Mary Church Terrell: An Original Oberlin Activist

The Tumbling

In early 1950 in a strategy aimed to dismantle racial discrimination in the District of Columbia, 86 year old Mary Church Terrell and a small group of elderly upstanding “colored” residents targeted Thompson Restaurant located in downtown D. C. accompanied by  David Hutchinson Scull, a 36 year old Quaker colleague, under the guise of getting a bite to eat.  As expected, the “colored” people were refused service. The group, all members of the Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the D. C. Anti-Discrimination Laws, with the aid of the National Lawyers Guild, an interracial organization formed in 1937 to combat encounters thwarting civil liberties, filed suit against Thompson citing two acts passed in 1872 and 1873 by the District of Columbia as grounds for the case. 

Interestingly, when the case was brought before the Municipal Court of the District of Columbia it was strategically filed as District of Columbia vs. JOHN R. THOMPSON CO., Inc. making the District Commissioners the plaintiffs in the suit.  And while the Coordinating Committee was not mentioned in the suit, the face of the Committee, Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, began "arguing the case before Congress.  In February 1951 Terrell testified before the Senate Committee on D. C. Affairs urging Senator Neely, chairman of the committee to "do everything that is humanly possible to have a civil rights bill enacted for the District of Columbia." Terrell emphasized the difficulty encountered by "colored" women during the lunch hour in the District and related a recent triumph when as a result of eight weeks of picketing, the owner of Kresge, gave the order to discontinue racial discrimination in all Kresge stores.

However, what should have been a "slam dunk" victory became a three-year set back when the Municipal Court rejected the suit on the ground that the 1872 and 1873 Acts were invalid as they were issued under an earlier form of government.  Undeterred by the Municipal Court’s decision an appeal was filed with the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. By then a number of interested parties including Philip B. Perlman, Solicitor General of the United States, the American Veterans Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union, and others joined in the suit filing "amici curiae" briefs in support of the validity of the 1872 and 1873 laws.  At first the Appeals Court ruled the 1872 Act invalid but held that the 1873 Act was still in effect.  However, this victory was short lived when on cross appeal by Thompson the Court of Appeals ruled both the 1872 and 1873 laws “unenforceable and the entire information should be dismissed” in a five to four decision. 

A Writ of Certiorari was granted on April 6, 1953 and the case went to the Supreme Court which heard oral arguments on April 30 and May 1, 1953.  A well-known "heavy hitter" in the Eisenhower Administration, Attorney Philip Elman, who was heavily engaged in Brown v. Board of Education,  argued as "amicus curiae" for the United States urging reversal of the decision.  Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas delivered the opinion on June 8, 1953, reversing the decision of the Court of Appeals.

The decision against the John R. Thompson Company signaled further reaching possibilities as the 83rd Congress was considering the question of a return to "home rule" in the District of Columbia.  S. 999 the bill under consideration was postponed pending the 1953 Supreme Court's decision. Ultimately the provisions outlined in S.999, which included an elected mayor, was realized twenty years later with the passage of Pub.L. 93–198, the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in 1973. The decision was also a victory for Congress as it affirmed that "Congress can hand to a locally elected legislative assembly, the ordinary powers exercised by a municipal corporation or a territorial legislative assembly." (Cong. Rec. 10 June 1953 6299)