Alexandria Historical Society Lecture

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 7:30 pm -
The Lyceum, 201 South Washington Street, Alexandria, Virginia

SAILING EAST FOR WESTERN SHORES: THE STRANGE LEGAL STRATEGY THAT DEFEATED SEGREGATION

Author Rawn James, Jr. will discuss "Sailing East for Western Shores: The Strange Legal Strategy that Defeated Segregation" based on his book Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall and the Struggle to End Segregation.

In Root and Branch, James retells the life of Charles Hamilton Houston, who graduated from Amherst College and Harvard Law School (serving as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review) and served in the army during World War I.   As dean of the Howard Law School, he modeled the rigor and organization of Harvard Law School and the army to produce top-rated lawyers who committed their careers to overturning Jim Crow laws, transforming the law school at Howard University into a West Point for civil rights advocacy.   One of his students was Thurgood Marshall.   The book portrays the partnership of Houston (as legal theorist, strategist, and mentor), Thurgood Marshall (disciple), and other civil-rights lawyers. They repeatedly went before the U.S. Supreme Court and its affiliates to argue in favor of ending lynching, the poll tax, all-white juries, pay inequality, and unequal educational opportunity for blacks and whites.

The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education is widely considered a seminal point in the battle to end segregation, but it was in fact the culmination of a decades-long legal campaign. Root and Branch is the epic story of the two fiercely dedicated lawyers who led the fight from county courthouses to the marble halls of the Supreme Court, and, in the process, laid the legal foundations of the civil rights movement.   Houston, tragically, would die before his strategy came to fruition in the Brown suit, but Marshall would argue the case victoriously and go on to become the first African-American Supreme Court Justice - always crediting his mentor for teaching him everything he knew.   Together, the two advocates changed the course of American history.

A graduate of Yale University and Duke University School of Law, Rawn James, Jr. has been practicing law for nearly ten years in Washington, DC, where he lives with his wife and son.

This event is free and open to the public.  No reservations are needed.   Seating is on a first come, first served basis.   The capacity of the lecture hall is 140.

Speaker: Rawn James, Jr., Author
Cost: Free