Charles Hamilton Houston (September 3, 1895 – April 22, 1950) was a prominent African-American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School, and NAACP first special counsel, or Litigation Director. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, Houston played a significant role in dismantling Jim Crow laws, especially attacking segregation in schools and racial housing covenants. He earned the title “The Man Who Killed Jim Crow”.
Houston is also well known for having trained and mentored a generation of black attorneys, including Thurgood Marshall, future director of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund and appointed as Supreme Court Justice. He recruited young lawyers to work on the NAACP’s litigation campaigns, building connections between Howard’s and Harvard’s university law schools.
Houston wrote later: The hate and scorn showered on us Negro officers by our fellow Americans convinced me that there was no sense in my dying for a world ruled by them. I made up my mind that if I got through this war I would study law and use my time fighting for men who could not strike back.
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