Evening star., 1954-05-18
4Years illegal Work
End in Victory for
Two CoIored Lawyers
By Hector Mclean

By Hector Mclean
Call the things I've lived for,
and worked for, and believed in
have met a fine elimination.
Thus George E. C. Hayes
summed up the Supreme Courts
decision yesterday outlawing ra-
cial segregation in the public
schools of the District and of the
4S States.
IF we are to believe what we
say about democracy" declared
the 59-year-old Negro lawyer,
1T had to come. And it makes
ne feel good-deep within me
that nine justices Of the Supreme
Court believed that these things
are right"
Years Of Legal Work.
The decision ended nearly
four years Of intense legal work
without fee for Mr.. Hayes
and his associates, James M.
Nabrit, Howard University secre-
tary and law professor.
Last night then, they relaxed
and celebrated.
Hidden away in a Florida ave-
nue. apartment, protected from
q deluge of telephone calls, they
quietly retold the story of their
victorious legal battle.
The first praise went unStint-
ingly to Gardner Bishop. the
45-year-old barbershop operator,
who heads the Consolidated
Parents Group, Inc, which spent
$4,000 in court costs and in
cidental charges to carry seven
cases through to yesterdays de-
ciSion.
OF the seven, the two lawyers
pointed out carefully they were
connected with only two-that
of SpottSwood Thomas Boiling,
upon which the high court ruled,
and another still stuck in the
United States Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia.
But. Mr.. Bishop interjected, it
was they who forced the major
change in emphasis upon which
yesterdays decision was founded.
Strike in Earlier Case.
The earlier cases, he said, grew
out of the parent-pupil strike at
Browne School in December and
January of 1918. when the
parents were attempting to stop
the transfer from white to COL
ored use of Blow and Webb
Schools to relieve crowding at
Browne.
The demand, Mr.. Bishop re-
called, was for the transfer of
Elliott Junior High School, in
stead. They were backed legally
by Charles H. Houston, a Har-
ward graduate with a doctor of
philosophy degree from Spain
and the first special counsel for
the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
He died in 1949.
Mr.. Nabrit, carefully appor-
tioning credit where credit was
due, described Mr.. Houston as
the originator of the NAACP
program within the separate
but equal doctrine"
It was that doctrine, used
since 1896 as the basis for en-
forcement of segregation in
many fields, that the Supreme
Court yesterday struck down for
education.
Thurgood Marshall. present
special counsel, Mr.. Nabrit in
sisted, developed the NAACP's
attack on segregation itself as
fatty unconstitutional.
Equal Facilities First.
The first District cases, Mr..
Bishop said, were merely at
temptS to get equal facilities for
the children involved-not at
tackS on segregation.
But. he recalled, "NIr. Hous-
ton was dying Of heart trouble
and knew it. He sent me to
Mr.. Hayes and Mr.. Nabrit to
ask them to take the cases that
had already been started"
They refused, however, so
long as the issue was one of equal
facilities only. They insisted
they were not interested unless
the case was an attack on the
conStitutionality of segregation.
Then I had to go back to Ana
costia," Mr.. Bishop said, land
find case" And he led 16
Negro children residents of an
area where there was no colored
school to Sousa Junior High
School. where they were refused
admission because of their race.
This" he added, was before
Thurgood Marshall had decided
to frame the four State cases on
the issue of segregation only"
Bishop "Guiding Genius"
Mr.. Nabrit took up the story.
"Mr. Bishop" he declared, "has
raised the money. led the people,
kept the organization alive. He
was the guiding genius. Mr..
Hayes and I had merely to try
the case. We have been ex-
tremely happy to serve-although
we served for nothing"
The Consolidated Parents
Group, he said, was an organ
ization of parents in the District.
having no national connections.