1895-1950
Lawyer and Civil Rights Leader

Mr. Civil Rights.

While some may say that Martin Luther King, Jr., or Thurgood Marshall led the fight for civil rights in the twentieth century, most historians would agree that the real trailblazer was Charles Houston. In fact, his successor as NAACP legal counsel, Thurgood Marshall (a Supreme Court justice from 1967 to 1991), stated at the opening of the new Howard University Law School building in 1958 that Charles Houston was the rightful holder of the title "The First Mr. Civil Rights."

Artillery.

Charles Hamilton Houston was born in Washington, D.C., on 3 September 1895. He graduated from high school at the age of fifteen and enrolled in Amherst College, where he received his B.A. degree in 1915. During World War I, after completing the Negro officers' training camp, he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the infantry and subsequently attended the army's...