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The Margaret Williams case fit right into the NAACP educational campaign
that was initiated with the Donald Murray case against the University of Maryland
Law School. In fact, the Williams case fulfilled the promise that this campaign
would not deal solely with discrimination on the university level, but would also
challenge Jim Crow in the primary and secondary schools. Moreover, the case used
the same tactical approach as the Murray case in several ways: in demanding
integration because of lack of separate but equal facilities, in filing for a writ of
mandamus, and in basing the case on the 14th Amendment. It is also important to
note that the case originated in a struggle by the Baltimore County Black
community around the high school issue, and that the Williams family was already
moving toward legal action before NAACP intervened. Hence, the Baltimore
branch moved in as advocate for an existing community movement, while
simultaneously drawing from and furthering a national campaign.
Furthermore, the Williams case not only combined a national legal strategy
with a locally-generated issue, it also indicated the renovated Baltimore branch's
view of its responsibilities. Both the case and the community directly affected were
outside the formal jurisdiction of the Baltimore branch — that is, outside of the city
of Baltimore. In taking the case, the Baltimore branch was clearly acting out of a
vision of itself as tribune for the whole of the African American community of
Baltimore and the city's hinterlands. Characteristically, the branch used the
Williams case as an organizing opportunity to help get the Baltimore County
branch of the NAACP on its feet.
A similar blending of tensions and imperatives was also evident in the
Baltimore branch's biggest litigation-based struggle of the later 1930s: the
campaign for equal salaries for Black and white school teachers throughout the
state of Maryland. Like the Williams case, this campaign arose out of local
demands, but also fit right into the larger national education campaign that began
with the Murray suit. Like the Williams case, the equalization of teacher's salaries
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