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national movements. The Forum, although a thoroughly homegrown organization,
had, of course, been attracting national attention for some time. Many of the most
important national freedom movement leaders had spoken to packed Friday night
Forum meetings, some more than once. And national attention to the Baltimore
freedom movement took a leap with the Buy Where You Can Work Campaign; top
lawyers affiliated with the NAACP national office became involved in fighting the
injunction against the pickets. Furthermore, a whole series of national movement
figures became directly involved in the protest following the lynching of George
Armwood. Even the ILD-led campaign to defend Euel Lee turned heads
nationally, both because of its mass-based defense campaign and the legal
precedents it set. Finally, Charles Houston, along with Thurgood Marshall and
several Washington-based movement lawyers came to Baltimore to defend the
ILD's Bernard Ades, Euel Lee's lawyer, during the first attempt by the Maryland
power structure to disbar him. Hence by 1934, Baltimore was by no means
unknown in national Black freedom movement circles.
Charles Houston, in 1934, was largely responsible for beginning to transform
national interest in the Forum-led Baltimore freedom movement into more solid
political and organizational connections. Houston's knowledge of, interest in, and
ties to the Baltimore movement were unusually strong among national movement
figures. Apart from his many interventions in Baltimore over the previous three
years - Houston, for example, was one of those who spoke yearly at the Forum -
one of Houston's two closest collaborators was his former star student at Howard
Law School, Thurgood Marshall (the other was William Hastie). Marshall lived in
Baltimore and commuted to Washington during his years as a student at Howard;
during the same period he was involved the Forum in Baltimore. In 1934, Marshall
just set up a law office of his own in Baltimore. Moreover, there was an organic
connection between the Black communities of Washington, DC, and nearby
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