Conrad Joseph Lynn (November 4, 1908 – November 16, 1995) was an
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
lawyer and activist known for providing legal representation for activists, including many unpopular defendants. Among the causes he supported as a lawyer were civil rights,
Puerto Rican nationalism
Throughout the history of Puerto Rico, its inhabitants have initiated several movements to obtain independence for the island, first from the Spanish Empire from 1493 to 1898 and since then from the United States.
A spectrum of pro- autonomy, ...
, and opposition to the
draft
Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to:
Watercraft dimensions
* Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel
* Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail
* Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...
during both
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. The controversial defendants he represented included civil rights activist
Robert F. Williams
Robert Franklin Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was an American civil rights leader and author best known for serving as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and into 1961. He succeede ...
and
Black Panther
A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been d ...
leader
H. Rap Brown
Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (born Hubert Gerold Brown; October 4, 1943), formerly known as H. Rap Brown, is a civil rights activist, black separatist, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ...
.
Early life and education
Conrad J. Lynn was born in 1908 in
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...
, to parents who had moved north from
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
. His mother was a domestic worker and his father, a Republican, worked as a laborer. When he was a child, the family moved to
Rockville Centre
Rockville Centre, commonly abbreviated as RVC, is an incorporated village located in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 24,023 at the 2010 census.
Histor ...
in Nassau County on
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
. Lynn attended
law school
A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction.
Law degrees Argentina
In Argentina, ...
at
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
on a debating scholarship, in 1932 becoming the first African American to graduate from the
Syracuse University College of Law
Syracuse University College of Law (SUCOL) is a Juris Doctor degree-granting law school of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. It is one of only four law schools in upstate New York. Syracuse was accredited by the American Bar Association ...
.
As a young man in the 1920s and 1930s, he was a member of the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
, but he was ousted in the late 1930s because he had defied the party by supporting
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
ian oil workers who went on
strike
Strike may refer to:
People
* Strike (surname)
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
*Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
against Britain.
[ He never rejoined.] Years later, the House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
was to describe him erroneously as "indiscriminate in support of Communist organizations."
Career as a lawyer and activist
African-American civil rights
In April 1947, Lynn participated in the Journey of Reconciliation
The Journey of Reconciliation, also called "First Freedom Ride", was a form of nonviolent direct action to challenge state segregation laws on interstate buses in the Southern United States.
Bayard Rustin and 18 other men and women were the ea ...
, a challenge to Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
that later came to be considered the first "freedom ride" of the American civil rights movement; it was a forerunner to the Freedom Rides
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions '' Morgan v. Virginia ...
of the early 1960s. Sixteen civil rights activists, eight of them black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
and eight of them white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
, boarded Greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurge ...
and Trailways
The Trailways Transportation System is an American network of approximately 70 independent bus companies that have entered into a brand licensing agreement. The company is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia.
History
The predecessor to Trailwa ...
buses and traveled through Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee to bring public attention to the reality of racial segregation and dramatize the South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
widespread disregard of the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decision '' Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia.'' This held that the U.S. Constitution barred racial segregation in interstate
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...
transportation.
Lynn was the first of the group to be arrested, for sitting in the white section of a Trailways bus departing from Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
. Lynn told the bus driver that the Supreme Court had ruled against segregation on interstate buses, but the driver responded that his employer was Trailways, not the Supreme Court, and he was following Trailways rules. After being released on bail
Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required.
In some countries ...
in Richmond, Lynn traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...
, where he joined his colleagues on the bus and completed the journey.[
In 1958, Lynn became involved in the highly publicized ]North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
"Kissing Case
The Kissing Case is the arrest, conviction and lengthy sentencing of two prepubescent African-American boys in 1958 in Monroe, North Carolina. A white girl kissed each of them on the cheek and later told her mother, who accused the boys of rape. ...
", involving a pair of African-American boys, 7 and 9 years old, who were jailed, prosecuted and convicted of rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
, and sentenced to reform school
A reform school was a penal institution, generally for teenagers mainly operating between 1830 and 1900.
In the United Kingdom and its colonies reformatories commonly called reform schools were set up from 1854 onwards for youngsters who were ...
until age 21 after they playfully kissed (or were kissed by) a white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
girl their age as part of a game. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
(NAACP) could not enlist any of its attorneys to represent the boys and referred the case to Lynn. After learning that the boys had already been convicted and sentenced by a county juvenile court
A juvenile court, also known as young offender's court or children's court, is a tribunal having special authority to pass judgements for crimes that are committed by children who have not attained the age of majority. In most modern legal s ...
judge without having either legal counsel or an opportunity to confront their accusers, as required by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, Lynn appealed the conviction, but without result. He then contacted former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...
for assistance; she urged President Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
to intervene in the situation.[ As a result of these efforts and international attention that Lynn and others generated for the case, which was embarrassing for the US government, after three months' detention the boys were ]pardon
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...
ed by the governor of North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
and released.[
The "Kissing Case" was Lynn's first collaboration with North Carolina civil rights activist ]Robert F. Williams
Robert Franklin Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was an American civil rights leader and author best known for serving as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and into 1961. He succeede ...
. In 1959, Lynn protested Williams' suspension from the NAACP, and urged the organization to adopt a more "militant program". Lynn later represented Williams as his lawyer during the 1960s, when Williams, who had become increasingly militant, exiled himself in Cuba, China, and Tanzania to escape prosecution in the United States for a charge of kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...
. Lynn visited Williams in Cuba.
In the mid-1960s, Lynn teamed with attorney William Kunstler
William Moses Kunstler (July 7, 1919 – September 4, 1995) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist, known for defending the Chicago Seven. Kunstler was an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, a board member of the American Civil ...
to represent the Harlem Six
The Harlem Six was the name applied to six men in Harlem, New York, who were put on trial in March 1965. The media also referred to them as the Blood Brothers. Their arrests and subsequent trial stemmed from their connection with an incident known ...
(six black teenagers) in appealing their murder conviction for robbing a secondhand store and killing one of the store's proprietors. The two attorneys believed that the teenagers had been framed. In the appeal filed in 1965, Lynn and Kunstler asked for the convictions to be overturned on the grounds that the Six had not had competent legal counsel for their trial. The convictions were reversed for a different reason – that some trial evidence had been inappropriately admitted. Retrials were ordered, beginning in November 1970, when two of the Six were retried. Lynn and Kunstler revealed their discovery that two prosecution witnesses had committed perjury
Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...
in the first trial. After the trial concluded, the jury reported that it could not reach a verdict, so the trial was declared a mistrial
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...
. After another trial was held, again ending in a mistrial, the defendants were allowed to plead guilty
In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law using the adversarial system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response ...
to manslaughter
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...
in exchange for their immediate release from confinement.[
]
Military draft
During World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Lynn represented his eldest brother Winfred Lynn in his resistance against the draft. Winfred Lynn refused induction into the United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
as a protest against the Army's racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
, telling the government that he would gladly serve in the unsegregated Canadian Army
The Canadian Army (french: Armée canadienne) is the command responsible for the operational readiness of the conventional ground forces of the Canadian Armed Forces. It maintains regular forces units at bases across Canada, and is also respo ...
, but would not serve in the segregated U.S. Army.[. Retrieved from "Articles of Interest by Jay B. Itkowitz During his Journalism Career", website of Itkowitz and Harwood, Attorneys at Law, March 11, 2012.] Conrad Lynn's decision to handle his brother's case was contrary to the advice of civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, which considered support of the U.S. war effort to be in the best interest of African Americans.[ The ]American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
(ACLU) also refused to take the case, but ACLU attorney Arthur Garfield Hays
Arthur Garfield Hays (December 12, 1881 – December 14, 1954) was an American lawyer and champion of civil liberties issues, best known as a co-founder and general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union and for participating in notable ca ...
participated with Conrad Lynn in Winfred Lynn's defense. Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
Early years
Thomas was the ...
and journalist Dwight Macdonald
Dwight Macdonald (March 24, 1906 – December 19, 1982) was an American writer, editor, film critic, social critic, literary critic, philosopher, and activist. Macdonald was a member of the New York Intellectuals and editor of their leftist maga ...
led a support effort under the name 'Lynn Committee to End Discrimination in the Armed Forces.'
Winfred Lynn's case was based on a contention that racial discrimination in the military violated the Selective Service Act of 1940
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke–Wadsworth Act, , was the first peacetime conscription in United States history. This Selective Service Act required that men who had reached their 21st birthday b ...
. After the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Lynn in February 1944, opining that the Selective Service Act's ban on discrimination did not bar segregation, the plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
. In 1945, the Supreme Court denied Winfred Lynn's certiorari
In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...
request on the grounds that the case was moot because Winfred Lynn (who had been informed by an earlier court ruling that he needed to submit to military induction to keep his case alive) was by then in military service overseas. Looking back on the case in 1973, Conrad Lynn told a reporter that the legal battle had served "to make the public — particularly the white majority — aware that black people resented segregation as a mark of inferiority" and had helped bring an end to segregation in the Army in 1948 under President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
.[
Two decades later, in the 1960s, Lynn represented a number of men who resisted the draft due to their opposition to the Vietnam War.][ In 1970 he argued the case of '']Gillette v. United States
''Gillette v. United States'', 401 U.S. 437 (1971), is a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States, adding constraints on the terms of conscientious objection resulting from draftees in the Selective Service..
Background and Consolida ...
'' before the United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
, challenging the constitutionality of the law that limited conscientious objector
A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
status to men who objected to war in general. He did not prevail in that case; the court's ruling in 1971 rejected all three arguments that had been advanced in support of selective conscientious objection.
Puerto Rican nationalism
Lynn was a long-time supporter of the nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
s who sought to gain independence for Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
.[ In the 1950s, he successfully defended ]Ruth Mary Reynolds
Ruth Mary Reynolds (February 29, 1916 – December 2, 1989) was an American educator, political and civil rights activist who embraced the ideals of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She was incarcerated in ''La Princesa'' Prison for sedi ...
against the charge of collaboration with the Puerto Rican Nationalist movement in the alleged advocacy of the overthrow the U.S. government.
He also represented Lolita Lebrón
Lolita Lebrón (November 19, 1919 – August 1, 2010) was a Puerto Rican nationalist who was convicted of attempted murder and other crimes after carrying out an armed attack on the United States Capitol in 1954, which resulted in the wound ...
, one of five Puerto Rican nationalists who carried out an attack on the United States House of Representatives in 1954 to publicize the nationalist movement. He argued that the attack was an act of protest that was justified by "the illegality of the occupation of Puerto Rico by the United States."[ Lebrón and her four codefendants were convicted and given long prison sentences.][ Lebrón was not released from prison until 1979, when she was granted clemency by President ]Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...
.
HUAC
Lynn was interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
(HUAC) in 1963. He speculated that the committee's calling him reflected an effort by them "to frighten integrationists who are more radical than Martin Luther King."
Campaign for judgeship
In 1972 Lynn sought election to a judgeship on the New York State Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six Associate Judges who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by t ...
, asserting that there should be a black man on the court, "since 90 percent of all those awaiting trial in state prisons are either black or Puerto Rican."[
]
Final years
Conrad Lynn remained engaged as an attorney and activist until a few months before his death.[ He was one of the founders of the ]human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
activist group Refuse & Resist! in 1987. The second edition of his autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
, ''There Is a Fountain: The Autobiography of Conrad Lynn'' (), first released in 1979 (),[ was published in 1993.
Lynn was married to Mary Garretson (1948-1950) and Yolanda Moreno (1952-1995). He resided in ]Pomona, New York
Pomona is a village partly in the town of Ramapo and partly in the town of Haverstraw in Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located north of New Hempstead, east of Harriman State Park, north of Monsey and west of Mount Ivy. Acco ...
for more than 45 years, where he died peacefully in his sleep on November 16, 1995. He was survived by one child with Mary Garretson and two children from his marriage to Yolanda Moreno as well as several grandchildren. ">/sup>
Conrad Lynn donated his papers to Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
, where they are archived in the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lynn, Conrad
Activists for African-American civil rights
African-American lawyers
American civil rights lawyers
1908 births
1995 deaths
Syracuse University College of Law alumni
People from Newport, Rhode Island
People from Pomona, New York
People from Rockville Centre, New York
New York (state) lawyers
20th-century American lawyers
Freedom Riders
20th-century African-American people