''Hocutt v. Wilson'', N.C. Super. Ct. (1933) (unreported), was the first attempt to desegregate higher education in the United States. It was initiated by two African American lawyers from

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

, Conrad O. Pearson and Cecil McCoy, with the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The case was ultimately dismissed for lack of standing, but it served as a test case for challenging the "separate but equal" doctrine in education and was a precursor to '' Brown v. Board of Education'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (holding that segregated public schools were unconstitutional).

Background

Students at the North Carolina College for Negroes, which is now North Carolina Central University in Durham, were plaintiffs in desegregation suits against the all-white University of North Carolina system.Samuel R. Diamont, Local Civil Rights Litigators: Durham's African American Attorneys 1933-1954,(2008) (published Ph.D. dissertation, North Carolina Central University) (on file with North Carolina Central University Archives Department). North Carolina was an ideal place for civil rights work because Durham had a generally non-violent racial status quo, the state was slightly more progressive than other

Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...

states, and it was close to Washington D.C., where Charles Hamilton Houston taught the most prominent civil rights lawyers. The plaintiff was Thomas Hocutt, a 24-year-old student at the North Carolina College for Negroes and graduate of Hillside High School. Hocutt wanted to become a pharmacist, having worked for many years at a local drugstore, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had the only pharmacy program in the area. Attorneys Conrad Odell Pearson and Cecil McCoy and journalist

Louis Austin Louis Austin (1898-1971) was an African-American journalist, civic leader and social activist. Austin purchased ''The Carolina Times'' in 1927 and transformed it into an institution that aided African Americans in their fight for freedom and equa ...

had been seeking out potential litigants to test racial segregation in higher education. Hocutt agreed to be the plaintiff, a decision historian Jerry Gershenhorn describes as courageous, due to the potential for white backlash. Six years later, as Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP were looking for just such a plaintiff in Virginia, they were "unable to get a qualified applicant with courage to apply". Pearson graduated from Howard University's law school under Charles Hamilton Houston and began practicing in Durham in 1932. McCoy graduated from

Brooklyn Law School Brooklyn Law School (BLS) is a private law school in New York City. Founded in 1901, it has approximately 1,100 students. Brooklyn Law School's faculty includes 60 full-time faculty, 15 emeriti faculty, and a number of adjunct faculty. Brookly ...

in 1931 and also practiced in Durham.

Beginning the suit

Pearson and McCoy brought the case in February 1933.University of North Carolina, Documenting the American South, Oral History Interview with Conrad Odell Pearson, April 18, 1979. Interview H-0218. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/H-0218/menu.html. In March 1933, Hocutt sought admission to the program. Initially, they wrote to NAACP General Secretary Walter Francis White for financial support. White ratified the case and sent a copy of the

Margold Report Nathan Ross Margold (1899 - December 17, 1947) was a Romanian-born American lawyer. He was a municipal judge in Washington, D.C., and the author of the 1933 Margold Report to promote civil rights for African-Americans through the courts. He was a ...

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...

in public schools to support the attorneys. The NAACP also sent

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

-educated William Hastie to assist Pearson and McCoy on the case. At the trial, Hastie became the lead lawyer. The suit did not have the support of many black leaders in Durham. But it was supported by Austin, the editor of the major black-owned newspaper, '' The Carolina Times''. The white-owned newspaper, ''

Durham Morning Herald ''The Herald-Sun'' is an American, English language daily newspaper in Durham, North Carolina, published by the McClatchy Company. History ''The Herald-Sun'' began publication on January 1, 1991, as the result of a merger of ''The Durham Mor ...

'' warned, " our way of thinking, earson and McCoywill find in the end that they have won not a victory but a costly defeat."Leslie Brown, Upbuilding Black Durham: Gender, Class, and Black Community Development in the Jim Crow South 310 (2008) quoting Editorial, Durham Morning Herald, Feb. 1933, at 21, 24. Additionally,

James E. Shepard James Edward Shepard (November 3, 1875 – October 6, 1947) was an American pharmacist, civil servant and educator, the founder of what became the North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina. He first established it as a private sc ...

, president and founder of North Carolina College for Negroes did not support the lawsuit, because he wanted the state to fund graduate programs for black students at his university. Shepard refused to release Hocutt's transcript. When Hastie, Pearson and McCoy failed to present an official transcript, Hocutt no longer satisfied the admission requirements for the Pharmacy School and the case was dismissed. Despite defeat, the ''Hocutt'' case laid the groundwork for subsequent civil rights cases that challenged racial segregation in public education, leading to the landmark ''Brown v. Board of Education'' (1954) decision, which ruled that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional.

References

{{Italic title History of North Carolina History of Durham, North Carolina 1933 in United States case law North Carolina state case law United States school desegregation case law University of North Carolina 1933 in North Carolina Education in Durham, North Carolina North Carolina Central University Law articles needing an infobox Civil rights movement case law