Donald Gaines Murray (May 24, 1914 – April 7, 1986, in Baltimore, Maryland) was an American attorney, the first African-American to enter the University of Maryland School of Law since 1890 as a result of winning the landmark civil rights case Murray v. Pearson in 1935.
Early life and education
[edit]Murray was born on May 24, 1914, in Philadelphia, the son of George Lee Murray and Cecilia Lillian Gaines Murray. He graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1929. Murray then earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College in 1934.[1][2][3]
Murray v. Pearson
[edit]Murray sought admission to the University of Maryland School of Law on January 24, 1935, but his application was rejected on account of his race and his appeal to the Board of Regents of the university was unsuccessful. The case Murray v. Pearson was initiated by Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity as part of its widening social program; however, Murray was not a member of the fraternity.[4] The fraternity hired Belford Lawson, but by the time the case reached court, Murray was represented by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall of the Baltimore National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Marshall argued the organization's policy of racial segregation was unconstitutional and argued in principle that "since the State of Maryland had not provided a comparable law school for blacks that Murray should be allowed to attend the white university."[5] and stated
The Judge issued a writ of mandamus ordering Raymond A. Pearson, president of the university, to admit Murray to the University of Maryland Law School.[5] The ruling was appealed to Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the lower courts' rulings on January 15, 1936.[1][a]
Murray was admitted to the University of Maryland School of Law; however, he was not in a position to pay for tuition and books. Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity paid Murray's tuition and books from the time of his admittance to his graduation from law school.[4]
Career
[edit]Murray went on to practice law in Baltimore with the firm of Douglass, Perkins and Murray. He was involved in a number of cases which led to the removal of the color barrier from the University of Maryland graduate schools.
Murray was a member of the Baltimore Urban League, American Civil Liberties Union and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.[7] He retired around 1971 and died at the age of 72 while in Baltimore's Lutheran Hospital after a lengthy illness.[8]
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| Murray v. Pearson | |
|---|---|
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
| Decided | January 15, 1936 |
| Citation | 169 Md. 478, 182 A. 590 (1936) |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting | Bond, C. J., and Urner, Offutt, Parke, Sloan, Mitchell, Shehan, and Johnson, JJ |
| Case opinions | |
| Bond, joined by unanimous | |
| Decision by | Carroll Bond |
| Keywords | |
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Murray v. Pearson was a Maryland Court of Appeals decision which found "the state has undertaken the function of education in the law, but has omitted students of one race from the only adequate provision made for it, and omitted them solely because of their color." On January 15, 1936, the court affirmed the lower court ruling which ordered the university to immediately integrate its student population, and therefore created a legal precedent making segregation in Maryland illegal.[1]
Circuit court case
[edit]Donald Gaines Murray sought admission to the University of Maryland School of Law on January 24, 1935, but his application was rejected on account of his race. The rejection letter stated, "The University of Maryland does not admit Negro students and your application is accordingly rejected."[2] The letter noted the university's duty under the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of separate but equal to assist him in studying elsewhere, even at a law school located out-of-state. Murray appealed this rejection to the Board of Regents of the university, but was refused admittance.
The nation's oldest black collegiate fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, initiated Murray v. Pearson on June 25, 1935, as part of its widening social program, and retained Belford Lawson to litigate the case. By the time the case reached court, Murray was represented by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall of the Baltimore National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[3] Houston and Marshall used Murray v. Pearson as the NAACP's first case to test Nathan Ross Margold's strategy to attack the 'separate but equal' doctrine using the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Margold concluded "such laws administering such a system were denying equal protection of law under the Yick Wo v. Hopkins ruling of 1886 and therefore were unconstitutional.[4]
At the circuit court hearing, Marshall stated that Maryland failed to provide a 'separate but equal' education for Murray as required by the Fourteenth Amendment (using the legal standard at that time).[2] Since laws differ from state to state, a law school located in another state could not prepare a future attorney for a career in Maryland. Marshall argued in principle that "since the State of Maryland had not provided a comparable law school for blacks that Murray should be allowed to attend the white university"[5] and stated
The circuit court judge issued a writ of mandamus ordering Raymond A. Pearson, president of the university, to admit Murray to the law school.[3]
Appeal to Maryland Court of Appeals
[edit]The ruling was appealed to Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals. This court, in a unanimous decision, affirmed the lower court ruling in 1936.[1] The decision did not outlaw segregation in education throughout Maryland, but noted the state's requirement under the Fourteenth Amendment, as it was understood at that time, to provide substantially an equal treatment in the facilities it provides from public funds. Since Maryland chose to only provide one law school for use by students in the state, that law school had to be available to all races.[1]
Impact of the decision
[edit]The decision of the Court of Appeals was never taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, and as such the ruling was not binding outside of Maryland; the Supreme Court addressed the same issue in 1938 in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada. The NAACP's legal strategy of attacking segregation by demanding equal access to public facilities that could not be easily duplicated was followed in later lawsuits with mixed results. In Williams v. Zimmerman,[7] a case appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals, Marshall in 1937 failed in an effort to desegregate a high school in Baltimore County, which had no public high schools for black teenagers.[8] The legal strategy was successful in the desegregation of Baltimore's Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1952. It was not until 1954 that Brown v. Board of Education mandated desegregation across the whole of the United States.[9] Brown also overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson 'separate but equal' standard as comporting with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as used in Murray.
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INTRODUCTION
Donald Gaines Murray, Sr. played an instrumental role in the desegregation of the graduate and professional schools at the University of Maryland and was himself the first African-American to enter the University of Maryland School of Law since 1890.1 Moreover, Donald Gaines Murray became the first African-American graduate of the publicly funded University of Maryland School of Law in 1938.2 Prior to his entrance as a first-year student to the University in 1935, Murray was barred admission because of his race.3 Murray subsequently became the plaintiff in the widely publicized case, Pearson v. Murray,4 which was funded by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) and argued by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall.5 The case forced the University to admit Murray to the law school.6
Prior to his death in April of 1986, Donald G. Murray was highly regarded in and around the Baltimore, Maryland community. Throughout his career, Murray was recognized as the “lawyer’s lawyer” because of the skill and competence he exercised in preparation of legal briefs.7 Murray will long be remembered for his many contributions to the organizations he participated in and his tireless support of the African-American community of Baltimore. The following piece will examine the life and career of Donald Gaines Murray and more specifically
will reveal his early years, the case of Murray v. Pearson,8 which ordered the University to admit Murray to the Law School, reveal his law practice, organizational affiliations, leadership roles and allies in the community.
II. THE EARLY YEARS
Donald Gaines Murray, son of George and Cecilia Gaines, was born on May 24, 1913 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.9 Following the death of his mother, Donald, at the age of two, along with his sister Margery and father moved to Baltimore, Maryland.10 Donald’s father became employed as a waiter.11 Donald and his sister resided with and were raised by their maternal grandparents, the late Abraham L. Gaines, bishop of an African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Minnie Gaines.12 As a child, Donald attended Henry Highland Garnett School No. 10313 and then went onto to attend and graduate from Frederick Douglas High School in 1929.14
Following graduation, Donald briefly attended Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania.15 Interestingly, during Murray’s freshman year, Thurgood Marshall, who would later become a United States Solicitor General and Supreme Court Justice, was a senior at Lincoln.16 This coincidence would later turn out to be important to Murray because Marshall would play an instrumental role in his efforts to attend the University of Maryland.17 Following his brief attendance at Lincoln, Murray matriculated to Amherst University, in Northampton,
Massachusetts.18 While attending Amherst, Murray worked his way through the university as a waiter and he also received a religious scholarship.19 In May of 1929, Murray successfully completed his course and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History.20
Following graduation, Murray applied as a first year student to the University of Maryland Law School. Rosa Murray, his wife, stated that she did not believe that her husband originally wanted to practice law.21 Instead, Rosa believed that Thurgood Marshall convinced him.22 Rosa believed that since the doors had been shut to Marshall years before, Marshall wanted to open the doors of the law school to students of color and felt that Murray was a qualified candidate to enter the University.23 On the other hand, H.L. Mencken described Murray’s reason for applying, as “having a mind to consecrate his life to the fearsome mysteries of the law.”24 Whatever the reason may have been, Donald Murray’s admission to the University marked the beginning of the desegregation of public universities in the state of Maryland.
On December 8, 1934, Murray sent a handwritten registered letter to Dean of the Law School seeking admission as a first-year student.25 The letter described his qualifications and requested a formal application and school brochure.26 R.A. Pearson, President of the University, responded on December 14 explaining that he was in receipt of the request, however, under the laws of the state, the University maintained the Princess Anne Academy27 as a separate
institution for the education of blacks.28 Furthermore, Pearson explained that the Legislature provided partial scholarships for out-of-state institutions to black students desiring to study courses not provided at Princess Anne and should Murray desire such a scholarship to contact him.29 Later, Murray mailed a formal application to the University and $2.00 on January 24, 1935 along with a letter again explaining his qualifications and intent to enter the school.30 On March 8, Pearson returned the application, the $2.00, and a letter advising Murray of the exceptional facilities available to him at Howard University, in Washington D.C. and explaining that the tuition was considerably less than that of Maryland.31
Thurgood Marshall, Charles H. Houston and William Gosnell represented Murray in his case against the University.32 The case was argued in Baltimore City Court before Judge Eugene O’Dunne. 33 Murray’s counsel petitioned the court for a writ of mandamus to compel the University to admit Murray.34 Judge O’Dunne ordered the University on June 18, 1935 to admit Murray as a first-year student in the day division for the academic year beginning September 25, 1935, provided however, Murray tendered the necessary fees.35 To everyone’s surprise, on September 17, 1939, only eight days before Murray was to enroll in the University, an unforeseen problem arose; Murray did not have the funds to enroll.36 Marshall sent the following telegram to Houston:
MURRAY CANNOT RAISE MONEY[.] BAD SUMMER FOR WORK[.] FAMILY CANNOT RAISE[.] HAVE BEEN TRYING TO RAISE MONEY IN CITY BUT
WITHOUT SUCCESS[.] COULD NOT GET A LOAN[.] EVERYTHING LOOKS BAD[.] SISTER IS TEACHING AND COULD PAY BACK THE LOAN[.] THURGOOD37
In response, Houston, on September 19 sent a memorandum to Walter White explaining that they would have to advance Murray a $160 loan to enroll in the University or otherwise render the case moot and seriously affect their agenda.38 Neither, Houston, White, Marshall or the N.A.A.C.P. had the necessary money to assist Murray. 39
White sent a telegram that same day to Morris Ernst, an attorney and the trustee of the Garland Fund, a fund that previously financed, modestly however, several N.A.A.C.P. efforts.40 Nevertheless, White did not want the University of Maryland to know that the Garland Fund was financing Murray’s admission to the institution.41 Therefore, White instructed Marshall to deliver the Garland Fund check to Carl Murphy, then publisher of the Afro-American newspaper and interested in breaking the color barrier at the University.42 Murphy would then “loan” the $160 to Murray and deliver, along with the check, legal papers regarding how and when the money was to be repaid.43
On September 24, Murray registered, paid the admission fees, and began attending classes shortly thereafter.44 Rosa Murray explained that once in the school the faculty treated Murray fairly, however, Murray received a “cool” reception from the student body.45 Interestingly enough, it is reported that Houston and Marshall constantly reminded Murray of the importance of successfully completing law school, not failing, and putting his academics before
personal appearances and the like.46 In fact, to make it somewhat easier for Murray, Marshall and Houston provided him with a dollar or two of spending money from time to time.47
While Murray entered the fall of 1935, the University brought an appeal to the Maryland Court of Appeals.48 Murray argued that his exclusion from the law school because of race was a denial of his rights to equal protection of the laws and contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.49 On appeal, the University argued that because of the character and organization of the law school it was not a government agency and was not required to give equal rights to students under the Fourteenth Amendment.50 Alternatively, the University argued that if it was deemed a state agency, the admission of black students was not required because the Fourteenth Amendment permitted segregation of the races for education.51 As such, the University maintained that equal treatment had been afforded black students through scholarships to attend law schools outside the state.52
The court unanimously rejected the University’s arguments and affirmed the writ of mandamus.53 The court stated there “there was no escape that the school is a branch or agency of the state government. The state now provides education in the law for its citizens. And in doing so it comes under the constitutional mandates applicable to the actions of the states.”54 As a result, under the Fourteenth Amendment, the state was required to provide substantially equal
treatment.55 Addressing the University’s argument that a scholarship could be available to Murray to attend Howard University, in Washington D.C., the court noted that the expenses to Murray would have been considerably greater than that of Maryland.56 In addition, the court noted the advantages of studying law in Maryland, namely attending state court proceedings where he intended to practice, which could not be attained at Howard.57 The court concluded by stating that “the state has undertaken the function of education in the law, but has omitted students of one race from the only adequate provision made for it. If these students are to be offered equal treatment in the performance of the function, at present, be admitted to the one school provided.”58
In June of 1938 Murray graduated with honors from the University of Maryland and received a Doctor of Jurisprudence.59 On June 6, 1938, Murray, reflecting on his experience at Maryland and the importance of his admission, wrote Walter White and explained:
I have been aware during my three years in Law School of the responsibility which rested upon me – as you succinctly put it in your letter of encouragement early in my course – of developing with the minds of the students and faculty ‘a new concept of the Negro.’ As I told Thurgood, I feel that in some small way I have.60
III. LIFE AFTER LAW SCHOOL
Following graduation and passage of the bar examination, Murray engaged in private practice located at 721 George Street in Baltimore.61 In November of 1939 Murray eloped with Ms. Rosa Langley Walker, a Coppin University graduate and Baltimore schoolteacher.62 Murray met Rosa four years earlier while working as a clothes checker at the Druid Hill Park
during the summer of 1935.63 Rosa and Murray decided to elope because their parents were poor and it was less expensive than having a larger wedding.64 Also, both were afraid that Rosa’s father, a Presbyterian minister, would forbid them to marry because they were too young.65 As such, young Rosa and Murray took a cab to the minister’s house and were married with the minister’s wife and the cab driver as witnesses to the union.66 They later sent a telegram to their parents at the train station, prior to spending their honeymoon weekend in Washington D.C., informing them of their marriage.67 When they were first married, due to financial constraints, Murray and his new bride lived briefly with his grandmother Minnie.68
Murray continued his law practice until drafted into the United States Army during W.W.II.69 Murray left in 1945 while his wife was pregnant with their first child Donald Murray, Jr.70 Murray felt that it was his duty to enter the war, however, he resented the fact that the army was segregated among whites and blacks.71 During W.W.II, Murray served in the Europe Theatre of War and earned the rank of sergeant before being honorably discharged in 1946.72 By the time Murray returned to Maryland, his first child was already two years old.73 Following the
war, Murray resumed private practice with his firm Murray, Douglass & Perkins, Attorney’s at Law.74
IV. MURRAY’S LAW PRACTICE
When asked what type of cases her husband liked to accept, Rosa Murray expressed that Murray would accept “every kind.”75 Mrs. Murray explained that in the days that her husband practiced it was extremely difficult for African-American attorneys to obtain clients and as a consequence, to make money.76 In fact, Mrs. Murray was herself a member of the Lawyers’ Wives Convention Committee,77 a group of African-American women, organized to promote the law practices of their husbands and encouraged individuals to receive African-American counsel and representation.78 As a result, Murray represented a wide range of clients from criminal and civil cases involving rape, bastardy proceedings, and lottery violators to cases involving the constitutionality of statutes, restrictive covenants and the segregation of a public university. In addition, because Murray was well recognized for his skill and competence exercised in preparation of legal briefs,79 attorneys frequently obtained his assistance in preparing briefs for a variety of cases. Robert B. Watts, a retired judge, who had occasion to work with Murray, agreed that Murray was an attorney more likely to do legal research and prepare legal briefs than to appear in court. 80 Furthermore, Watts described Murray’s work as “scholarly.”81
The following paragraphs provide a brief summary of the cases in which Murray was involved. In Brislin v. United States,82 Murray helped prepare a brief that Duke Avnet argued for the appellant in an admiralty suit seeking to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by him as a radio operator on a steamship.83 Murray and Avnet successfully demonstrated to the court that evidence existed regarding the assessment of damages and the liability of the United States under the Jones Act, such that required the reversal and remand of the case to the District Court.84 Similarly, Murray and Albert Avnet assisted with the preparation of a brief, for Duke Avnet in Vlavianos v. The Cypress,85 another admiralty suit. 86
In 1948, Murray helped Calvin A. Douglass prepare an appellate brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals in the unsuccessful attempt to prove that the defendant, who had been convicted of rape, assault with intent to rape and common assault, was wrongfully convicted in Smith v. State.87 Later, Murray and Charles H. Houston represented several plaintiffs in the case of Goetz v. Smith, a suit involving the attempted enforcement of a restrictive covenant that forbid the sale or lease of a piece of property to or by any African-American or Asian or any person of African-American or Asian descent.88
Charles H. Houston, representing residents on Druid Hill Avenue and McCulloh Street, obtained Murray’s assistance in the preparation of an appellate brief for the case of Chissell v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore.89 In Chissell, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision to dismiss the complaint that requested an injunction on the city ordinance making Druid Hill Avenue and McCulloh Street one-way streets and an injunction against the enforcement of the collection of taxes based on increased assessments on properties located on those streets.90
Duke Avnet and Linwood G. Koger obtained Murray’s assistance in the preparation of the appellate brief, along with Mitchell A. Dubow, Robert P. McGuinn and Bernard Rosen, in Hammond v. Lancaster.91 Avnet and Koger represented Lancaster and various other Maryland citizens and taxpayers against Attorney General Hammond challenging the constitutionality of the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act92 and enjoining the defendant from enforcing any provisions of such act. Although successful in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, the Court of Appeals held that the complainants had no standing to maintain the suit.93
Later in 1949, Murray, with the assistance of Thurgood Marshall, Charles Houston and Robert L. Carter, represented Esther McCready in the case of McCready v. Byrd,94 who was denied admission to the University of Maryland School of Nursing because of her race but offered training at an
Later in 1949, Murray, with the assistance of Thurgood Marshall, Charles Houston and Robert L. Carter, represented Esther McCready in the case of McCready v. Byrd,94 who was denied admission to the University of Maryland School of Nursing because of her race but offered training at an institution in Nashville, Tennessee. Murray successfully appealed the lower court decision, which dismissed the petition for a writ of mandamus, and required the University admit McCready on the grounds that the University was required to provide equal educational opportunities inside the state. 95 Murray also represented six other African-American applicants to the University of Maryland denied admission to their school of choice and offered admission to other schools.96 Murray later dismissed the suits in years following the McCready decision.
Murray also helped Ernest L. Perkins prepare several appellate briefs involving violations of lottery and gaming laws. In Robinson v. State, Murray along with LeRoy A. Cooper on the brief, assisted Ernest Perkins, although unsuccessfully, appeal the conviction of the defendant for violating Maryland gaming and lottery laws.97 Similarly, in Burrell v. State, Murray along with William H. Murphy on the brief, assisted Perkins unsuccessfully appeal Burrell’s prosecution and conviction for violation of lottery laws.98 In Brown v. State, Murray on brief, again assisting Perkins, unsuccessfully appealed the defendant’s conviction for possession of lottery materials.99 Murray also had the occasion to assist Perkins on the brief in White v. State, an appeal of a rape conviction.100 The Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s conviction of Perkins’ client for rape because no evidence existed proving that the confession of the defendant was improperly admitted.101
Murray, personally represented the plaintiff-admininstratix in Burrell v. Veanie,102 with Perkins and their firm on brief. The Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s decision because the plaintiff was unable to establish that she was entitled to a greater amount of her sister’s estate.103 Murray also personally represented a defendant in Bush v. State,104 appealing defendant’s conviction for the armed robbery of a grocery store. Again the Court of Appeals affirmed the defendant’s conviction because the credibility of witnesses who identified the defendant in the robbery and the sufficiency of the identification were matters properly addressed by the trial court.105
Late in his career, Murray helped Calvin A. Douglass prepare several appellate briefs in bastardy proceedings. In both Cooper v. State106 and Smith v. Jackson,107 the Court of Appeals sustained the lower court’s decision finding the defendants to be the fathers of the children at issue.
V. EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCES BEYOND THE LAW
Due to financial constraints, in addition to his law practice, Murray held a number of positions unrelated to the law during his career. In the late 1930’s, Murray served as a part-time inspector for the Board of Liquor License Commissioners for Baltimore City.108 Similarly, in 1938 Murray worked shortly for the City of Baltimore Housing Authority as an investigator performing survey work in East Baltimore City.109
Following his return from W.W.II, Murray served as an inspector for the State Board of Motion Picture Censors in the early 1950’s.110 As an inspector for the Censor Board, Murray was responsible for attending motion pictures to ensure that they were shown in the form in which the Board had approved them and to ensure that the picture bore the seal of the Board.111 In 1955, however, at the age of 43, Murray was terminated from this position after being convicted in traffic court for drinking and driving.112 Murray was arrested after the state car he was driving struck a parked car and continued driving in a zigzag course before being stopped by
police.113 Although, Murray denied that he was drinking and driving, the magistrate, S. Robert Levinson, suspended his license for fifteen days and fined him $375.114
VI. PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS & ACHIEVEMENTS
Donald G. Murray was a member of and involved in a number of professional organizations and social groups. Murray was a member of the Baltimore N.A.A.C.P. Legal Redress Committee, along with other members including Juanita J. Mitchell, Lillie M. Jackson, W.A.C. Hughes, Jr., Calvin A. Douglass, Furman L. Templeton, and others.115 He was an active member of Monumental Bar Association116 and served at one time on the Amendment to the Laws Committee of the Monumental Bar.117 In 1950, Murray was elected Chairperson of the Charles Hamilton Houston Memorial Fund Committee to raise funds for Houston’s surviving six-year-old son.118 Murray was also a member of the Baltimore Urban League, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Guardsman, a social club, and the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.119
In addition, the Afro-American newspaper, the National N.A.A.C.P., the Black American Law Students Association (BALSA) and the University of Maryland School of Law honored Donald Murray before his death.120 In 1939, Murray was named to the Afro-American Honor Roll.121 He was also given national recognition as a pioneer in the African-American legal community by the N.A.A.C.P. in 1972.122 In 1981, the Black American Law Students Association at the University of Maryland School of Law saluted Murray as an outstanding legal
pioneer in Maryland.123 Similarly, in 1985, Murray was honored by the School of Law in ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the opening of the law school without racial restrictions.124
VII. CONCLUSION
Following a very impressive career, Murray retired in 1971 due to illness.125 Even after retirement, Murray worked part-time at the Legal Aid Bureau from 1979 until 1983.126 Rosa Murray explained that her husband suffered a series of strokes and had been declining in health for approximately seventeen years prior to his death.127 On April 7, 1986, Murray passed away at the age of seventy-two at Lutheran Hospital.128 His wife, and three sons, Donald Jr., Alfred Walker and John Gaines Murray survived him.129 Subsequently, funeral services were held at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, with Reverend Reginald Daniels serving as presiding pastor.130 Murray was buried in the Maryland National Memorial Park in Laurel, Maryland.131
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Donald Gaines Murray and the Integration of the University Of Maryland School of Law
Donald Gaines Murray, Sr. (1914 - 1986) was the first African-American to enter the University of Maryland School of Law following the 1890 effort to prevent African-Americans from attending the school (see: "Colored Students Ruled Out"). Murray first sought admission to the University of Maryland School of Law on January 24, 1935, but his application was rejected based on race and his subsequent appeal to the Board of Regents of the university was unsuccessful. Upon this second rejection Murray began to work with lawyers at Washington D.C.'s Howard University to consider possible legal action. According to Juan Williams writing in his 1998 work Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary when Thurgood Marshall learned that some other lawyers were considering filing a suit against the State of Maryland and the University:
he [Marshall] got upset and wrote to [Charles Hamilton] Houston that he wanted to be first to file suit. He could not bear to allow any other lawyer to take the lead on this case.
By the time the case reached court, Murray was represented by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, with help from Baltimore based attorney Nicholas Gosnell. Marshall argued the organization's policy of racial segregation was unconstitutional and argued in principle that "since the State of Maryland had not provided a comparable law school for blacks that Murray should be allowed to attend the white university." and stated " What's at stake here is more than the rights of my client. It's the moral commitment stated in our country's creed."
Judge Eugene O'Dunne ordered Raymond A. Pearson, president of the university, to admit Murray to the University of Maryland Law School. The ruling was appealed to Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the lower courts' rulings on January 15, 1936.
Murray, who eventually graduated in 1938, [1939 catalog listing Murray's graduation] went on to practice law in Baltimore with the firm of Douglass, Perkins and Murray. He was involved in several subsequent cases which would lead to integration of other professional schools at the Univ
ersity of Maryland.
Murray was a member of the Baltimore Urban League, American Civil Liberties Union and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. He retired in the early 1970s and died at the age of 72. [Murray Obituary]
The Murray case was an involved, far-reaching effort and has been extensively studied by both historians and lawyers. It played an important role in the breaking down of barriers to education at other University of Maryland Schools and helped Thurgood Marshall to develop the arguments that would come to the fore in the Brown v. Board of Education.
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THE COURTS
THE COURTS; Poetic Justice
In 1930, Thurgood Marshall, a lanky honors graduate fresh from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, realized that the law school he hoped to attend did not accept black students. Though the University of Maryland School of Law was just blocks from his parents' home in West Baltimore, he decided it would be a waste of time and upsetting to even bother to apply.
Marshall went to Howard University Law School, a private school 40 miles away in Washington, founded to educate former slaves. He couldn't afford to live in Washington so he had to commute. His mother, a kindergarten teacher in the inferior schools open to black children, pawned her wedding ring to pay the higher tuition. Marshall graduated from Howard No. 1 in the class of 1933.
But he held a grudge against the law school that had never given him a chance. In the late 1970's, Marshall told an interviewer from Columbia University's Oral History Archives that he had dreamed about ''getting even with Maryland for not letting me go to its law school.''
Years later, sitting with me for one of the last interviews before his death in 1993, Marshall admitted that he was still angry. His face tensed and his eyes, watery from glaucoma, focused sharply at the memory. A quiet, reclusive man who loved to tease and joke, the justice quickly turned serious and used profanity to describe the administrators who had enforced the law school's whites-only policy. But Marshall had already settled the score.
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In 1933, Nathan Margold, a young Harvard law graduate, had written a report for the N.A.A.C.P. that concluded that the best way to defeat segregation was not to challenge the segregation law itself but to show a violation of the equal rights promised to all citizens under the Constitution. By law, black schools and white must be equal in every way. Marshall read the study several times. ''The report stayed with me,'' he told me. ''The South would go broke paying for truly equal, dual systems.''
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Up to then, there had been no major legal challenge to the black plight in education. One suit, against the University of North Carolina, had employed a similar tactic but had failed to move forward on a technicality. But Marshall believed that in the right state with the right student, the strategy could blow apart school segregation.
Only a year after graduating from Howard Law School, the 25-year-old Marshall put the strategy to the test. He persuaded a black Amherst College graduate, Donald Gaines Murray, to apply to Maryland's law school. As expected, Murray was rejected because of his skin color. But the rejection fit into Marshall's plan. He directed Murray to write a letter to the regents asking why an Amherst graduate with good grades who was the grandson of a prominent Maryland bishop could not get into the state university's law school. The regents responded: wait for a planned law school for blacks to be built or go out of state to Howard. The regents had fallen into a legal trap. Marshall used the letter, an explicit ban on black students, as the basis for a lawsuit against the university.
The case went to court in June 1935. Marshall argued that in 1896 the Supreme Court had ruled that blacks and whites could be segregated but must have equal facilities. No equal facility existed to educate Murray in the laws of the state of Maryland. The next day, a Baltimore City Court stunned lawyers on both sides by ruling that Murray must be admitted to the University of Maryland.
The case became a template for legal attacks on segregation in professional and graduate schools, from the University of Missouri to Texas and Oklahoma. Those cases eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, and in June 1950 the court ruled in favor of the N.A.A.C.P. The majority opinion from the justices laid down a new standard for segregated schools: they had to be truly equal -- in resources, faculties and even tradition -- or the existing white school had to be integrated.
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In the weeks after the decision, Marshall, now head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, held a conference for lawyers supporting his cause. Prominent black lawyers nationwide as well as top law professors from Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Howard met in New York for lengthy debates on the next step in the assault on segregated schools. They agreed to take a leap of legal logic and argue that any racially separate school violated the Constitution's promise of equal protection for all citizens, regardless of race. N.A.A.C.P. chapters across the country offered up examples of disparities between black and white schools:
In Clarendon County, S.C., white schools got 60 percent of the school board's funds even though three-quarters of the schoolchildren were black. The local courts ruled against Marshall and the N.A.A.C.P. in the case, Briggs v. Elliott.
In Prince Edward County, Va., there was one high school for blacks, and it had no cafeteria or gym and was crammed with twice the number of students it was built to house.
In Topeka, Kan., a 7-year-old girl, Linda Brown, had to walk past a white school and across railroad tracks to catch a bus to take her to a black school.
The Supreme Court added two other cases that touched on the same issue of school segregation. In Delaware, the state government was appealing a lower court order to integrate schools, and in the District of Columbia, black parents were challenging segregation in public schools operating under federal jurisdiction.
With the cases clustered under the title Brown v. Board of Education, Marshall went before the court, arguing that since the end of slavery, black Americans had sought equal education and equal opportunity. The only justification for segregated schooling, he said, was a racist desire to keep people who were formerly in slavery ''as near that state as is possible.''
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In its unanimous ruling, read from the bench by Chief Justice Earl Warren on May 17, 1954, the court said of the nation's black schoolchildren: ''To separate them from others of similar age and qualification solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their habits and minds in a way very unlikely ever to be undone. We conclude unanimously * separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.''
Marshall was there as the decision was read. He told a fellow lawyer, ''We hit the jackpot.''
In 1980, the University of Maryland School of Law opened a new library and named it for the Baltimore native on the United States Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall. The dean, Michael Kelly, repeatedly called Justice Marshall to invite him as the honored guest for the opening. The school had even commissioned a bust of him to be placed in the entryway. Marshall refused to attend, and when the university asked other members of the court to the ceremony in Baltimore, Marshall wrote to his colleagues: ''I will not go there. I am very certain that Maryland is trying to salve its conscience for excluding the Negroes from the University of Maryland for such a long period of time.''
If the school didn't want anything to do with the young Thurgood Marshall, he told me, then he didn't want anything to do with them now. He would not soon forgive his home state for denying him an education, but as far as he was concerned, he had repaired the scales of injustice that had weighed against him personally.
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