Charles Hamilton Houston
Charles Hamilton Houston is shown in an undated photo taken sometime between 1940-50.
Houston played a key role in the initial fight against Capital Transit, acting as one of the sponsors of Committee on Jobs for Negroes in Public Utilities. The Committee was composed of a broad range of organizations and individuals ranging from congressmen to communists that fought for breaking the color barrier for streetcar and bus operator jobs.
Houston later served on the federal Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) from 1944-45. Houston resigned from the FEPC in disgust, blasting President Truman who refused to force Capital Transit to integrate its operator ranks.
Houston is best known as an activist who used is law degree to change social conditions, winning landmark desegregation years cases prior to the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Houston was NAACP special counsel from 1936-40 and a mentor of Thurgood Marshall.
He was also a fervent free speech advocate who defended the “Hollywood 10” against contempt of Congress charges when they refused to cooperate with an investigation into the Communist Party.
He is sometimes called the man who killed “Jim Crow.” The Capital Transit case is often cited as Houston’s biggest defeat. Houston, a Washington native, died April 22, 1950 and is buried in Lincoln Cemetery.
“We must never forget that the public officers, elective or appointive, are the servants of the class which places them in office and maintains them there.”
--Charles Hamilton Houston
For an article on the fight to desegregate Capital Transit, see washingtonspark.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/the-fight-agains...
For additional photos, please see, “Fighting Capital Transit Racism 1941-55,” flic.kr/s/aHsjCrE9RH
Photographer unknown. From the Library of Congress NAACP collection of portraits of founders, board members, staff, branch officers and other prominent cultural, social and political figures. LOT 13074, no 249 [P&P].
Charles Hamilton Houston
Charles Hamilton Houston is shown in an undated photo taken sometime between 1940-50.
Houston played a key role in the initial fight against Capital Transit, acting as one of the sponsors of Committee on Jobs for Negroes in Public Utilities. The Committee was composed of a broad range of organizations and individuals ranging from congressmen to communists that fought for breaking the color barrier for streetcar and bus operator jobs.
Houston later served on the federal Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) from 1944-45. Houston resigned from the FEPC in disgust, blasting President Truman who refused to force Capital Transit to integrate its operator ranks.
Houston is best known as an activist who used is law degree to change social conditions, winning landmark desegregation years cases prior to the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Houston was NAACP special counsel from 1936-40 and a mentor of Thurgood Marshall.
He was also a fervent free speech advocate who defended the “Hollywood 10” against contempt of Congress charges when they refused to cooperate with an investigation into the Communist Party.
He is sometimes called the man who killed “Jim Crow.” The Capital Transit case is often cited as Houston’s biggest defeat. Houston, a Washington native, died April 22, 1950 and is buried in Lincoln Cemetery.
“We must never forget that the public officers, elective or appointive, are the servants of the class which places them in office and maintains them there.”
--Charles Hamilton Houston
For an article on the fight to desegregate Capital Transit, see washingtonspark.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/the-fight-agains...
For additional photos, please see, “Fighting Capital Transit Racism 1941-55,” flic.kr/s/aHsjCrE9RH
Photographer unknown. From the Library of Congress NAACP collection of portraits of founders, board members, staff, branch officers and other prominent cultural, social and political figures. LOT 13074, no 249 [P&P].