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recently been picked up by the gubernatorial campaign of Socialist Broadus
Mitchell.26

Moreover, the youth of the Forum had their own personal grievances with
the university. Several of them, Juanita Jackson included, had been refused entry
to the University of Maryland because of race; others, no doubt, did not even
bother to try to apply, knowing the inevitable outcome. Thurgood Marshall himself
had been turned down at the University of Maryland Law School and, according to
sources, was burning for revenge. More generally, Baltimore activists had taken
steps to mount a court challenge to segregation in the area of education. The
Afro's Carl Murphy, who was a member of the NAACP's Board of Directors, had
made it know to the national office that he favored a legal campaign around
education in Maryland. Even Rev. Asbury Smith had suggested that the ACLU file
a test case over educational discrimination in the state (the ACLU passed the
suggestion on to the NAACP, thus angering the NAACP leadership for buck-
passing).^

Hence, both Baltimore activists and the national office of the NAACP
agreed that a case should be filed against the University of Maryland, with Charles
Houston overseeing the process. Houston was known for his exacting requirements
for test cases, insuring that they would not fail due to technicalities. Nonetheless,
the University of Maryland case got off to a bit of a rocky start. First, Clarence
Mitchell hastily applied to graduate school at the university in 1933 in hopes of
being refused and filing suit, only to find out he had applied to a nonexistent
program. Subsequently, several other potential applicants, including Juanita
Jackson, were rejected by the NAACP because their prospective cases had
potential complications.^

Finally, Thurgood Marshall ran into Donald Gaines Murray. Murray, a
native of Baltimore, who had just returned to the city in mid-1934 after graduating
with high marks from Amherst. The son of an AME bishop, Murray was, in Juanita