http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obituaries/bal-md.ob.hines14apr14,0,6958551.story?coll=bal-news-obituaries
From the Baltimore Sun
Louise Kerr Hines
[Age 91] The claims examiner's 1940s lawsuit cleared the way for
African-Americans to work as Pratt librarians.
By Jacques Kelly
sun reporter
April 14, 2007
Louise Kerr Hines, a retired state employment claims examiner whose
1940s lawsuit paved the way for African-Americans to work as librarians
at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, died of cancer Monday at Homewood
FutureCare. The West Baltimore resident was 91.
Born Louise Lyles Kerr in Baltimore and raised on Division Street, she
graduated with honors from Frederick Douglass High School in 1934. She
was salutatorian of her class at the old Coppin Normal School, where
she remained an active alumna.
She taught in the city's segregated public schools - No. 157 and 140 -
for five years, worked in the Baltimore office of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and during World War
II was a reporter for the Baltimore Afro-American.
While working at the paper, Mrs. Hines saw an ad for a trainee position
at the Pratt. She applied but was rejected because of her race, she
recalled in a 2004 Sun column.
She said that Carl Murphy, the Afro's publisher and Lillie Mae Jackson,
president of the Baltimore NAACP chapter, urged her to file suit.
"You've heard the expression, 'Curiosity killed the cat, and
satisfaction brought him back.' I did it because I wanted to see what
would happen, plus I was annoyed at not being able to do what I wanted
to do," she told a Sun reporter.
"I was also helped by my father, Dr. T. Henderson Kerr, who was a
pharmacist and owned Kerr's Pharmacy on George Street. He backed me up.
Also, I felt kind of lucky because I was born on the ides of March,"
she said.
The suit sought $4,500 in damages. In 1944, U.S. District Judge W.
Calvin Chestnut dismissed the suit, saying the library was a private
corporation, not a governmental agency.
"The Negroes contended that since the city annually contributes about
$500,000 to the library, the library is a public institution. They
argued that by using public funds for that purpose, the city was taking
funds of Negroes allegedly barred from the training course without due
process of law," The Sun reported.
Her attorneys appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
Richmond, Va.. On April 17, 1945, the court ruled that the Pratt was an
"instrumentality of the State of Maryland" and that there could be "no
doubt that the applicant was excluded ... because of her race," Judge
Morris A. Soper wrote in his decision.
About 200 applications from African-Americans had been rejected by the
library under a long-standing practice, the court noted.
Seven days later, the Pratt's board of trustees appealed the decision
to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. The
library's trustees then opened the training classes "in accordance with
the language and spirit of that opinion," a Sun account said.
Mrs. Hines never reapplied for a job at the library but was honored at
a ceremony in 1986 during the library's centennial.
"It was just an incident. I was never enraged or anything like that, I
just wanted to be able to get a job that I wanted," she said in 2002.
In 1951, Mrs. Hines became a claims examiner for the Maryland
Department of Human Resources and retired in 1978.
Mrs. Hines enjoyed freelance and creative writing, sewing, cooking,
piano playing and travel. She was also a Maryland Historical Society
volunteer and did oral histories.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. today at Heritage United
Church of Christ, 3106 Liberty Heights Ave., where she was an active
member and financial contributor to an elevator and accessibility
project.
Survivors include five nephews, Thomas Kerr III of Boston, Mass.,
Judson Kerr Jr. of Reisterstown, James Kerr and Gerald Kerr, both of
Columbia, and David Kerr of Laurel; and two nieces, Judy Kerr of New
York City and Jessie Louise St. Lawrence of Baltimore. Her husband, C.
Marsell Hines, died in 1984.
jacques.kelly@baltsun.com
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun