Belford Lawson, Jr.

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Belford Vance Lawson, Jr. (b. July 9, 1909, Roanoke, Virginia, d. February 26, 1985), was a formidable attorney credited with making at least eight appearances before the Supreme Court.

He attended University of Michigan and became the school's first African American varsity football player. Lawson graduated in 1924 and accepted a position as a professor of economics at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia. The president of Morris Brown, John Lewis, a Yale University graduate was instrumental with Lawson's acceptance to Yale School of Law, although he would receive his J.D. from Howard University Law School in 1932.

In 1933, Lawson founded The New Negro Alliance (NNA) in Washington D.C. to combat white-run business in black neighborhoods that would not hire black employees. The NNA instituted a then-radical Don't Buy Where You Can't Work campaign, and organized or threatened boycotts against white-owned business. In response, some businesses arranged for an injunction to stop the picketing. Lawson, the lead attorney, and assisted by Thurgood Marshall, fought back — all the way to the United States Supreme Court in New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co. (1938) that safeguarded a right to boycott. This became a landmark case in the struggle by African Americans against discriminatory hiring practices, and Don't Buy Where You Can't Work groups multiplied throughout the nation. The NNA estimated that by 1940, the group had secured 5,106 jobs for blacks because businesses could not afford to lose sales during the depression.

Thurgood Marshall practicing his oral arguments in the mid-1930s, with Donald Gaines Murray, his client, and Charles Houston, his mentor, looking on.

in 1934, Lawson encouraged NAACP special counsel Charles Hamilton Houston to authorize Thurgood Marshall to file the case of Donald Gaines Murray v University of Maryland (1935) to successfuly challenge biases at the university which had no laws requiring segregation in its colleges. Murray was admitted to the univiersity's law school.

Lawson was part of the legal team that won Henderson v. Southern Railway Company (1950), that challenged the Interstate Commerce Commission's approval of railroad segregation practices. The case resulted in a landmark lawsuit that abolished segregation in railroad dining cars.

Lawson was a former General President of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for blacks . The fraternity sponsors an annual Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Contest in which collegiate members demonstrate their oratorical skills first at the chapter level, with the winner competing at the District, Regional and General Convention.^[1] Lawson rented the third floor of his Washington D.C. home to fraternity brother and Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. during Powell's tenure in Congress.

In 1973, Lawson was elected President of the National Council of the YMCA.

[edit] References

• Mason, Herman "Skip" [1997] (1999). “Belford Vance Lawson”, The Talented Tenth: The Founders and Presidents of Alpha. Four-G Publishers. ISBN 1-885066-63-5.
• Cultural Tourism DC, Belford Lawson, Jr.
• Cultural Tourism DC, New Negro Alliance v Sanitary Grocery Store

[edit] Footnotes