Frank Reeves, D.C. civil rights attorney: 1956
Frank D. Reeves is shown after joining the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.) Feb. 1, 1956.
Kefauver was ultimately picked by the Democratic Convention as Adlai Stevenson’s vice presidential candidate but the ticket lost to the Republican Eisenhower-Nixon ticket.
Frank D. Reeves (1916-1973) was a relatively unheralded lawyer and civil rights activist based in the District of Columbia who was part of the team that shaped the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) lawsuit that rendered segregated schools unconstitutional.
Reeves was born in Montreal, Canada, and educated in New York City before moving to Washington. He lived with his family at 322 Division Ave., NE, and graduated from Dunbar High School.
He earned undergraduate and law degrees at Howard University. After receiving his law degree in 1939, Reeves worked for the NAACP in New York City. In 1941, Reeves went to work for the Fair Employment Practices Commission—a World War II federal agency similar to the later Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In 1942, the NAACP opened a Washington, D.C. bureau that Reeves headed up.
Among his many D.C. area activities were:
Reeves joined other civil rights leaders in 1942 in appealing for a presidential investigation into the Odell Waller case, a Virginia sharecropper sentenced to death for shooting his white landlord. An all-white jury convicted Waller despite evidence of self-defense. The appeal for Waller was unsuccessful and he was executed.
He successfully defended Frank D. Boston in 1949, a Baltimore postal employee dismissed for alleged communist ties during the Red Scare.
In 1950 when civil rights activists were staging sit-ins and protests to desegregate D.C. restaurants, Reeves took up the case of an integrated group of 15 people who sought service at a Sholl’s Cafeteria. The group was charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful entry.
Reeves was able to get the unlawful entry dropped, but a judge found the group guilty of disorderly conduct for standing in the cafeteria line waiting to be served. In convoluted reasoning an appeal was denied based on the pending Thompson’s Restaurant that would ultimately result in a ruling barring segregation in public accommodations in the District.
In 1952, he took on the case of the Greene family that was attacked and brutalized by police. James Green, 18; his wife Delores, 19 and Alexander Green Jr, 10; all required hospital treatment. The Greens were charged with disorderly conduct.
When Virginia passed eight laws in 1956 designed to curb the NAACP during the state’s massive resistance to school integration, Reeves was one of the attorneys that successfully challenged Virginia’s attempt to disbar lawyers who took on NAACP desegregation cases.
He represented a group of black children whose right to enroll in a school in Arlington, Va., was upheld by the Supreme Court and the county became the first in Virginia to desegregate its schools..
He was the first African American chosen to sit on the DC Board of Commissioners, the three-man panel that ran the city from 1874 until limited home rule was instituted in 1967. How3ever, he declined the appointment after a controversy about filing late taxers.
In 1960 Reeves became the first African American member of the Democratic National Committee. He served as an advisor on minority affairs to Senator John F. Kennedy during his campaign for the presidency.
Reeves taught at the Howard University School of Law during the 1960s. At the same time he was legal counsel to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and helped negotiate the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as well as the Poor Peoples Campaign in 1967.
He was part of the team in 1967 that would successfully sue to reinstate Rep. Adam Clayton Powell to Congress in a 1969 Supreme Court ruling.
He served as counsel to Pride, Inc., the youth employment group that Marion Barry headed and was Barry’s personal attorney.
Reeves was known for taking pro bono, or free, cases and organized others to do the same as part of Neighborhood Legal Services at Howard University.
He co-founded the National Conference of Black Lawyers, committed to struggle against racism through the use of the law. He also founded the Joint Center for Political Studies.
Reeves died in 1973.
The Frank D. Reeves Center for Municipal Affairs at 14th and U streets, NW, was named in his honor when it opened in 1986.
--partially excerpted from the Black Past
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmJtrTWK
The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Frank Reeves, D.C. civil rights attorney: 1956
Frank D. Reeves is shown after joining the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.) Feb. 1, 1956.
Kefauver was ultimately picked by the Democratic Convention as Adlai Stevenson’s vice presidential candidate but the ticket lost to the Republican Eisenhower-Nixon ticket.
Frank D. Reeves (1916-1973) was a relatively unheralded lawyer and civil rights activist based in the District of Columbia who was part of the team that shaped the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) lawsuit that rendered segregated schools unconstitutional.
Reeves was born in Montreal, Canada, and educated in New York City before moving to Washington. He lived with his family at 322 Division Ave., NE, and graduated from Dunbar High School.
He earned undergraduate and law degrees at Howard University. After receiving his law degree in 1939, Reeves worked for the NAACP in New York City. In 1941, Reeves went to work for the Fair Employment Practices Commission—a World War II federal agency similar to the later Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In 1942, the NAACP opened a Washington, D.C. bureau that Reeves headed up.
Among his many D.C. area activities were:
Reeves joined other civil rights leaders in 1942 in appealing for a presidential investigation into the Odell Waller case, a Virginia sharecropper sentenced to death for shooting his white landlord. An all-white jury convicted Waller despite evidence of self-defense. The appeal for Waller was unsuccessful and he was executed.
He successfully defended Frank D. Boston in 1949, a Baltimore postal employee dismissed for alleged communist ties during the Red Scare.
In 1950 when civil rights activists were staging sit-ins and protests to desegregate D.C. restaurants, Reeves took up the case of an integrated group of 15 people who sought service at a Sholl’s Cafeteria. The group was charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful entry.
Reeves was able to get the unlawful entry dropped, but a judge found the group guilty of disorderly conduct for standing in the cafeteria line waiting to be served. In convoluted reasoning an appeal was denied based on the pending Thompson’s Restaurant that would ultimately result in a ruling barring segregation in public accommodations in the District.
In 1952, he took on the case of the Greene family that was attacked and brutalized by police. James Green, 18; his wife Delores, 19 and Alexander Green Jr, 10; all required hospital treatment. The Greens were charged with disorderly conduct.
When Virginia passed eight laws in 1956 designed to curb the NAACP during the state’s massive resistance to school integration, Reeves was one of the attorneys that successfully challenged Virginia’s attempt to disbar lawyers who took on NAACP desegregation cases.
He represented a group of black children whose right to enroll in a school in Arlington, Va., was upheld by the Supreme Court and the county became the first in Virginia to desegregate its schools..
He was the first African American chosen to sit on the DC Board of Commissioners, the three-man panel that ran the city from 1874 until limited home rule was instituted in 1967. How3ever, he declined the appointment after a controversy about filing late taxers.
In 1960 Reeves became the first African American member of the Democratic National Committee. He served as an advisor on minority affairs to Senator John F. Kennedy during his campaign for the presidency.
Reeves taught at the Howard University School of Law during the 1960s. At the same time he was legal counsel to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and helped negotiate the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as well as the Poor Peoples Campaign in 1967.
He was part of the team in 1967 that would successfully sue to reinstate Rep. Adam Clayton Powell to Congress in a 1969 Supreme Court ruling.
He served as counsel to Pride, Inc., the youth employment group that Marion Barry headed and was Barry’s personal attorney.
Reeves was known for taking pro bono, or free, cases and organized others to do the same as part of Neighborhood Legal Services at Howard University.
He co-founded the National Conference of Black Lawyers, committed to struggle against racism through the use of the law. He also founded the Joint Center for Political Studies.
Reeves died in 1973.
The Frank D. Reeves Center for Municipal Affairs at 14th and U streets, NW, was named in his honor when it opened in 1986.
--partially excerpted from the Black Past
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmJtrTWK
The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.