1933 - Thurgood Marshall graduates first in his class from Howard University�s School of Law. Oliver Hill, also a classmate and one of the Brown counsels,graduates second. Marshall and Hill were both mentored by the Law School�s vice-dean Charles Hamilton Houston.
1934 - Houston joins the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as part-time counsel.
1935 - After having been denied admittance to the University of Maryland Law School, Marshall wins a case in the Maryland Court of Appeals against the Law School, which gains admission for Donald Murray, the first black applicant to a white southern law school.
1936 - Marshall joins the NAACP�s legal staff.
1938 - Marshall succeeds Houston as special counsel. Houston returns to his Washington, D.C. law practice but remains counsel with the NAACP.
1938 - Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada:
The U.S. Supreme Court invalidates state laws that required African-American students to attend out-of-state graduate schools to avoid admitting them to their states� all-white facilities or building separate graduate schools for them.
1940 - Marshall writes the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund�s corporate charter and becomes its first director and chief counsel.
1940 - Alston v. School Board of City of Norfolk:
A federal appeals court orders that African-American teachers be paid salaries equal to those of white teachers.
1948 - Sipuel v. Oklahoma State Regents:
The Supreme Court rules that a state cannot bar an African-American student from its all-white law school on the ground that she had not requested the state to provide a separate law school for black students.
1949 - Jack Greenberg graduates from Columbia Law School and joins LDF as a staff attorney.
1950 - Charles Hamilton Houston dies. He was the chief architect of the NAACP LDF legal strategy for racial equality, Thurgood Marshall�s teacher and mentor, and Dean of Howard University�s Law School.
1950 - McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents:
The Supreme Court holds that an African-American student admitted to a formerly all-white graduate school could not be subjected to practices of segregation that interfered with meaningful classroom instruction and interaction with other students, such as making a student sit in the classroom doorway, isolated from the professor and other students.
1950 - Sweatt v. Painter:
The Supreme Court rules that a separate law school hastily established for black students to prevent their having to be admitted to the previously all-white University of Texas School of Law could not provide a legal education �equal� to that available to white students. The Court orders the admission of Herman Marion Sweatt to the University of Texas Law School.
1954 - Brown v. Board of Education:
The Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in public schools violates the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection, and the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees due process. This landmark case overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine that underpinned legal segregation.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the five cases that comprised the Supreme Court case were: Thurgood Marshall, Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.; Harold Boulware - Briggs v. Elliott (South Carolina); Jack Greenberg, Louis L. Redding - Gebhart v. Belton (Delaware); Robert L. Carter, Charles S. Scott - Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas); Oliver M. Hill, Spottswood W. Robinson III - Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (Virginia); James M. Nabrit, Jr., George E. C. Hayes - Bolling v. Sharpe (District of Columbia).
Attorneys Of Counsel: Charles L. Black, Jr., Elwood H. Chisolm, William T. Coleman, Jr., Charles T. Duncan, George E.C. Hayes, William R. Ming, Jr., Constance Baker Motley, David E. Pinsky, Frank D. Reeves, John Scott, and Jack B. Weinstein.
1955 - Brown v. Board of Education (II):
Court orders desegregation to proceed with "all deliberate speed."
1955 - Lucy v. Adams:
A federal district court orders the admission of Autherine Lucy to the University of Alabama, and the Supreme Court quickly affirms the decision.
1955 - Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white passenger and move to the back. Ms. Park�s arrest sparks the 382-day Montgomery bus boycott and the civil rights movement. LDF assisted local counsel in defending Parks.
1957 - President Eisenhower orders National Guard to Little Rock, Arkansas to escort nine black students to Central High School to enforce Brown.
1958 - Cooper v. Aaron:
LDF wins a Supreme Court ruling that barred Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus from interfering with the desegregation of Little Rock�s Central High School. The decision affirms Brown as the law of the land nationwide.
1959 - Prince Edward County, Virginia closes all of its public schools rather than desegregate them.
1960 to 1965 - The Civil Rights Movement:
With the sit-ins in North Carolina and Tennessee, the Freedom Rides to Alabama and Mississippi, and the voter registration program in the Deep South, the Civil Rights Movement rivets the nation. LDF acts as the legal arm of the civil rights movement and represents Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a host of locally-based movement organizations.
1961 - President John F. Kennedy appoints Thurgood Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Jack Greenberg is selected as LDF�s Director-Counsel.
1961 - Holmes v. Danner:
LDF wins admission to the University of Georgia for two African Americans: Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes.
1962 - Meredith v. Fair:
James Meredith finally succeeds in becoming the first African-American student to be admitted to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) through the efforts of a legal team led by LDF attorney Constance Baker Motley.
1963 - LDF attorneys defend Martin Luther King, Jr. against contempt charges for demonstrating without a permit in Birmingham. While in jail awaiting trial, King writes "Letter from A Birmingham Jail," which would become the civil rights manifesto.
1964 - The Mississippi Freedom Summer:
A campaign by the Council of Federated Organizations attracts hundreds of young people from all over the country to Jackson, Mississippi, to establish freedom schools, register voters, integrate public accommodations, and organize the black community to fight for better jobs, schools and housing. Civil Rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney are brutally murdered by local officers in Philadelphia, Mississippi. LDF staff attorney Marian Wright opens an office in Jackson, and handles more than 120 Freedom Summer-generated cases. She later becomes the founder of the Children�s Defense Fund.
1964 - The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed by Congress. It bans discrimination in voting, public accommodations, schools, and employment.
1965 - Williams v. Wallace:
After civil rights activists make two unsuccessful attempts to march from Selma to Montgomery, LDF attorneys draft a parade plan and win a court order allowing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead thousands in a five-day march. When the demonstrators reach Montgomery, they present a petition for black voting rights to Governor George Wallace.
1965 - Hamm v. City of Rock Hill:
The Supreme Court holds that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 voids convictions of all sit-in demonstrators.
1965 - Abernathy v. Alabama; Thomas v. Mississippi:
The Supreme Court reverses convictions of Alabama and Mississippi Freedom Riders on the basis of Boynton v. Virginia, a 1960 Supreme Court ruling won by LDF that prohibited discrimination in interstate bus stop restaurants.
1965 - The Voting Rights Act is passed by Congress.
1967 - Thurgood Marshall is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first African-American to sit on the bench.
1968 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated.
1968 - The Fair Housing Act is passed by Congress, prohibiting discrimination in the sale and rental of housing.
1968 - LDF provides legal support for the Poor People�s Campaign in Washington, D.C.
1968 - Green v. County School Board of New Kent County (Virginia):
The Supreme Court holds that "freedom of choice" plans were ineffective at producing actual school desegregation and had to be replaced with more effective strategies.
1970 - Turner v. Fouche:
The Supreme Court holds unconstitutional Taliaferro County�s (Georgia) requirement of real property ownership for grand jurors and school board members.
1971 - Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education:
The Supreme Court upholds the use of busing as a means of desegregating public schools. Julius Chambers, LDF�s first intern and later its Director-Counsel, argues Swann before the Supreme Court.
1973 - Norwood v. Harrison:
The Supreme Court rules that States could not provide free textbooks to segregated private schools established to allow whites to avoid public school desegregation.
1973 - Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver:
The Supreme Court establishes legal rules for governing school desegregation cases outside of the South, holding that where deliberate segregation was shown to have affected a substantial part of a school system, the entire district must ordinarily be desegregated.
1973 - Adams v. Richardson:
A federal appeals court approves a district court order requiring federal education officials to enforce Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which bars discrimination by recipients of federal funds) against state universities, public schools, and other institutions that receive federal money.
1974 - Milliken v. Bradley:
The Supreme Court rules that, in almost all cases, a federal court cannot impose an inter-district remedy between a city and its surrounding suburbs in order to integrate city schools.
1978 - Bakke v. Regents of the University of California:
The Supreme Court rules that schools can take race into account in admissions, but cannot use quotas.
1982 - Against strong opposition from the White House and conservatives in Congress, the 1965 Voting Rights Act is renewed, with amendments to strengthen its effectiveness.
1982 - Bob Jones University v. U.S.; Goldboro Christian Schools v. U.S.:
The Supreme Court appoints LDF Board Chair William T. Coleman, Jr. as "friend of the court" and upholds his argument against granting tax exemptions to religious schools that discriminate.
1984 - Geier v. Alexander:
As part of a settlement of a case requiring desegregation of its public higher education system, Tennessee agrees to identify 75 promising black sophomores each year and prepare them for later admission to the state�s graduate and professional schools. A federal court of appeals approves this settlement in 1986 despite opposition from the Reagan Administration.
1984 - Julius L. Chambers is named LDF�s Director-Counsel.
1991 - LDF plays a key role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which restores many protections against job bias that had been weakened in the 1980s through adverse court decisions.
1993 - Elaine R. Jones is named LDF�s first female Director-Counsel.
1995 - Missouri v. Jenkins:
The Supreme Court rules that some disparities, such as poor achievement among African-American students, are beyond the authority of the federal courts to address. This decision reaffirms the Supreme Court�s desire to end federal court supervision and return control of schools to local authorities.
1996 - Sheff v. O�Neill:
In this LDF case, the Supreme Court of Connecticut finds the State liable for maintaining racial and ethnic isolation, and orders the legislative and executive branches to propose a remedy. LDF would have to return to the Court in 2003 to force the legislative body to fulfill the Court�s mandate.
1996 - Hopwood v. Texas:
Fifth Circuit of the Court of Appeals rules that the affirmative action plans used by Texas universities are unconstitutional; the Supreme Court refuses to review the case.
1999 - Thirty years of court-supervised desegregation ends in Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district.
2003 - Gratz v. Bollinger; Grutter v. Bollinger:
In a major victory for affirmative action, the Supreme Court rules in favor of diversity as a compelling state interest in the University of Michigan admissions case. LDF represented African-American and Latino student intervenors in the University's undergraduate school case.
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