Charles Hamilton Houston and His Legal Challenge Against Jim Crow
Charles Hamilton Houston and His Legal Challenge Against Jim Crow
This video segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow begins by discussing Walter White’s struggle for an anti-lynching bill in the 1930s. Ultimately, White’s hopes for legislation were shattered but Charles Hamilton Houston, chief legal council for the NAACP, believed the Constitution already mandated civil rights—all the NAACP needed was to take the fight to the courts. Houston designed a system of gathering court cases that would challenge Jim Crow era policies and set precedent. Houston’s efforts would eventually lead to the civil rights milestone Brown v. Board of Education.
