23 February 2004

Civil rights legend Oliver W. Hill Sr. to appear at Longwood

 

Oliver W. Hill Sr. admires the bust of him that is in the Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond.

Civil rights legend Oliver W. Hill Sr., who took on the Prince Edward County school desegregation case that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education, will appear at Longwood University to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of that historic decision.

 

An Evening with Attorneys Oliver Hill and Jonathan Stubbs will be held Wednesday, March 3, at 7 p.m. in Wygal Auditorium. Stubbs is a professor of law at the University of Richmond Law School and the editor of The Autobiography of Oliver W. Hill Sr. - The Big Bang: Brown v. Board of Education and Beyond, published in 2000. The program will be moderated by Farmville attorney A. Pierre Jackson, who as a law student of Professor Stubbs's was the first research assistant on the book.

As one of the leading attorneys for the NAACP in the 1940s through the 1960s, Hill litigated many cases challenging separate but equal policies, unfair housing practices, and inadequate education facilities. He and fellow NAACP attorney Spottswood W. Robinson III (later the dean of the Howard University Law School and a federal judge) were contacted by Barbara Johns, the 16-year-old student at Robert R. Moton High School in Farmville who led the student walkout in April 1951 to protest woefully inadequate conditions. The NAACP took on the case after the students consented to its being used as part of an effort to desegregate schools in Virginia. The local case - Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board, which was rejected by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court in 1952 - was the only student-initiated case and was incorporated into the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregated schools.

Hill began practicing law in 1934 in Roanoke, and five years later he moved his practice to Richmond, his hometown. In 1948 he became the first African American elected to the Richmond City Council since Reconstruction, and he directed the Virginia chapter of the NAACP for more than 20 years. He retired in 1998 from the Richmond firm of Hill, Tucker and Marsh.

In recent years Hill has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1999. "In his rich and varied life, he has challenged the laws of our land and the conscience of our country," President Clinton said in bestowing the award at the White House. "He has stood up for equal pay, better schools, fair housing - for everything that is necessary to make America truly one, indivisible and equal."

Richmond's new juvenile court building is named for Hill, and the Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond contains a bronze bust of the civil rights leader, who will turn 97 on May 1. Hill came to Farmville in April 2001 and spoke at the 50th anniversary of the student walkout at Robert R. Moton School, now a civil rights museum.

Professor Stubbs has taught at UR Law School since 1989, and he previously practiced law in Hampton and Gloucester, his hometown.

A reception will be held at 6:30 that evening in the Haga Room, adjacent to Wygal Auditorium. The program is sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Robert R. Moton Museum.