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lambasted the pretensions of the state officials, and rationally argued the case for
Murray's admission.

The Murray suit finally came to trial on June 18, 1935 in the city of
Baltimore before Judge Eugene O'Dunne (who had been requested by the
NAACP). Juanita Jackson Mitchell later remembered that, just prior to this date.

Charlie Houston said to my mother, 'Miss Lillie, I want you to pack the court
room with people in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. I want the court to
see a solid, sober, intelligent group of Black citizens who want their
freedom, want to be first class citizens, want their Constitutional rights.'
And we did pack that court room.

Juanita Jackson and other Forum activists were in the court room, and her oral
history account of proceedings that day not only communicates the essential facts,
but also gives a sense of excitement she and others felt about what they saw:

They predicted that the case was going to take two to three months at least.
Charles Houston and his young assistant, Thurgood Marshall, went into
court, and Charles Houston was so brilliant. Charles Houston with just
simple words presented that case. In one day, not having left the bench,
Judge O'Dunne, a white Irish judge in a lynch state, got the court to order
the Board of Regents of the University to process mandamus. (We used to
laugh about that: 'When are we going to mandam this library and this
whatever?') They had to process his application forthwith.

Young Herbert O'Conor the Attorney General — he later became
governor and senator; he became famous - had his assistant handling the
case.   And when he heard what the judge had done, he came quickly, and he
argued with the judge to stay the mandate until he could get it into the court
of appeals. He promised to work on it immediately. He said he would get it
in by the end of the year. And Judge O'Dunne, I'll never forget him, he says
'You know when I went to law school — I don't know whether they taught
you differently than they taught me. They taught me that a Constitutional
right is like a cloak, you are enveloped in it. And you either have it, or you
don't have it.' He said, This young man's Constitutional right to attend law
school at the University of Maryland has been violated. And if I were to
grant you a stay, that would be compounding the injury.' He said, 'I can't
grant you any stay.' And did he get it in the press! Judge O'Dunne. But he
was a great judge. Irish. Sat up there, and he said no.

Obviously the state had not taken the case that seriously, as indicated by
O'Conor's absence, and now they were shocked. But as Juanita Jackson Mitchell
further observed, The colored people of Baltimore were on fire... .They were