Phineas Indritz, (August 3, 1916 – October 15, 1997) was an American constitutional lawyer active in the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

Personal

Indritz was born in

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in 2020, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline and Rock Island ...

on August 3, 1916 and graduated from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

with an AB in 1936 and a JD in 1938. He died October 15, 1997 in

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ce ...

Hurd v. Hodge

Indritz is most well known for representing the plaintiff in '' Hurd v. Hodge'' in front of the Supreme Court in 1948, alongside

Charles Hamilton Houston Charles Hamilton Houston (September 3, 1895 – April 22, 1950) was a prominent African-American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School, and NAACP first special counsel, or Litigation Director. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard La ...

. The case, which was decided along with '' Shelley v. Kraemer'', resulted in the court ruling that race-based restrictive property covenants were unconstitutional, a significant civil rights ruling six years before the ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'' case.

Women's Rights Movement

Indritz was active in the American women's rights movement, and was a founding member of the

National Organization for Women The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...

. He was part of NOW's first Legal Committee, along with Mary Eastwood, Catherine East, and Caruthers Berger.

External links

Founding Members of the National Organization for Women

References

1916 births 1997 deaths People from Moline, Illinois University of Chicago alumni American civil rights lawyers {{US-law-bio-stub