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arrested, brought to Baltimore and indicted in the Federal Courts. Negro counsel was engaged and the culprits very ably defended. The masterful manner in which their defense was handled, and the brilliant auguments of the lawyers, evoked open praise from the court and favor-able comment from the pulpit, the forums and press. Convictions fol-lowed in several instances, its true, but the reforms and improvements brought about in working conditions may never be appraised properly.
Even of more importance was the case of Prof. Wm. H. H. Hart13 against the State of Maryland. Mr. Hart, a professor of Law at Howard University, decided to make a test of the discrimination in Railroad travel by interstate passengers. He selected Maryland as the place of testing and purchased a ticket from New York, boarded a train and took a seat in a coach set aside for whites. When he arrived at the Maryland border, he was ordered to a "Jim Crow" coach and upon refusal, was arrested, tried and ordered to pay a small fine. Prof. Hart asked that the fine be increased to test out the case. In time, the matter reached the Court of Appeals. This tribunal held that an interstate passenger, a citizen of the United States, may not be discriminated against. The records do not show any Negro as an attorney of record, but Prof. Hart and a Maryland Negro attorney very largely did all of the work connected with the preparation of the case.
When one realizes that since this decision persons may ride to points North without the humiliation of changing cars as had been the cus-tom prior to this test case, one may readily see the magnitude of service that was rendered and catch the significance of real services Negro lawyers have actually rendered our group.
With the beginning of the present century undue efforts were made to disfranchise and segregate the Negroes in America. Many ruses were undertaken to stop and / or discourage the Negro in the use of suffrage. Attorneys in Maryland as in other Southern States immediately sprang to arms to fight against this dastardly attempt to rob Negro citizens of their one great privilege and right In our State, Mr W. Ashbie Hawkins, long a champion of our causes, entered heartedly in combat. Finally, a case reached the Supreme Court of the United States, through the Louisville, Kentucky Courts. Mr. Hawkins, as amicus curiae, entered that case and filed a brief therein and fought to successful conclusion the attempt to disfranchise our group.
There are other cases equally as important, but these illustrate the type of work that has been undertaken and suggest the extent of service rendered by the Negro attorney since his entrance at the Mary-land Bar. His work in the fight for equal laws for unwed Negro mothers, his efforts for equal pay for teachers, for equal terms for schools, for Negro teachers, for right to picket, for use of playgrounds, for entrance in the Law School in the University of Maryland, for the right to take examination in certain public jobs—these are some of the things for which they have waged a righteous war.
Nor may one very properly arrive at the extent of this service from
13 See Hart vs. Md. 100 Md. 595.
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