott Rudwick, The First Freedom Ride, 30 PHYLON 213, 213 (1969). The goal of the Journey to Reconciliation was to encourage desegregation by making an unprecedented step towards integration between black and white passengers, as well as to bring much needed publicity to violations of the previous Supreme Court decision. Id. Ultimately, participants of the Journey to Reconciliation were arrested and served jail terms as a result of their protest. Simkin, supra. Nevertheless, the non-violent action proved invaluable in its ability to influence future movements such as the Freedom Rides and even the landmark 1954 decision made in Brown v. Board of Education. Meir & Rudwick, supra at 213. 525. Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373, 374 (1946). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 268 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 comply with or enforce the statute constituted a misdemeanor.526 The facts involved an African American woman who traveled by common carrier from Virginia, through Washington D.C. and into Baltimore, Maryland.527 Upon refusing to move to a seat designated for non-whites, the appellant was arrested and convicted under the Virginia statute.528 The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed the decision.529 Virginia claimed the policy was necessary to “avoid friction between the races.”530 On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction under the Virginia statute and held the statute invalid.531 The Court found that if the state statute “unduly burdens” commerce where uniformity between and within states is necessary, then the statute is invalid.532 The Court held that the state’s rationale was invalid because it prevented uniformity between the regulations for interstate travel under the authority of Congress, and that the Virginia statute unduly burdened interstate commerce because of the lack of uniformity to which the statute contributed.533 Justice Burton dissented.534 Between the late 1940s and late 1960s, member James Nabrit, Jr. had litigated numerous cases in state and federal courts in an effort to vindicate African American rights.535 In the United State Supreme Court case Sweatt v. Painter, Alpha Phi Alpha member Heman Marion Sweatt applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School for the 1946 term.536 Herman was rejected because he was black.537 As a result, Sweatt sued for mandamus against the appropriate school officials to compel his admission.538 At that time, no Texas law school admitted blacks.539 The state had been permitted to supply substantially equal 526. Id. 527. Id. at 37475. 528. Id. at 375. 529. Id. 530. Id. at 380. 531. Id. at 386. 532. Id. at 377 (citing S. Pac. Co. v. Arizona, 325 U.S. 761, 766–71 (1945)). 533. Id. at 386. 534. Id. at 389 (Burton, J., dissenting). 535. Pace, supra note 161. 536. Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, 631 (1950). 537. Id. 538. Id. 539. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 269 facilities.540 In December 1946, the court denied the writ on the showing that the authorized university officials had adopted an order calling for the opening of a law school for blacks the following February.541 While Sweatt’s appeal was pending, such a school was made available, but he refused to register for admission there.542 The Texas Court of Civil Appeals remanded the case to the trial court to proceed without prejudice.543 The Court reversed and held that “the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that petitioner be admitted to the University of Texas Law School.”544 The 1953 Terry v. Adams case, argued by Nabrit, Jr., was the last in a string of cases that ruled white-only primaries violated the Fifteenth Amendment.545 Qualified black voters in Fort Bend County sued the Jaybird Democratic Association, a group that organized white-only pre-elections for county offices since 1889.546 The winners of these pre-elections invariably won the subsequent official elections.547 The Jaybirds claimed that they were a not a political party governed by state regulation, but a voluntary club.548 The Court ruled, however, that the group still fell within the Fifteenth Amendment because the amendment covers any election in which public issues or public officials were elected.549 Thus, barring Blacks from voting in the primaries is a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.550 Many fraternity members volunteered on NAACP state legal redress committees which investigated allegations of discrimination, including: Reuben Lawson and Willmer Dillard, Roanoke; Ernest Perkins, Baltimore; Harold Flowers, Arkansas; Charles Carr, Cleveland; Willard Brown, West Virginia; Amos Hall, Tulsa; Floyd Skinner, Grand Rapids; Z. Alexander Looby, Nashville; Herbert Tucker, Boston; Tucker Dearing, Baltimore; 540. Id. at 632. 541. Id. 542. Id. 543. Id. (quoting Sweatt v. Painter, 210 S.W.2d 442, 446 (Tex. App. 1948)). 544. Id. at 636. 545. Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461, 462, 470 (1953); see Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 666 (1944); Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45, 55 (1935); Nixon v. Condon, 286 U.S. 73, 89 (1932); Nixon v. Herndon 273 U.S. 536, 541 (1927). 546. Terry, 345 U.S. at 461, 463. 547. Id. at 463. 548. Id. 549. Id. at 469–70. 550. Id. at 468 (citing Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 393 (1879)). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 270 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 James Rowland, Harrisburg; George R. Vaughns; Thomas Neuson; Charles L. Wilson; and Charles H. Matthews; Clarence G. Smith, president of the Ohio Conference of NAACP Branches; J. McKinley Neal, Missouri House of Representatives; and Frederick Yates, Michigan House.551 A leader in the Missouri fight for 551. GILL, supra note 19, at 54–55. Wilmer F. Dillard was born in Roanoke, Virginia, to parents Thomas B. Dillard and Candy R. Dillard in 1907. See Wilmer F Dillard: 1910 United States Census, MOCAVO, http://www.mocavo.com/1910-United-States-Census/126211/005157532/215#row-6 (last visited Nov. 15, 2015). Dillard graduated from Wilberforce University in Ohio and went on to attend Boston University Law School. See Dillard Named Roanoke’s First Negro Judge, JET, Oct. 7, 1965, at 7. William Harold Flowers was born in Stamps, Arkansas, on October 16, 1911. John A. Kirk, William Harold Flowers (1911-1990), ENCYCLOPEDIA ARK. HIST. & CULTURE, http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1647 (last updated Oct. 16, 2012). His parents were Alonzo Williams Flowers, a businessman, and Beulah Lee Sampson, a school teacher. Id. Flowers earned his degree from the Robert H. Terrell Law School in Washington, D.C. William Harold Flowers, Sr., ARK. BLACK LAWYERS, http://arkansasblacklawyers.uark.edu/lawyers/whflowers.html (last visited Nov. 15, 2015). He was admitted to practice in Arkansas in October 1935, and he opened his own law office in Pine Bluff. Harold Flowers, ARK. BLACK HALL FAME, http://arblackhalloff ame.org/honorees/harold-flowers (last visited Nov. 15, 2015). Flowers created the Committee on Negro Organizations in 1940. Id. This organization was aimed at involving ordinary black citizens with fighting against discrimination. William Harold Flowers, Sr., supra. He was appointed aschief recruitment officer for the NAACP Arkansas state branch in 1945. Kirk, supra. In 1948, he was elected president of the branch. Id. In 1953, Flowers served as president of the African American National Bar Association. Id. In 1977, he became the first African American special circuit judge in Jefferson County. Id. Three years later, Governor Bill Clinton appointed Flowers as an associate judge in the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Id. Flowers passed away on April 7, 1990, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Id. Willard Brown was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but moved to Charleston, West Virginia, in 1913. Attorney Willard L. Brown (Posthumously), FROM WHENCE WE CAME: MEET OUR HONOREES, http://www.hrc.wv.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/2005%2 0Civil%20Rights%20Day%20Booklet.pdf (last visited Nov. 15, 2015). Brown earned his bachelor of arts degree from West Virginia State College. Id. He went on to attend Boston University, where he earned both his bachelor of law degree and a master of law degree. Id. Brown was the first African American attorney to serve as a judge in a court of record in West Virginia. Id. He served as the Charleston Branch NAACP’s president from 1950 to 1966, and also served as a legal advisor beginning in 1942. Id. During this time, he worked to create equality in restaurants and airports. Id. Brown founded the Charleston Human Rights Commission. Id. He also served on the Charleston City Council for eight years. Id. Amos T. Hall was born in Bastrop, Louisiana, on October 2, 1896. Hannah D. Atkins, Hall, Amos T. (1896–1971), OKLA. HIST. SOC’Y, http://www.okhistory.org/publicati ons/enc/entry.php?entry=HA006 (last visited Nov. 15, 2015). He attended and graduated from Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Id. Upon admittance to the Oklahoma Bar Association and the Tulsa County Bar Association, Hall began fighting for equality between races. Id. He led the fight for equal salaries for teachers as the attorney for the Oklahoma Association of Negro Teachers. Id. In 1969, Hall was appointed special judge of the District Court of Tulsa County. Id. One year later, he was elected associate district judge of Tulsa County; he held this position until his death. Id. Hall also served as attorney for the State Conference of the Branches of the NAACP as well as being a member of the National Legal Committee of the NAACP. Id. Additionally, he served as 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 271 president of the Tulsa branch of the NAACP for eleven years. Id. Hall passed away on November 12, 1972, in Tulsa. Id. Floyd Skinner was born in Benzie County, Michigan, in 1900. RANDAL MAURICE JELKS, AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE FURNITURE CITY: THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IN GRAND RAPIDS 122 (Univ. of Illinois Press 2005). His father worked as a lumberman. Id. In 1914, Skinner moved to Grand Rapids. Id. In 1919, he began school at the University of Michigan, where he earned degrees from both the undergraduate school and the law school. Id. Beginning in the late 1920s, Skinner became “Grand Rapid’s staunchest leader of the NAACP.” Id. He served as president for five separate terms, and he also was a committee member for both the local and state chapters. Id. Skinner passed away in 1962. Id. Herbert E. Tucker was born on August 30, 1915, in Boston, Massachusetts. The Honorable Herbert Tucker, Jr., HISTORYMAKERS, http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biograp hy/honorable-herbert-tucker-jr (last visited Nov. 15, 2015). His parents are Herbert Tucker Sr. and Samuel Ella Fitzgerald. Service Saturday for Judge Herbert Tucker, Ambassador Abroad, Active on Vineyard, VINEYARD GAZETTE (Mar. 8, 2007, 7:00 PM), http://vineyardgaz ette.com/obituaries/2007/03/09/service-saturday-judge-herbert-tucker-ambassador-abroa d-active-vineyard. He graduated from the Boston Latin School and went on to earn his J.D. from Northeastern School of Law. The Honorable Herbert Tucker, Jr., supra. Before establishing a private practice in 1952, Tucker worked for the Internal Revenue Service. Id. In 1959, Tucker was named assistant attorney general for Massachusetts, which he served as for nine years. Id. During this time, he also served as president for the Boston chapter of the NAACP. Id. In 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy appointed Tucker to the civil rights section of his presidential campaign. Id. In 1969, Tucker became the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. Id. He was named chairman three years later. Id. In 1973, Tucker was named special justice to the Municipal Court of Dorchester, and became the presiding justice of the district the following year. Id. After leaving Dorchester in 1979, Tucker became the presiding judge of the Edgartown District Court, a position that he held until his retirement in 1985. Id. Within Omega Psi Phi, Tucker served as the Grand Basileus from 1955 to 1958 and a trustee of the Fraternity from 1969 until his death in 2007. Id. Tucker R. Dearing attended Howard University and went on to practice law after graduating. William D. Missouri, An Interview with Chief Judge Robert M. Bell, JUDGE’S J., Winter 2011, http://www.courts.state.md.us/publications/jmonline/2011fall/pdfs/jmonl inefall11cjbellinterview.pdf. During his lifetime, he worked as an attorney with the NAACP where he played a role in arguing racial discrimination in education cases, including the U.S. Supreme Court racial segregation case Bell v. Maryland in 1964. Missouri, supra. Dearing passed away on January 17, 1992, at the age of 75. Obit Dearing, T., ROANOKE TIMES, Jan. 20, 1992, A at 4. George Robert Vaughns was born in 1901 and raised in the California Bay Area. Charles Smiley, Introducing Our Founders, CHARLES HOUSTON BAR ASS’N, 2005, at 18–19, http://charleshoustonbar.org/newsletters/2005.pdf. In 1928, Vaughns graduated from St. Mary’s College of Law. Id. During the early 1940s, Vaughns was a strong advocate on behalf of the Local A26 of the Boilermakers Union. Id. He urged Bay Area shipyards to follow President Roosevelt’s executive order against racial discrimination in war-related industries. Id. This victory resulted in thousands of African Americans finding employment in the shipbuilding industry. Id. Vaughns served as the first African American Commissioner on the Alameda County Planning Commission, a position that he held for fifteen years. Id. Vaughns passed away in 1976. Id. Charles Hearde Matthews was born in 1907 and became an important African American figure in the Los Angeles City government. Black Politics in L.A., L.A. TIMES (Jan. 14, 2011, 4:35 AM), http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2011/01/blac k-politics-in-la.html. Matthews earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and he attended also law school at Berkeley, where he was the only 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 272 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 equality, Neal sponsored legislation to eliminate the school segregation, establish the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and allow African Americans to serve in the Missouri National Guard.552 In Illinois, Corneal Davis, a twelve-year veteran of the Illinois Legislature, sponsored legislation to block state funding for segregated schools in 1949.553 Similarly, former National African American in his class. Id. He served as the city’s deputy district attorney from 1931 to 1945. Id. In 1946, he was appointed to the Police Commission, making him the first African American to be so. Id. Matthews passed away in 1985. Id. James McKinley Neal was born in Greensboro, Georgia, on March 8, 1907. Rose Bell, Interview #45: Neal, James McKinley, BLACK ARCHIVES MID-AM. (Mar. 11, 1975), http://blackarchives.org/sites/default/files/Neal%2C%20James%20McKinley%20-%20Su mmary.pdf. Neal graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Id. He went on to earn a B.S. from Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado. Id. After doing a lot of traveling for his job with the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, he settled in Kansas City, Missouri. Id. It was here where he met and married his wife, together they were part of the drug store business. Id. Neal was first elected to the state legislature in 1946; he served until 1964. Id. During his time in the house, he became the first African American to serve as chair of a standing committee. Id. He was also a vital sponsor to the civil rights legislation that was introduced during his time. Id. In addition to serving in the state legislature, Neal also helped organize and served as the executive secretary for the Kansas City Negro Chamber of Commerce. Id. Neal passed away from a heart attack at the age of 83 in the year 1982. Other Deaths, ST. PETERSBURG INDEP., Nov. 15, 1982, at 13-A, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19821115&id=N9FaAAAAIBAJ&sjid= JVkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5261,3851443&hl=en. Frederick Yates was born on October 3, 1914, in Malvern, Arkansas. Yates, POLITICALGRAVEYARD.COM, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/yates.html#796.30.06 (last visited Nov. 15, 2015). At the age of 11, Yates’s family relocated to Detroit, Michigan. Frederick Yates–Park 36, TELLING STORIES DETROIT PARKS (Dec. 27, 2014), http://citylitera te.com/go/?p=590. He earned a B.A. from West Virginia State College in 1936, and he went on to earn a law degree from the Detroit College of Law. Id. Yates began practicing law in 1941 and by 1948 he was appointed Wayne County Public Administrator. Id. Yates was a member of the Michigan state house of representatives from Wayne County 4th District from 1955 to 1962. Id. He also ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962 and 1964, being defeated in both elections. Yates, supra. Additionally, Yates was a candidate in the primary race for circuit judge in Michigan’s 3rd circuit in 1966. Id. Yates was elected to the Wayne County Board of Commissioners in 1968. Frederick Yates–Park 36, supra. During his time of the Board, he served as chair of the Ways and Means Committee. Id. Yates died on October 9, 1971. Id. 552. GILL, supra note 19, at 55. 553. Id. at 50. In 1900, Corneal Davis was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Transcription of Interview by Horace G. Waggoner of Corneal A. Davis for Ill. Gen. Assemb. Oral History Program, in Springfield, Ill., Corneal A. Davis Memoir, Vol. 1, 1 (1979 and 1982). He attended Tougaloo College, where he graduated in 1917. Id. at 11, 20. After graduation, he enlisted in the military. Id. at 20. During his service abroad, his family relocated to Chicago, Illinois. Id. at 27. Davis joined them there in 1919. Id. He began his political career as a driver for powerful black politician Louis B. Anderson. Id. at 8384. This connection led him to further involvement in politics. Id. at 84. By the mid-1930s Davis was a leader involved in transferring the allegiance of Chicago blacks from the Republican Party to Democratic Party. Id. at v. He first ran for a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives in 1942; he won this election and would remain in the House for thirty-six years. Id. at v, 42. He left 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 273 Executive Secretary H. Carl Moultrie testified before the board of education and the board of recreation on the integration of school and recreation system in Washington, D.C.554 In 1952, Moultrie also represented the NAACP in investigations of police brutality.555 Charles E. Williams, an attorney living in Washington, D.C., made several unsuccessful attempts to end racial segregation in Virginia restaurants during the 1950s.556 However, he played an integral role in the desegregation of the American Bar Association of the District of Columbia by filing suit against the association in 1958.557 Generally, in the arena of civil rights activism, Omega Psi Phi attempted to strike a balance between the social obligations of the national fraternity and of its individual members.558 While Omega Psi Phi, as a national organization, was less directly involved in the Civil Rights Movement, many chapters and individual members of Omega Psi Phi fought fierce battles against racial discrimination and segregation through litigation and legal support.559 In 1953, Jesse N. Stone, Jr. represented appellees in Bryce v. Byrd, where the central issue was that qualified African American voters in Louisiana’s Bossier Parrish were denied the right to the legislature in 1979, but later resumed his public service as a member of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Id. at v. Davis passed away in 1995. Kenan Heise, Former State Rep. Corneal A. Davis, 94, CHI. TRIB. (Apr. 19, 1995), http://articles.chicagotribune.c om/1995-04-19/news/9504190146_1_illinois-general-asse mbly-rep-davis-south-side. 554. GILL, supra note 19, at 55. 555. Id. H. Carl Moultrie was born in Tampa, Florida, on April 3, 1915. Biography of Founder Brother H. Carl Moultrie I, OMEGA LIFE MEMBERSHIP FOUND., http://olmf.org/about-olmf/founde rs/bro.-h.-carl-moultrie-i (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). His parents were William Edward, a reverend, and Anna Moultrie. Id. Moultrie received an A.B. Degree from Lincoln University in Chester, Pennsylvania, and a M.A. from New York University. Id. Moultrie earned his J.D. from Georgetown University School of Law. Id. “After graduating from Lincoln University in 1935, and the Lincoln Theological Seminary in 1938, [Moultrie] began his professional career in North Carolina. . . .” Id. “In 1949, [Moultrie] was elected National Executive Secretary of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.” Id. In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Moultrie to a judgeship with the Superior Court in Washington, D.C. Id. He was later appointed Chief Judge in 1978, a position he maintained until his death in 1986. H. Carl Moultrie I, WASH. POST (Apr. 11, 1986), http:/ /www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/04/11/h-carl-moultrie-i/f5bffbbc-6855 -45da-8368-3a1580c11d40. 556. GILL, supra note 19, at 55. 557. Id. at 56. 558. See generally id. at 5164 (describing the social goals of the national fraternity and the social goals being pioneered by its individual members). 559. See generally id. (illustrating the legal battles fought by chapters and individual members on the issues of racial discrimination and segregation). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 274 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 register to vote on account of their race or color.560 According to the 1950 census, the parish’s population was 40,139 with whites accounting for 26,227 of the population.561 In total, more than nine thousand individuals were registered voters in Bossier, but none were individuals of color.562 In placing an immediate injunction on the parish’s voting practice, the court held that the registrar of voters, Mary K. Brice, had “discriminated against the colored voters,” and violated the Louisiana Revised Statutes by failing to give any weight and consideration when qualified blacks applied to register.563 The court reasoned that Brice “made registration favorable beyond the average insofar as the white applicants be concerned; but, as to Negro applicants, she never has been of the thought or conviction that they should receive from the office of the registrar the same opportunity to become voters.”564 In Bolling v. Sharpe, another case litigated by Nabrit, Jr., and decided on the same day as Brown v. Board, a group of black students challenged D.C. school segregation.565 The black students were not admitted to a school that was attended by white students because of their race.566 They challenged the law under a violation of Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.567 This case was distinguished from Brown because the Fourteenth Amendment, 560. Bryce v Byrd, 201 F.2d 664, 665 (5th Cir. 1953). Jesse N. Stone, Jr. broke color barriers in the Louisiana state government through his work as a lawyer, educator, and activist. Jesse. E Stone, Noted Louisiana Lawyer and Educator, Dies, JET, Jun. 4, 2001, at 53. Stone was born in 1924 in Gibsland, Louisiana. Id. In 1950, Stone was among the first graduating class of the historically black Southern University Law Center and was the only black civil rights attorney in Shreveport for a time. Id. Stone worked as an attorney for the NAACP and worked with the SCLC and Congress on Racial Equality. Id. Additionally, he was one of the first Blacks to hold key posts in state government in the 1960s. Id. In 1971, Stone became dean of his alma mater, Southern University Law Center, and served as associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1972 to 1974. Id. Stone died in Shreveport in 2001 from a long illness. Id. He is survived by his wife, Willa Dean Anderson, and daughter, Shonda Dean Stone. Id. 561. Byrd v. Brice, 104 F. Supp. 442, 442 (W.D. La. 1952). 562. Id. at 44243. 563. Id. at 443. “The applicant shall in all cases be able to establish that he is the identical person whom he represents himself to be when applying for registration. If the registrar has good reason to believe that he is not the same person, he may require the applicant to produce two credible registered voters of his precinct to make oath to that effect.” Id. 564. Id. 565. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 498 (1954). 566. Id. 567. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 275 which binds states to equal protection, does not apply in the District of Columbia.568 The Fifth Amendment was used to defend the students’ due process rights, but unlike the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment does not have an Equal Protection Clause.569 The Court rectified this by stating [T]he concepts of equal protection and due process, both stemming from our American ideal of fairness, are not mutually exclusive. The equal protection of the laws is a more explicit safeguard of prohibited unfairness than due process of law, and, therefore, we do not imply that the two are always interchangeable phrases. But, as this Court has recognized, discrimination may be so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.570 Therefore, the Court ruled that segregation is a violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clause.571 In another Nabrit, Jr. case, Hamm v. County Board, four black children petitioned to attend white schools closer to their homes than their assigned schools.572 The school administrators screened the potential transfers using five categories: attendance area, overcrowding, academic accomplishment, psychological problems, and adaptability.573 All four students passed the first four criteria but were rejected because they could not pass the adaptability test.574 The adaptability test was based on “the ability to accept or conform to new and different education environment.”575 The superintendent reasoned that the students failed the adaptability section because they might not be at the top of their class anymore, which could be emotionally damaging.576 Though the reason for barring them was not explicitly racially based, the Fourth Circuit found that the students should still be 568. Id. at 499. 569. Id. 570. Id. (internal quotations omitted). 571. Id. at 500. 572. Hamm v. Cty. Sch. Bd., 263 F.2d 226, 22627 (4th Cir. 1959). 573. Id. at 227; see Thompson v. Cty. Sch. Bd., 166 F. Supp. 529, 53234 (E.D. Va. 1958) (explaining screening criteria). 574. See Hamm, 263 F.2d at 228. 575. Id. 576. Id. 

276 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 admitted to the schools.577 The court ruled that due to the students’ proximity to the school, there was no legal justification that enabled the board to bar the students from the schools.578 In Davis v. County School Board,579 Oliver Hill represented multiple plaintiffs in a suit that would eventually join to become Brown v. Board of Education. 580 Dorothy E. Davis brought an action against the County School Board of Prince Edward County to prevent the separation of white and black children in schools.581 The District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia held that policies requiring separate teaching for black and white children were not unconstitutional, but noted inequities in facilities, curricula, and buses furnished to black children and white children.582 Therefore, the court ordered the school district eliminate racial inequality in buildings, facilities, curricula, and buses.583 The district court’s ruling on the first portion of Davis’ argument was later overturned by the Supreme Court as a part of Brown v. Board of Education. 584 In the midst of this litigation, future Omega Psi Phi member Ernest G. Green became one of the African American students known as the “Little Rock Nine” in 1957.585 He and eight other students integrated Little Rock, Arkansas’s Central High School in the shadow of Brown v. Board of Education case.586 Green 577. Id. 578. Id. 579. Davis v. Cty. Sch. Bd., 103 F. Supp. 337 (E.D. Va. 1952), rev’d sub nom. Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 349 U.S. 294 (1955). 580. Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 581. Davis, 103 F. Supp. at 337. 582. Id. at 340. 583. Id. at 340341. 584. Brown, 349 U.S. at 294. 585. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 14. 586. Bunthay Cheam, Green, Ernest G. (1941–), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackpas t.org/aah/green-ernest-g-1941 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). Ernest G. Green was constantly surrounded by those who fought racial inequalities, which led him to become a significant part of the Civil Rights Movement like his family before him. See id. As Green and the others were interrogated by other white students and adults for being a part of the Little Rock Nine, President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division to protect the students. Id. Green attended Michigan State University, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social science and a master’s degree in sociology in 1964. Id.; Ernest G. Green, Co-Chairman/Partner, Madison Asset Management Group LLC, GIDEON’S PROMISE, http://gideonspromise.org/ernest-g-green-co -chairmanpartner-madison-asset-management-group-llc (last visited Nov. 13, 2015) [hereinafter Ernest G. Green]. He received honorary doctorates from Michigan State University, Tougaloo College, and Central State University. Ernest G. Green, supra. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 277 then became the first black student to graduate from the racially desegregated Little Rock High School.587 He would go on to work towards improving civil rights.588 While advocating for racial equality, he became director of the A. Philip Randolph Education Fund and assistant secretary of Labor during the Carter administration.589 He also served on the Council on Foreign Relations.590 Green was a recipient of a Congressional Gold Medal, along with the rest of the Little Rock Nine, from President Bill Clinton for their contributions to security, prosperity, and racial equality in society.591 Nabrit, Jr. helped brief the 1958 U.S. Supreme Court case, NAACP v. Patterson ex rel. Patterson, wherein the state of Alabama was trying to enjoin the NAACP from operating within the state.592 The question presented was whether, under the Due Process Clause, Alabama could compel the NAACP to reveal the names and addresses of all its Alabama members and agents to the State’s Attorney General—without regard to their positions or functions in the NAACP.593 The bill recited that “the Association, by continuing to do business in Alabama without complying with the qualification statute, was causing irreparable injury to the property and civil rights of the residents and citizens of the State of Alabama for which criminal prosecution and civil actions at law afford no adequate relief.”594 The Court ruled that the individual members of the NAACP and, by extension, the organization, could not be compelled by the state to produce membership lists because it abridged the rights of its members.595 Furthermore, the organization could not be enjoined for simply organizing along political and racial lines, as there is a constitutional right for association.596 In 1958, Branton litigated Cooper v. Aaron, 597 which held that the states were bound to obey the Court’s order in Brown v. 587. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 14. 588. See Cheam, supra note 586. 589. Id. 590. Ernest G. Green, supra note 586. 591. Id.; Cheam, supra note 586. 592. NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 450–51 (1958). 593. Id. at 451. 594. Id. at 452 (internal quotations omitted). 595. Id. at 466. 596. Id. 597. Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 3 (1958). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 278 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Board of Education to end racial segregation in public schools.598 While the Little Rock District School Board was working towards desegregation, the Arkansas General Assembly adopted a state constitutional amendment opposing desegregation and relieving schoolchildren from compulsory attendance at racially mixed schools.599 Additionally, on the day before minority students were to integrate into Central High School, the governor dispatched the Arkansas National Guard and “placed the school ‘off limits’ to colored students.”600 Due to this opposition from the Arkansas government and public hostility, the school board and superintendent of schools filed a petition to postpone their program for desegregation.601 Despite the board’s good-faith intentions, the Court rejected its request for postponement.602 Citing Marbury v. Madison, the Court noted that its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in Brown v. Board of Education is the supreme law of the land and binding upon the States.603 Therefore, the board had to effectuate its plan for desegregation.604 In Thompson v. County School Board, Oliver Hill represented plaintiffs in a suit to enjoin a county school board and superintendent from denying African American children access to Arlington County schools despite Brown v. Board of Education. 605 The district court granted the injunction, but defendants appealed to the Fourth Circuit, who upheld the district court’s ruling.606 Despite initial injunction, the school board continued to deny the seven children from the initial lawsuit access to the Arlington schools pursuant to Virginia’s Pupil Placement Act.607 Plaintiffs then asked for a supplemental decree to direct admission of qualified students into white schools despite the school board’s rejection.608 The district court granted the plaintiffs’ supplemental decree because, “although the school representatives believed 598. Id. at 4. 599. Id. at 8–9. 600. Id. at 9. 601. Id. at 10. 602. Id. at 15. 603. Id. at 18. 604. See id. at 4. 605. Thompson v. Cty. Sch. Board, 144 F. Supp. 239, 239 (E.D. Va. 1956). 606. Sch. Bd. v. Allen, 240 F.2d at 59, 64. 607. Thompson v. Cty. Sch. Bd., 159 F. Supp. 567, 568 (E.D. Va. 1957). 608. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 279 they were following the law under the Pupil Placement Act, the injunction is paramount in the present circumstances and the schools can no longer refuse admittance to the plaintiffs.”609 On a second appeal to the Fourth Circuit, the district court’s ruling was affirmed.610 Oliver Hill argued for the plaintiff in NAACP v. Patty. 611 The NAACP originally brought this action against the Attorney General of Virginia alleging irreparable injury through enactment of Chapters 31, 32, 33, 35, and 36 of the Virginia Assembly Acts.612 The enactments infringed on rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and petitioners sought an injunction against the statutes enforcement.613 Chapter 32 involved activities relating to the passage of racial legislation, advocacy of “racial integration or segregation,” and the expenditure of funds in connection with racial litigation.614 Declaring that to keep relations between the races calm, for the sake of the welfare of the people of Virginia, the Chapter found it important to the public interest that registration be made with the State Corporation Commission by groups whose activities are likely to cause interracial tension.615 Chapter 35 is a “barratry” statute defined as “the offense of stirring up litigation.”616 The district court held Chapters 31, 32, and 35 unconstitutional and permanently enjoined their enforcement against the NAACP and Fund.617 Chapters 33 and 36, on the other hand, the court unanimously found vague and ambiguous.618 While the court did not rule on the constitutionality, it did retain jurisdiction to allow parties a reasonable time to get an interpretation of the Chapters from the state.619 The Supreme Court in a subsequent decision held that the district court should have abstained from passing on the validity or constitutionality of the Virginia statute until Virginia courts had an 609. Id. at 571. 610. Cty. Sch. Bd. v. Thompson, 252 F.2d 929, 92930 (4th Cir. 1958). 611. NAACP v. Patty, 159 F. Supp. 503, 506 (E.D. Va. 1958). 612. Id. at 506, 521. 613. Id. at 528. 614. Id. at 524. 615. Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167, 172 (1959). 616. Id. at 173. 617. Patty, 159 F. Supp. at 529. 618. Id. at 53334. 619. Harrison, 360 U.S. at 170. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 280 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 opportunity to construe the statute as they saw fit to protect the independence of the state courts.620 Also in 1959, Branton litigated Aaron v. McKinley.621 The case arose out of a subsequent attempt by the governor and General Assembly of Arkansas to preserve racial segregation in public schools and evade the Supreme Court’s rulings in Brown v. Board of Education and Cooper v. Aaron. 622 At issue were Acts No. 4 and 5, which were passed in 1958.623 Act No. 4 closed all of the senior high schools in Little Rock,624 which were to remain closed unless a majority of qualified electors of the school district voted in favor of integration in an election called by the governor.625 Act No. 5 complemented No. 4, in that it withheld government funds from the closed school and diverted them to other public and non-private schools students from the closed schools attended.626 While the Arkansas Supreme Court concluded that both of these Acts were constitutional, the district court concluded that, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, Act No. 4 was clearly unconstitutional under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.627 Because Act No. 5 depended upon Act No. 4, the Court effectively invalidated Act No. 5.628 Norwood v. Tucker629 was yet another continuation of the Cooper v. Aaron and Aaron v. McKinley saga. In this case, the plaintiffs alleged that they were denied admission to schools they were entitled to attend under a plan of desegregation because of their race and, thus, were denied equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.630 Under the plan, students registered to attend one of three general high schools.631 During initial 620. Id. at 179. 621. Aaron v. McKinley, 173 F. Supp. 944 (E.D. Ark. 1959). 622. Id. at 945. 623. Id. at 952. 624. Id. All of the high schools in the District were closed for the 1958 to 1959 school year. Id. 625. Id. at 947. Nineteen thousand electors voted against racial integration, while only 7,500 voted in favor. Id. 626. Id. 627. Id. at 950. 628. Id. at 951. 629. Norwood v. Tucker, 287 F.2d 798 (8th Cir. 1961), rev’g sub nom. Aaron v. Tucker, 186 F. Supp. 913 (E.D. Ark. 1960). 630. Id. at 800. 631. Id. at 80102, 805. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 281 assignments, six African American students were evenly distributed between two high schools, and the remaining were assigned to the third high school regardless of their areas of registration.632 Without exception, however, white students were assigned to the school they registered to attend.633 During reassignment hearings, thirty-two white students sought reassignments to schools outside of their areas of registration and twenty-four were approved.634 Of the seventeen African Americans who sought reassignment to schools within their residential area, fourteen were denied.635 In addition, the school board’s minutes of the reassignment hearings revealed that white applicants received a rather cursory examination, while African American applicants were subject to extensive cross-examination.636 Thus, the court ruled that both the initial assignments and reassignment hearings clearly violated the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs.637 In 1959, Jasper Alston Atkins argued against the segregation of public golf courses in Wolfe v. North Carolina before the U.S. Supreme Court.638 In December 1955, six black men— Leon Wolfe, George Simkins, Jr., Philip Cook, Sam Murray, Elijah Herring, and Joseph Sturdivant—went to the Gillespie Golf Course in Greensboro, North Carolina.639 The golf course had been constructed with public funds.640The six men were informed that they would not be allowed to play on the golf course.641 Nonetheless, they paid their greens fees and began to play.642 That night, the six men were charged on and convicted with trespassing in February 1956.643 That conviction was set aside by the North Carolina Supreme Court in June of 1957.644 A retrial convicted the 632. Id. at 806. 633. Id. 634. Id. 635. Id. 636. Id. at 808. 637. Id. at 806, 809. 638. Guide to the Jasper Alston Atkins Papers, YALE U. LIBR., http://hdl.handle.net/1007 9/fa/mssa.ms.1811 (last visited Nov. 13, 2015). 639. Simkins v. City of Greensboro, 149 F. Supp. 562, 563 (M.D.N.C. 1957). 640. Id. 641. Id. 642. Id. 643. Id. 644. State v. Cooke, 98 S.E.2d 885, 888 (N.C. 1957). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 282 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 six men, again, in 1958.645 In the midst of this litigation, Simkins filed suit in Federal District Court (Simkins v. City of Greensboro) and obtained an injunction in March 1957.646 The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed.647 The second conviction was appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, which upheld it, and was then appealed (the present case) to the United States Supreme Court.648 In an opinion authored by Justice Stewart, the Court found no evidence in the record that the men’s exclusion from the golf course had been discriminatory.649 In fact, the record that reached the Court had not included the record of the federal trial and injunction.650 Finding that the North Carolina Supreme Court had consistently avoided any investigations of its own regarding the accuracy of a trial record, the Court held that North Carolina had not acted improperly when it had refused to look into the accuracy of the record in this case.651 As such, the majority found that there was not a federal question.652 In 1968, Atkins initiated the discontinuation of the separate but equal policy concerning educational facilities in Winston-Salem and the state of North Carolina in Pro Se v. State Board of Education of North Carolina. 653 Also in 1959, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.,654 as a member of 645. State v. Cooke, 103 S.E.2d 846, 854 (N.C. 1958). 646. Simkins, 149 F. Supp. at 565. 647. Simkins v. City of Greensboro, 246 F.2d 425, 426 (4th Cir. 1957). 648. State v. Cooke, 103 S.E.2d 846, 854 (N.C. 1958). 649. Wolfe v. State of North Carolina, 364 U.S. 177, 193 (1960). 650. Id. at 186–87. 651. Id. at 191. 652. Id. at 204–05. 653. Id. 654. Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. was born on August 15, 1935, in Georgia to Mary and Vernon Jordan. VERNON E. JORDAN, JR. & ANNETTE GORDON-REED, VERNON CAN READ! 13–14 (2001). He grew up in Atlanta with his brother Windsor at a time when the city was segregated. Id. He attended David Tobias Howard High School and attended DePaul University in Indiana, where he said he was the only black student in a class of 400. Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., WHO SPEAKS NEGRO (Mar. 17, 1964), http://whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.ed u/interview/vernon-e-jordan-jr. During the summer, he earned money by chauffeuring the future mayor of Atlanta, Robert Maddox. VERNON, supra, at 3. Jordan graduated in 1957, and went on to attend law school at Howard University. Id. at 94–95, 108. Following graduation, Jordan joined the law office of Donald L. Hollowell, a civil rights activist. Id. at 126. He then went on to work for the NAACP, the Southern Regional Council, and the Voter Education Project. Id. at 144–45, 172, 175–76. He served as executive director of the United Negro College Fund, and later as president of the National Urban League. Id. at 202–03, 224. In 1998, he advised Monica Lewinsky after her scandal involving President Clinton. Key Player: Vernon Jordan, WASH. POST (Oct. 5, 1998), http://www.washingtonpost 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 283 the law office of Donald L. Hollowell, helped sue the University of Georgia for racially discriminatory admissions policies in Holmes v. Danner. 655 Ultimately, Judge William Bootle issued a ruling on January 6, 1961, ordering the admission of the two black students.656 Charles Gomillion, as lead plaintiff, along with Fred D. Gray,657 participated in the 1960 Gomillion v. Lightfoot Supreme .com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/players/jordan.htm. He has recently served on the board of directors for several Fortune 500 companies and advised presidential candidate John Kerry on debate strategy. Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., AKIN GUMP STRAUSS HAUER & FIELD LLP, https://www.akingump.com/en/lawyers-advisors/vernon-e-jordan.html (last visited Nov. 15, 2015) (listing American Express, Asbury Automotive Group, Lazard Ltd, and Xerox Corporation as some of Jordan’s directory positions); Vernon Jordan ‘57 Named John Kerry’s Lead Debate Negotiator & Elected President of Economic Club of Washington, DEPAUW U. (June 28, 2004), http://www.depauw.edu/news-media/latest-news/details/13537. 655. Holmes v. Danner, 191 F. Supp. 394 (M.D. Ga. 1961); Kara Mayer Robinson, Vernon E. Jordan: A Lifetime of Achievement, DIVERSITY & THE BAR, Nov./Dec. 2011, at 16, 20. 656. Holmes, 191 F. Supp. at 417. 657. Fred D. Gray is best known for being an attorney, preacher, and former elected official who defended Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks. Fred Gray Biography, BIOGRAPHY.COM, http://www.biography.com/people/fred-gray-21308983#related-video-g allery (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). Gray was born on December 14, 1930, in Montgomery, Alabama. Id. His father passed away when he was a toddler. Id. His mother got him involved in school at an early age, so he developed a dedicated work ethic early in his life. Id. Gray went to Nashville Christian Institute boarding school, then to Alabama State College and Case Western Reserve University where he earned his law degree. Id. His bus desegregation cases were the first major cases of his legal career that now spans over fortyfive years. Id. As a practicing attorney, Gray became the defense for both Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks after they refused to give up their seats on the bus to white passengers. Id. His case led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which eventually led to the desegregation of the bus lines. Id. Gray also became Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s first civil rights lawyer. Belmont to Host Event With Activist, Noted Civil Rights Attorney Fred Gray, BELMONT (Jan. 13, 2010), http://news.belmont.edu/belmont-to-host-event-with-activist-noted-civil-rights-atto rney-fred-gray. Gray worked on many other pivotal civil rights cases such as Gomillion v. Lightfoot. Fred Gray Biography, supra. Gray aimed to reform the United States as whole in “segregation, integration, constitutional law, racial discrimination in voting, housing, education, jury service, farm subsidies, medicine and ethics, and . . . the national judicial system.” Belmont to Host Event With Activist, Noted Civil Rights Attorney Fred Gray, supra. Gray was also a preacher at the Newtown Church of Christ, a state representative in Alabama from 1970 to 1974, President Jimmy Carter’s nominee for a federal judge (Gray withdrew from the nomination), and the first African American president of the Alabama Bar Association in 2002. Fred Gray Biography, supra. As state representative, Gray was only one of two African Americans elected to the Alabama state legislature since Reconstruction. Gray, Fred David (1930–), KING ENCYCLOPEDIA, http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyc lopedia/enc_gray_fred_david_1930 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). In recognition of his achievements, Gray received many awards and honors, among them being the American Bar Association’s Spirit of Excellence Award and the Nation Bar Association’s C. Frances Stradford Award. Fred Gray, Esq., Civil Rights Champion, TOWARD JUST. CAMPAIGN, http://www.towardjusticecampaign.org/fred-gray-honoree (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). Gray still practices law in Alabama today as a senior partner at the law firm of Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray & Nathanson. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 284 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Court case.658 In 1957, the Alabama State Legislature passed Special Act No. 140, which redefined the boundaries of the City of Tuskegee, from a square to a 28-sided, irregular figure.659 This gerrymandering resulted in a drop from a population of four hundred African Americans eligible to vote in Tuskegee down to four or five.660 Many African American Tuskegee citizens claimed that the Special Act No. 140 was unconstitutional because it discriminated against African Americans in violation of the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the right to vote as guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment.661 The district court dismissed the case claiming it had “no control over, no supervision over, and no power to change any boundaries of municipal corporations fixed by a duly convened and elected legislative body, acting for the people in the State of Alabama.”662 Subsequently, the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling on the grounds that the Special Act did not have racial or class discrimination appearing on its face and, therefore, did not violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments.663 The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case because “serious questions were raised concerning the power of a State over its municipalities in relation to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.”664 Upon review, the Court stated that “[w]hen a legislature singles out a readily isolated segment of a racial minority for special discriminatory treatment, it violates the Fifteenth Amendment.”665 Thus, the Court held that a local act which altered shape of city from a square to a 28-sided figure and drastically decreased the Negro voters while not removing a single white voter or resident constituted a violation of the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the right to vote as guaranteed in the Fifteenth Amendment.666 In 1963, Branton litigated Briggs v. State, 667 also referred to as the sit-in cases, which consisted of three criminal prosecutions 658. Gomillion v. Lightfoot (Gomillion I), 167 F. Supp. 405 (M.D. Ala. 1958). 659. Gomillion v. Lightfoot (Gomillion III), 364 U.S. 339, 340 (1960). 660. Gomillion I, 167 F. Supp. at 407. 661. Id. at 410. 662. Id. 663. Gomillion v. Lightfoot (Gomillion II), 270 F.2d 594, 601 n.3 (5th Cir. 1959). 664. Gomillion III, 364 U.S. at 341. 665. Id. at 346. 666. Id. at 34648. 667. Briggs v. State, 367 S.W.2d 750 (Ark. 1963). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 285 against thirteen defendants, consolidated for appeal.668 The defendants were African Americans who sought to eat various retail establishments.669 Authorities demanded the defendants vacate the premises, but most of the defendants refused and were subsequently arrested.670 The defendants were charged under Act 226 and Act 14 of 1959.671 Act 226 prohibited offenses that created disturbances or breaches of the peace.672Although the defendants challenged the constitutionality of the Act, the court held that the defendants conduct did not constitute a breach of the peace, and thus overturned their convictions.673 Act 14 required all individuals, regardless of race, to vacate the premise of a business upon the request of its owner or manager.674 The defendants similarly asserted that this Act violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.675 However, because it applied to all individuals equally, and the defendants could not show “a single discriminatory act on the part of the State in the enforcement of [the] statute,”676 the court held that Act 14 was constitutional, and thus upheld the convictions of those defendants who refused to vacate the premises upon the request of a business owner or manager.677 Branton also litigated Henslee v. Stewart in 1963.678 The defendant, an African American, alleged that he was denied his federal constitutional rights because members of his race were “systematically limited and discriminated against” during the jury selection process.679 The record illustrated that African Americans were continuously absent from the panel of alternates from 1952 through 1960, certain African Americans repeatedly appeared on panels from 1953 to 1960, no more than three African Americans served on any regular panel of twenty-four jurors during the same period, and the jury lists identified juror races.680 Therefore, the 668. Id. at 752. 669. Id. 670. Id. at 753. 671. Id. 672. Id. 673. Id. at 75354. 674. Id. at 754. 675. Id. 676. Id. at 756. 677. Id. 678. Henslee v. Stewart, 311 F.2d 691, 691 (8th Cir. 1963). 679. Id. at 692. 680. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 286 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Court concluded that African American defendants were limited during the jury selection process in violation of the defendant’s federal constitutional rights.681 Oliver Hill helped write the brief for NAACP v. Gray,682 litigated the year before the NAACP v. Button. 683 Initially, the State of Virginia prosecuted the NAACP for violation of Virginia’s laws against barratry (the “stirring up” of litigation by inducing individuals or organizations to sue when they otherwise would not), champerty (the assumption of risks and financial costs of a lawsuit by a third party in return for a portion of the monetary award), and maintenance (the support or promotion of a litigant’s suit by a third party to prolong litigation when the parties would otherwise have brought an end to litigation or settled the suit).684 These violations resulted in the Supreme Court’s Harrison v. NAACP ruling where the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that three Virginia laws were unconstitutional but did not overturn two of the Virginia statutes (Chapter 33 & 36).685 The Virginia Court of Appeals later overturned Chapter 36 on constitutional grounds.686 The NAACP then brought this claim to overturn Chapter 33.687 Chapter 33 of the Virginia Code originally forbid the solicitation of legal business by a “runner” or “capper;” however, the challenged rule defined runner or capper as an agent who retains a lawyer in connection with an action to which it is not a party and in which it has no pecuniary right or liability.688 Virginia argued that Chapter 33 did not regulate the free speech of individual lawyers and citizens, but rather that of a corporation like the NAACP; therefore, the Constitution does not protect the free speech rights of corporations as strongly as it did that individuals and it found the statue was constitutional.689 However, the Court held that corporations may also assert free speech and 681. Id. at 695. 682. NAACP v. Gray, 369 U.S. 833 (1962). 683. NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963). 684. Id. at 424–26, 439–41; Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167, 173 (1957) (defining a barratry statute); Champerty, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (8th ed. 2004); Maintenance, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (8th ed. 2004). 685. Button, 371 U.S. at 417–18, 418 n.1 (outlining the procedural history of the constitutionality of other chapters of the Virginia Code and how Chapter 33 arrived before the Court). 686. Id. at 418. 687. Id. 688. Id. at 423. 689. Id. at 423–26. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 287 free assembly rights on behalf of its members.690 Furthermore, litigation is a constitutionally protected form of political expression because it is a means by which equal protection of the laws can be enforced and protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.691 In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court reversed the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.692 Also in 1963, Orzell Billingsley litigated Swain v. Alabama. 693 Here, the plaintiff was indicted and convicted of rape, but moved to quash the indictment because of the alleged systematic exclusion of African Americans from the jury.694 The court decided that there was an absence of sufficient evidence to make a prima facie case for the systematic exclusion of African American jurors, which would have been sufficient to grant the motion to quash.695 The Alabama Supreme Court stated that mere numbers of people of a given race does not satisfy the constitutional requirement prohibiting systematic exclusion of a race from a jury.696 In 1964, Nabrit III helped write the brief the desegregation case of Hamm v. City of Rock Hill. 697 Hamm and a reverend companion went into McCrory’s variety store in Rock Hill, South Carolina.698 While there, they bought a few items and then sat at 690. Id. at 438–39. 691. Id. at 439–40. 692. Id. at 428. 693. Swain v. State, 156 So.2d. 368, 369 (Ala. 1963). Orzell Billingsley was a civil rights lawyer who represented Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on a number of occasions. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 4. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on October 24, 1924, Billingsley would attend Talladega College and Howard University before becoming one of the first ten African Americans admitted to the Alabama Bar. See 178 Cong. Rec. E37 (2002) (statement of Hon. Earl F. Hilliard); Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, Civil Rights Lawyer Orzell Billingsley Dead at 77, BIRMINGHAM NEWS, Dec. 19, 2002, at 1C. During the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycotts, Billingsley was one of the lead lawyers for Martin Luther King, Jr. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 4. He also fought within his home state and throughout the Jim Crow South during the Civil Rights Movement to end all-white juries and desegregation and to secure farmland for black Muslims. Id. Billingsley was known to advise Presidents Kennedy and Johnson on the civil rights situation in Alabama. Id. He was a founding member of the Alabama Lawyers Association. History & Mission, ALA. LAW. ASS’N, http://www.ala-lawyers.org/history-mission (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). He died in 2001. Stewart, supra. He was initiated into the Alpha Phi chapter of Omega Psi Phi fraternity in 1943. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 4. 694. Swain, 156 So.2d. at 36970. 695. Id. at 375. 696. Id. at 374. 697. Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306, 306 (1964). 698. Id. at 307. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 288 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 the lunch counter in an effort to be served.699 They were denied service but continued to sit at the lunch counter; the store did not serve Black people.700 They were arrested and charged with criminal trespassing.701 The trial court and South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the trespassing charge stating it is a private business owners right to refuse service to Black people.702 The Supreme Court reversed citing the Civil Rights Act at Section 201, which declares that “[a]ll persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation.”703 The Court went on to state that usually the law likes to deter self-help, but in this case, nonviolent means are acceptable means for asserting ones rights.704 In 1964, Oscar William Adams, Jr. litigated Armstrong v. Board of Education.705 The issue related to the desegregation of the public schools in Birmingham, Alabama.706 At the time, Birmingham’s population was 205,620 with blacks composing 699. Id. 700. Id. at 307, 309. 701. Id. at 30708. 702. Rock Hill v. Hamm, 128 S.E.2d 907, 907, 909 (S.C. 1962). 703. Id. at 310 (quoting Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-352, § 201, 78 Stat. 243 (1965) (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. § 2000a(a) (2014))). 704. Id. at 311. 705. Armstrong v. Bd. of Educ. (Armstrong II), 333 F.2d 47, 49 (5th Cir. 1964). Oscar William Adams, Jr. was an Alabama Supreme Court Justice and the first African American elected to a statewide office in the state of Alabama. Oscar Williams Adams Jr., ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ALA. (Sept. 8, 2011), http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org /article/h-3138. Adams was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1925, and graduated from Birmingham’s Parker High School. Id. He went on to attend Talladega College and was initiated into the Alpha Phi chapter of Omega Psi Phi in 1941. Id.; BLUNT, supra note 454, at 3. He graduated in 1944 with a degree in philosophy from Talladega College, and later earned his law degree at Howard University. White & Brown, supra. Adams began his own private practice soon after being admitted to the Alabama Bar and would work as a lawyer for over thirty years. Id. Adams specialized in civil rights cases and soon became recognized as a local authority on the subject. Id. In 1966, he became the first-ever African American to join the Birmingham Bar Association. Id. Adams would form a law firm with attorneys James Baker and U. W. Clemon. Id. The firm became one of the most prominent firms in civil rights litigation in the 1960s and 1970s. Justice Oscar W. Adams, Jr., ALA. LAWYERS ASSN., http://www.ala-lawyers.org/oscar-adams (last visited Nov. 16, 2015). He was appointed by Governor Fob James to the Alabama Supreme Court in 1980 and won re-election in 1982 and 1988. White & Brown, supra. Adams became the first African American to serve on any appellate court in Alabama. Id. He retired from the Supreme Court in 1993 in order to spend time on his memoir. Justice Oscar W. Adams, supra. He also taught classes at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law during his time on the bench. Id. He died from complications due to an infection related to cancer in 1997. Id. 706. Armstrong II, 333 F.2d 47 at 49. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 289 135,627 of that population.707 Never before “had a [black] pupil been assigned or transferred to a school designated ‘White’ or white pupil to a school designated [‘Black’].”708 After nearly four years of litigation, the United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit vacated an order denying injunctive relief and remanded the case to the district court with instructions requiring the school board to present a desegregation plan to the district court that would, at a minimum, provide for desegregation of three grades of high school in two years, three grades of junior high in three years, and one grade per year beginning with first grade of elementary schools.709 The court reasoned that this decision was “of paramount and continuing importance is consideration for the welfare of all children, both Negro and white.”710 IV. OMEGA MEN AND CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM FROM THE 1960S AND BEYOND After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Omega Psi Phi’s work in the area of Civil Rights waned. Nationally, the fraternity questioned its ability to lead public policy changes. For this reason, Omega Psi Phi supported—both financially and through the work of its membership—national lobbies created for social betterment and more suitably equipped to implement social action.711 Individual members would carry much of Omega Psi Phi’s racial uplift work on; some work occurred on a local scale, while some occurred nationally. For example, Percy H. Steele, Jr. served as secretary of the D.C. Urban League, and later became program director of the Neighborhood Housing and Urban League service council director in Morristown, New Jersey.712 He 707. Armstrong v. Bd. of Educ. (Armstrong I), 323 F.2d 333, 337 (5th Cir. 1963). 708. Id. 709. Armstrong II, 333 F.2d at 51−53. 710. Id. at 53. 711. ABERJHANI & SANDRA L. WEST, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE 246 (2003). 712. Albert Broussard, Steel, Jr. Percy H (1920–2002), BLACKPAST.ORG (2007–2015), htt p://www.blackpast.org/aaw/steele-jr-percy-h-1920-2002 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). Percy H. Steel, Jr. was born in 1920 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Id. He graduated from North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina, then earned his master’s degree from Atlanta University. Id. He moved to San Diego in the wake of a sizable black migration to the city and helped many black workers get jobs in previously segregated industries. Id. He also spoke out against discrimination in police hiring practices, advocated housing equality, and helped Oakland school to keep minority students from 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 290 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 would go on to be regarded as one of the major civil rights leaders in San Diego, a reputation that he earned during his 1964 to 1990 tenure as executive director of the Bay Area Urban League.713 Cleveland Sellers, Jr. became involved with the Student NonViolent Coordinating Committee (“SNCC”), becoming program secretary in 1965.714 He also worked on voter drives in Mississippi and joined major civil rights campaigners like Martin Luther King, Jr. in the march across Mississippi.715 Jesse Jackson,716 who started working for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches dropping out. Elizabeth Bell, Percy H. Steele Jr., Urban League Leader, SFGATE (Mar. 30, 2002, 4:00 AM), http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Percy-H-Steele-Jr-Urban-Leagueleader-2859441.php. Steele was a “committed consensus builder who worked with people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds,” and was also highly regarded as a major civil rights leader in San Diego. Broussard, supra. He was recognized for his outstanding work by the national Association of Social Workers, the National Association of Black Social Workers, and the Council of Executives of the National Urban League. Id. He was initiated into the Tau Psi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., in 1942. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 38. In 2002, Steele died at the age of eighty-two in San Francisco. Broussard, supra. 713. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 38. 714. CLEVELAND SELLERS & ROBERT TERRELL, THE RIVER OF NO RETURN: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BLACK MILITANT AND THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SNCC 139, 141 (Univ. Press of Miss., eds. 1990). Cleveland Sellers, Jr. was born in 1944, in Denmark, South Carolina. Id. He graduated from Voorhees School in 1962. About the President, VOORHEES C., https://www.v oorhees.edu/visitors/about-the-president (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). He organized a sitin protest at a lunch counter in Denmark and became active in the Civil Rights Movement at the age of fifteen. SELLERS & TERRELL, supra, at 20. Sellers enrolled at Howard University in 1962. Id. at 57. In 1968, Sellers was imprisoned following the Orangeburg Massacre on the campus of South Carolina State University. Id. at 222–23. These events resulted in the writing of his autobiography, The River of No Return. See id. After his release from imprisonment, he earned his master’s degree from Harvard University in 1970, then went on to earn his EdD from University North Carolina at Greensboro in 1987. Id. at 261, 275. Later, he served as director of the African American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina. About the President, supra. In 2008, became president of Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina. VOORHEES VOICE, Fall 2008, at 12. Sellers was initiated into the Tau Omega Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity in 1980. BLUNT, supra note 454, at 36. 715. Erica Lee Anderson, Sellers, Cleveland (1944–), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blac kpast.org/aah/sellers-cleveland-1944 (last visited Oct. 28, 2015). 716. Jesse Jackson was born as Louis Burns in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns and Noah Louis Robinson. Jesse Jackson Biography, BIOGRAPHY.COM, http://www.bio graphy.com/people/jesse-jackson-9351181 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). Robinson worked for years as the only black office employee for a cotton brokerage firm. Ronald Smothers, Noah L. Robinson, 88, Father of Jesse Jackson, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 31, 1987, at B7. Jackson attended the segregated Sterling High School in Greenville, where he was elected student class president and was known as an excellent student and athlete. Id. Upon graduating from high school in 1959, he chose to attend the University of Illinois on a football scholarship. Id. Following his second semester at the University of Illinois, Jackson transferred to the North Carolina A&T University, a historically black university in

2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 291 organized by James Bevel, King, and other civil rights leaders in Alabama. Impressed by Jackson’s abilities, King soon gave Jackson a role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (“SCLC”).717 When Jackson returned from Selma, he was charged with establishing a frontline office for the SCLC in Chicago.718 Jackson founded People United to Save Humanity (“Operation PUSH”), which began operations on December 25, 1971.719 In 1984, Jackson organized the Rainbow Coalition and resigned his post as president of Operation PUSH in 1984 to run for president of the United States, though he remained involved as chairman of the board.720 In 1996, the Operation PUSH and Rainbow Coalition organizations were merged.721 In 1964, Matthew J. Perry722 litigated Brown v. Lee, a classaction suit by African Americans who sought to enjoin racial Greensboro, North Carolina. Id.; North Carolina A&T State University, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REP., http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/north-carolin a-at-2905 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). While attending A&T, Jackson played quarterback, was elected student body president, and became active in local civil rights. Jesse Jackson, HISTORY.COM, http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/jesse-jackson (last visited Nov. 1, 2015); Jesse Jackson Biography, supra. He graduated with a B.S. in sociology in 1964. Jesse Jackson Biography, supra. He attended the Chicago Theological Seminary until 1966 when he dropped out to focus full-time on the civil rights movement. Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., RAINBOW PUSH COALITION, http://rainbowpush.org/pages/jackson_bio (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). Eventually, Jackson returned to his studies and earned his master of divinity in 2000. Id. 717. H. Viscount Nelson, Jackson, Jessie Louis, Sr. (1941–), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://ww w.blackpast.org/aah/jackson-jessie-louis-1941 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). 718. Id. 719. ERNEST R. HOUSE, JESSE JACKSON & THE POLITICS OF CHARISMA: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PUSH/EXCEL PROGRAM 12 (1988). 720. Id. at 169; Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., supra note 716. 721. Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., supra note 716. 722. The Honorable Matthew J. Perry, Jr. is best known for his success in handling cases “for the [NAACP] that resulted in the desegregation of schools, colleges, hospitals, parks, golf courses, restaurants, and beaches.” Douglas Martin, M. J. Perry, Jr., Legal Pioneer, Dies at 89, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 5, 2011, at A21. He was born on August 3, 1921, in Columbia, South Carolina, to Matthew J. Perry and Jennie Lyles Perry. Memory Hold the Door: The Honorable Matthew J. Perry, Jr. (1921–2011), U. S.C. SCH. LAW, http://law.sc.edu/ memory/2012/perry-matthew_j-jr.shtml (last visited Oct. 29, 2015) [hereinafter Memory Hold the Door]. “After serving in the [U.S.] Army during World War II from 1942 to 1946,” Perry graduated from South Carolina State College (now University) in 1948 with his B.S. and with his LL.B. in 1951. Matthew J. Perry, Jr., JUST BEGINNING FOUND., http://www.jtb.o rg/index.php?src=directory&view=biographies&srctype=detail&refno=148 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). During this time, he was a member of both the Alpha Iota Chapter of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. Memory Hold the Door, supra. President Gerald R. Ford appointed Perry to the U.S. Military Court of Appeals in 1976, causing Judge Perry to be the second African American and first Deep South-native to serve on the Military Court of Appeals. Martin, supra. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 292 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 segregation in South Carolina state parks.723 A black newspaper publisher joined the defendants, saying that the class’s views were not his own, and he opposed their relief.724 The Fourth Circuit ruled that the appellant’s opposition did not matter, since the segregation of state parks would have been ruled unconstitutional either way.725 The following year, Perry litigated Randall v. Sumter School District No. 2. 726 Perry represented the plaintiffs, challenging a petition by school district and others for modification of order of the district court granting injunctive relief that ordered admittance of plaintiffs at schools previously all white and generally ordering desegregation.727 The district court held that beginning with 1965–1966 school year, assignment of pupils seeking enrollment for first time should be made without regard to race, color, or creed with every practical expedition, subject to considerations of preference indicated in pupil’s application, ability to meet educational program of pupil by school sought, capacity of school, available space in alternative schools, distance pupil lives from school, and attendance in zone where pupil lives.728 Although Perry “was defeated as the Democratic candidate for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives,” then-Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter campaigned for him. Id. After Carter became president, he appointed Perry to the lower federal district court, which made Perry the first African American to be appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. Id. In 2004, the city of Columbia, South Carolina, renamed the courthouse to the Matthew J. Perry, Jr. U.S. Courthouse in his honor. Id. Perry has received many awards and honors such as the “Order of the Palmetto, South Carolinian of the Year, Thurgood Marshall Award, War Horse Award (Southern Trial Lawyers Association/ American Board of Trial Advocates) and William R. Ming Advocacy Award (NAACP).” Memory Hold the Door, supra. On July 29, 2011, Perry passed away in his home in Columbia, South Carolina, at the age of eighty-nine. Martin, supra. Perry worked as a senior judge up until his death. Id. His memory will never be forgotten. Harvard Law School professor Randall L. Kennedy said that Judge Perry “helped create federal law that enlarged our liberty.” Id. 723. Brown v. Lee, 331 F.2d 142, 143 (4th Cir. 1964). 724. Id. 725. Id. 726. Randall v. Sumter Sch. Dist. No. 2, 241 F. Supp. 787, 788 (E.D.S.C. 1965). 727. Id. 728. Id. at 787. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 293 In 1966, Orzell Billingsly, Jr. litigated Washington v. Lee, 729 where plaintiffs sought a declaration that certain policies of the Alabama penal system, namely the segregation of prisoners, violated the Fourteenth Amendment and an injunction against the state statutes allowing that segregation.730 The court stated that prisoners do not lose their constitutional rights upon entering a prison and that the segregation that the prisoners were subject to was a violation of the right to equal protection.731 The next year, in 1967, he litigated two other race cases.732 In Alabama NAACP State Conference of Branches v. Wallace, litigants challenged an act of the Alabama legislature that allegedly violated the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution by interfering with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.733 The court stated that to the extent that the act interfered with local school boards’ enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, the legislature’s actions were null and void.734 Then in Coleman v. Alabama, 735 after the Supreme Court of Alabama denied the petitioner Coleman’s request for a new trial after a murder conviction, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the decision.736 The dispute arose out of the systematic exclusion of African Americans on juries in the county in Alabama from which this case arose.737 The Court ruled that Coleman had made a prima facie showing of a violation of equal protection, and the State failed to rebut it.738 In 1967, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rendered its decision in one of Jesse Stone’s cases, United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education. 739 In that case, Stone fought for an integrated, unitary school system.740 A year later, Charles Gomillion was a plaintiff in Liveright v. Joint Committee of 729. Washington v. Lee, 263 F. Supp. 327, 328 (M.D. Ala. 1966). 730. Id. at 32829. 731. Id. at 331, 333. 732. Coleman v. Alabama, 389 U.S. 22, 22 (1967); Ala. NAACP State Conference of Branches v. Wallace, 269 F. Supp. 346, 348 (M.D. Ala. 1967). 733. Ala. NAACP State Conference of Branches, 269 F. Supp. at 349. 734. Id. 735. Coleman, 389 U.S. at 22. 736. Id. 737. Id. at 23. 738. Id. 739. United States v. Jefferson Cty. Bd. of Educ., 380 F.2d 385, 387 (5th Cir. 1967). 740. Id. at 411. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 294 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 Gen. Assembly of State of Tennessee. 741 In this case, the leaders of the non-profit Highlander Educational and Research Center, Inc. sued the Joint Committee of the General Assembly of Tennessee for passing Joint Resolution Number 14 in the 1967 General Session.742 Joint Resolution No. 14 was enacted specifically to enable the committee to investigate alleged subversive activities of the Highland Center with the “full power to subpoena witnesses, to take testimony, to impound records, and to do all things necessary to discover the nature of the activities of the Highlander Center and persons and organizations affiliated with it.”743 The leaders of the Highland Center claimed that the resolution violated their First Amendment rights with its vagueness and overbreadth.744 The district court ruled that, although state legislatures have the right to conduct investigations through appropriately authorized committee, a compelling state interest must be shown to justify the intrusion of First Amendment rights of the organization.745 To ensure that the committee sticks to its lawful legislative purpose, the legislature must instruct the committee on the limits of its powers and the authorizing resolution must spell out the committee’s jurisdiction and purpose with sufficient particularity.746 The Court found that Resolution No. 14 was void for vagueness and overbreadth in “that it has the effect of ‘chilling’ First Amendment freedoms . . . [and] is peculiarly susceptible of a ‘sweeping and improper application.’”747 In 1968, Nabrit, Jr. litigated to seek equal access to education for African Americans in Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Board of Education. 748 In that case, four Black students and their parents filed a class action to challenge the constitutionality of Alabama’s School Placement Law.749 The students were not 741. Liveright v. Joint Comm. of Gen. Assembly of Tennessee, 279 F. Supp. 205, 207 (M.D. Tenn. 1968). 742. Id. 743. Id. at 207–08 (quoting J. H. Res. No. 14, Reg. Sess. (Tenn. 1967)). 744. Id. at 208. 745. Id. at 214, 18. 746. Id. at 216 (citing Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 201 (1957)). 747. Id. at 218–19 (quoting Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 482 (1965)). 748. Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ. (Shuttlesworth II), 358 U.S. 101, 101 (1958). 749. Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ. (Shuttlesworth I), 162 F. Supp. 372, 373 (N.D. Ala. 1958), aff’d, Shuttlesworth II, 358 U.S. at 101. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 295 allowed to attend or transfer to public schools that were geographically closer to their homes than their regularly assigned schools.750 The parents petitioned individually with the school board and superintendent two weeks before the start of the 1957– 1958 school year.751 About two weeks later, the superintendent sent a letter to the parents instructing them to go to a school in Birmingham for the purpose of testing the children, presumably to see if they would “pass” in the predominately-white schools.752 At the same time, a letter was sent to the parents by the superintendent that urged the parents to stay in their schools and respect their local school board, stating that the children have many advantages to being taught by teachers of their race and citing statistics that supposedly highlight the success of Alabama’s black population under segregation.753 The parents presented their children for testing in October but received no answer as to whether their children could go to the closer schools.754 Even though the Alabama Placement Act was most likely an attempt at staving off integration, plaintiffs still must prove that they could not attend their desired schools on the basis of race.755 The superintendent and school board neither denied nor accepted their application; thus, the Court was not permitted to “search for a motive.”756 Furthermore, the Court stated that “no court, without evidence, can possibly presume that the members of the Defendant Board will violate their oaths of office.”757 The judgment was therefore entered in favor of the board and the Supreme Court affirmed.758 In Allen v. State Bd. of Elections that same year, Oliver Hill assisted with a Supreme Court brief when voters from Virginia and Mississippi filed lawsuits challenging state election law amendments.759 Petitioners argued that the amendments should have been subject to pre-approval requirements under Section 5 750. Id. 751. Id. 752. Id. at 373–74. 753. Id. at 374. 754. Id. at 374–75. 755. Id. at 378, 381. 756. Id. at 381 (citing Daniel v. Family Sec. Life Ins. Co., 336 U.S. 220, 224 (1949)); see also Doyle v. Cont’l Ins. Co., 94 U.S. 535, 541 (1876). 757. Shuttlesworth I, 162 F. Supp at 381. 758. Id. at 384; Shuttlesworth II, 358 U.S. 221 (1958). 759. Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U.S. 544, 546 (1969). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 296 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and were non-enforceable until they passed such requirements.760 The district court found that the Voting Rights Act did not apply to the voting changes.761 On appeal, the Supreme Court considered: (1) whether a private litigant could challenge the change to voting laws under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act; (2) whether these cases should be brought in local district courts; and (3) whether the amendment changes involved “a voting qualification or prerequisite for voting, or standard, practice or procedure with respect to voting” within the meaning of Section 5.762 In a 72 decision, the Court decided that Section 5 authorized a private right of action under the remedial aims of the Voting Rights Act763 and that such claims should be brought in the plaintiffs’ local district courts.764 Finally, the Court found that the Voting Rights Act was “aimed at the subtle, as well as the obvious, state regulations which have the effect of denying citizens their right to vote because of their race.”765 Therefore, the Court concluded that Congress intended that “all changes, no matter how small” be subject to Section 5 scrutiny.766 All four cases were remanded to the district courts with instructions to issue injunctions restraining further enforcement until the states adequately demonstrated compliance with the approval requirements of the Act.767 In 1970, Perry would litigate another case, Miller v. School District No. 2, a suit to desegregate the school system.768 “A proposed plan for desegregation was submitted by the school district.”769 The District Court for the District of South Carolina held inter alia that a provision allowing parents to indicate their desire for their child’s transfer to another school only through official forms available from the superintendent was “too restrictive of freedom of choice.”770 Instead, they argued, “the plan should permit parents to make transfer requests in any 760. Id. at 550. 761. Id. at 55253. 762. Id. at 54546. 763. Id. at 55457. 764. Id. at 55760. 765. Id. at 565. 766. Id. at 568. 767. Id. at 572. 768. Miller v. Sch. Dist. No. 2, 256 F. Supp. 370, 37071 (D.S.C. 1970). 769. Id. at 370. 770. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 297 manner that is intelligible and that only notifies the superintendent of the pupil’s name and of his exercise of choice of schools.”771 The next year, Perry litigated McGriff v. A.O. Smith Corp., 772 a class action by employees—on behalf of themselves and other similarly-situated employees—seeking relief for alleged violations of an employment practices provision of Civil Rights Act of 1964.773 On defendant’s motion to dismiss the class action and individual action, the District Court . . . held that neither conciliation agreement, which was entered into between employer and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which purported to settle any claims of general racial discrimination in employment policies and practices but which was not signed by individual claimant, nor Commission’s “ruling” that individual charges of racial discrimination in denial of claimant’s right to employment were untimely and thus without merit[,] constituted a bar, under some theory of res judicata, to maintenance of either claimant’s class or individual suit seeking relief de novo, notwithstanding conclusion in agreement of specific waiver and release of any matters within range of general charges.774 In 1971, the United States Court for the Fifth Circuit decided Lemon v. Bossier Parish School Board, another case where Jesse Stone represented a plaintiff.775 In Lemon, Stone represented litigants opposing segregation of local public schools on the basis of test scores.776 In 1974, Oscar Adams would litigate another case, Pettway v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co. 777 In that case, black employees of a manufacturer brought a class civil rights action for various 771. Id. 772. McGriff v. A. O. Smith Corp., 51 F.R.D. 479 (D.S.C. 1971). 773. Id. at 479. 774. Id. 775. Lemon v. Bossier Parish Sch. Bd., 444 F.2d 1400, 1401 (5th Cir. 1971). 776. Id. at 1401. 777. Pettway v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 494 F.2d 211, 215 (5th Cir. 1974). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 298 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 allegedly discriminatory employment practices, including maintaining “exclusively black and exclusively white jobs” and instituting a restrictive testing and educational hiring policy.778 The Court of Appeals held that testing and educational requirements which had been imposed by the employer . . . had been discriminatory as having as adverse effect upon the employment opportunities of blacks; that the consequences of such past discrimination were currently being carried forward by otherwise neutral practices of departmental seniority and bidding and posting procedures which determined promotion, age requirements for entry into the company’s apprentice programs, and departmental bidding utilized for selection of on-the-job trainees; and that both injunctive relief and the award of back pay were therefore justified.779 In the mid-1990s, A. Leon Higginbotham780 litigated the following cases. In Johnson v. Miller, Higginbotham represented 778. Id. at 21819. 779. Id. at 211. 780. Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. was born on February 25, 1998, in Trenton, New Jersey, to Emma Lee, a maid, and Leon Higginbotham, a factory worker. A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., BLACK HIST. NOW (May 31, 2014), http://blackhistorynow.com/a-leon-h igginbotham-jr. After being the first student in forty years to work his way through the Ewing Park Grammar School, an understaffed four-room segregated school, to Trenton’s segregated junior high school, Higginbotham began his undergraduate studies at Purdue University the age of sixteen. A Leon Higginbotham Jr., JUST BEGINNING FOUND., http://ww w.jtb.org/index.php?src=directory&view=biographies&srctype=detail&refno=11 (last visited Nov. 11, 2015). However, he transferred to Antioch College to escape harsh racial segregation that prevented black students from staying in the dormitories and forced them to live in the crowded, unheated attic of a house off-campus in the middle of the winter. Brian Gene Hoffman, Higginbotham, Judge A. Leon, Jr. (1928–1998), BLACKPAST.ORG, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/higginbotham-judge-leon-jr-1928-1998 (last visited Nov. 20, 2015). Higginbotham graduated from Antioch College in 1949, and Yale Law School in 1952 with honors. BLACK HIST. NOW, supra. After earning his law degree, he held many positions, including law clerk to Justice Curtis Bok of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania (1952–1953), Philadelphia County assistant district attorney (1953), founding partner to the law firm of Norris, Green, Harris & Higginbotham (1954–1962), special deputy attorney general for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1956–1962), and special hearing officer for the United States Department of Justice (1960–1962). JUST THE BEGINNING FOUND., supra. He was also the first African American to serve as a member at the commission level of a federal regulatory agency and the youngest person to be named 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 299 the Congressional Black Caucus.781 Georgia citizens brought suit to challenge the constitutionality of the redistricting legislation and sought an injunction to prevent its use in congressional elections.782 The district court determined the redistricting plan violated equal protection.783 On remand, the district court held Georgia’s drawing of the second congressional district violated the Equal Protection Clause because it was drawn to segregate voters.784 The following year, Higginbotham represented a state Congressman, Cleo Fields, in Hays v. Louisiana. 785 Louisiana’s congressional redistricting scheme was found to represent impermissible racial gerrymandering that violated the Equal Protection Clause.786 The Louisiana Legislature adopted a new redistricting scheme, and the Supreme Court vacated and remanded.787 A three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana found the new redistricting scheme unconstitutional.788 Louisiana and the United States appealed directly to the Supreme Court.789 The Court a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, a position which he held from 1962 to 1969. Hoffman, supra. President Johnson appointed Higginbotham to the federal bench on January 6, 1964 becoming the first African American to serve in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. JUST THE BEGINNING FOUND., supra. During this time, Higginbotham acted as an advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Civil Rights Movement after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Interview by Joe B. Frantz with A. Leon Higginbotham, Circuit Judge, 3d Cir. (Oct. 7, 1976). Some historians believe President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed black jurists like Judge Higginbotham to integrate the courts before naming the first black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, in 1967. William Glaberson, A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., Federal Judge, is Dead at 70, N.Y. TIMES (Dec. 15, 1998), http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/15/us/a-leon-higginbotha m-jr-federal-judge-is-dead-at-70.html?pagewanted=all. In 1977, Higginbotham moved up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Third Circuit, then served as chief judge of the Third Circuit from 1989 until he stepped down on March 5, 1993. JUST BEGINNING FOUND., supra. Later in 1994, Judge Higginbotham was named the first Public Service Professor of Jurisprudence at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Id. Higginbotham continuously advocated civil rights and, for his efforts, received recognition in 1995 with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. SAGE PUBLICATIONS, supra, at 413. Unfortunately, in December of 1998, Higginbotham passed away at the age of seventy. Id. Higginbotham, Jr. was truly what he called himself, “a survivor of segregation.” Glaberson, supra. 781. Johnson v. Miller, 922 F. Supp. 1552, 1553 (S.D. Ga. 1995). 782. Id. at 1552. 783. Id. 784. Id. at 1553. 785. Hays v. Louisiana, 936 F. Supp. 360, 362, 367 n.31 (W.D. La. 1996). 786. Id. 787. Id. 788. Id. 789. Id. 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM 300 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY [Vol. 6:1 vacated and remanded holding that citizens who did not live in the district that was the primary focus of the racial gerrymandering claim lacked standing to bring suit.790 On remand, the district court held that the district design constituted a racial gerrymander in violation of Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, and the court would provide its own redistricting plan.791 V. CONCLUSION Omega Psi Phi was founded in 1911, and a confluence of factors—historical, institutional, and organizational—gave rise to it, shaping its structure and ideals. Among those ideals was and is African American uplift. It is this ideal that has been nurtured and manifested over time and place. It is a legacy interwoven into the organization and numerous members who, at least arguably, lived out the fraternity’s ideals. It is a legacy that stretched into the twentieth century. That legacy, however, is complicated one that raises any number of questions. For example, Omega Psi Phi’s social justice and civil rights activism was more robust than that of African American sororities and most African American fraternities. Such raises the specter of discrimination against African American women Civil Rights activists in either law school, the legal profession, or the Civil Rights Movement more generally.792 It also raises the specter of slightly different ideals, or at least how they have been actualized by different African American fraternities, with some more deeply engaged in Civil Rights activism than others. The second issue raised is that Omega Psi Phi’s social justice impact, at least beyond the 1960s, became much less robust than it had been in decades prior. After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, arguably the Civil Rights Movement peteredout. And if this is an accurate assessment, then it is no surprise that organizations and individuals engaged in that Movement may 790. Id. 791. Id. 792. With regard female women law students, see Marjorie L. Girth, UB’s Women in the Law: Overcoming Barriers During their First Hundred Years, 9 BUFF. WOMEN’S L. J. 51, 74–76 (2000–2001); Audrey Latourette, Sex Discrimination in the Legal Profession: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 39 VAL. U. L. REV. 859, 880–84 (2005). 6 LAYBOURN_PARKS_FINAL.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/20/2016 4:48 PM

2016] OMEGA PSI PHI FRATERNITY & FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 301 have shifted their focus. While consequential to African Americans’ access to social equality, this is not shocking. Herbert Blumer, one of the earliest scholars to study group action—i.e., social movement processes—identified four stages of social movements’ lifecycles: (1) Social Ferment, (2) Popular Excitement, (3) Formalization, and (4) Institutionalization.793 Today, scholars recast those stages as: (1) Emergence, (2) Coalescence, (3) Bureaucratization, and (4) Decline.794 Decline may take place because the movement has been successful.795 As such, in the context of Omega Psi Phi, assuming that its membership and leadership believed that the goals of the Civil Rights Movement were achieved in the late 1960s, success was achieved. Accordingly, it is no surprise that Omega Psi Phi largely disengaged from social justice activism. In sum, the lingering question is: Where does Omega Psi Phi go from here? Does it have a future and a role in addressing African Americans’ modern quest for justice and social equality? Only time will tell. 793. DONATELLA DELLA PORTA & MARIO DIANI, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: AN INTRODUCTION 150 (2d ed., 2006). 794. Jonathan Christiansen, Four Stages of Social Movements, in SOCIOLOGY REFERENCE GUIDE 16 (2014). 795. Frederick D. Miller, The End of SDS and the Emergence of Weatherman: Demise through Success, in WAVES OF PROTEST: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS SINCE THE SIXTIES, 302 (Jo Freeman & Victoria Johnson, eds. 1999).

  

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 

Microsoft Word - 6 Laybourn_Parks_Final.docx (wfulawpolicyjournal.com)

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Dr. Robert Percy Barnes

Posted on February 12, 2018

By Brother David L. Carl
1-93-G

Bro. Barnes appointed by Pres. Truman to the National Science Foundation Board.

A Phi Beta Kappa scholar at Amherst College, he became the first Black professor to join their faculty. As Harvard’s first Black Ph.D. in chemistry, he returned to Washington to head the chemistry department at Howard. He mentored many of the Black chemistry students who would later earn doctorates.

He chartered the Phi Beta Kappa Chapter at Howard University with his fellow Gamma Chapter brothers, professors Roscoe McKinney, Sterling Brown, and William Mercer Cook. He then advanced a department which had only begun offering masters level course when he arrived, to a program which confer doctoral degrees. Both these accomplishments marked the firsts for any HBCU.

A prolific researcher, he published over 40 papers in high-impact scientific journals. In preparation for WWII, the US selected Barnes as 1 of 16 expert chemists for a defense post to study explosives. He again returned to Howard and led an unprecedented special intensive short term course funded by the National Defense Program, the only such offering by the government to Colored students. President Truman appointed him to the founding board of the National Science Foundation (NSF), 1 of 24 scientists (not just chemists) in 1950, a position he held for 8 years.

His stellar career and achievements in academia are even more remarkable given the limited resources available for his research efforts before the landmarks of the modern civil rights movement.

FacebookTwitterLinkedIn