Harold Evans (October 26, 1886 – April 27, 1977), a Philadelphia attorney, was appointed by the United Nations to be the first Special Municipal Commissioner for Jerusalem on May 13, 1948. Evans arrived in

Cairo, Egypt Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

on May 23, 1948, but due to his

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

religious principles he would not travel with a British military escort from Cairo to Jerusalem. He eventually arrived in Jerusalem in early June, but abruptly resigned his position afterward. Evans was born in 1886 in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Jonathan and Rachel Reeve (Cope) Evans. He married Sylvia Hathaway (d. 1968) on May 1, 1914; the couple had six children. A graduate of

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducational ...

(1907) and of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1910), Evans was long associated with the

American Friends Service Committee The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends (''Quaker'') founded organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by Am ...

. Evans was co-counsel before the

Supreme Court of the United States 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 1943 on behalf of Gordon Hirabayashi, in

Hirabayashi v. United States ''Hirabayashi v. United States'', 320 U.S. 81 (1943), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court held that the application of curfews against members of a minority group were constitutional when the nati ...

, one of the test cases challenging the curfew and internment laws imposed on Japanese residents of the U.S. and Japanese-Americans in the Western states during World War II. The Supreme Court ruled against Evans's arguments, in a decision which is now considered one of the Court's most disreputable. Evans received honorary doctorates from Wilmington and Haverford Colleges in 1964 and 1968, respectively. He was active in Friends education, and a long-time member (1943-1967, thereafter emeritus) of Haverford's Board of Managers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Harold Quakers from Pennsylvania Pennsylvania lawyers 1886 births 1977 deaths University of Pennsylvania Law School alumni 20th-century American lawyers