ABOUT THIS BOOK

Winner, 2017 Missouri Conference on History Book Award

In 1936, Lloyd Gaines’s application to the University of Missouri law school was denied based on his race. Gaines and the NAACP challenged the university’s decision. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) was the first in a long line of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding race, higher education, and equal opportunity. The court case drew national headlines, and the NAACP moved Gaines to Chicago after he received death threats. Before he could attend law school, he vanished.

This is the first book to focus entirely on the Gaines case and the vital role played by the NAACP and its lawyers—including Charles Houston, known as “the man who killed Jim Crow”—who advanced a concerted strategy to produce political change. Horner and Endersby also discuss the African American newspaper journalists and editors who mobilized popular support for the NAACP’s strategy. This book uncovers an important step toward the broad acceptance of racial segregation as inherently unequal.

This is the inaugural volume in the series Studies in Constitutional Democracy, edited by Justin Dyer and Jeffrey Pasley of the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

James W. Endersby is associate professor of political science at the University of Missouri. His work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, Electoral Studies, Political Communication, and Social Science Quarterly.

William T. Horner is teaching professor of political science at the University of Missouri. His publications include Ohio's Kingmaker: Mark Hanna, Man and Mythand Showdown in the Show Me State: The Long Fight over Conceal and Carry in Missouri.

REVIEWS

“This is a work of great significance to those who seek a mature, straightforward account of the life and times of Lloyd Gaines. A splendid achievement and a wonderful contribution to the history of civil rights in the era after Plessy v Ferguson and before Brown v Board of Education.”—Gary M. Lavergne, University of Texas at Austin, author of Before Brown: Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall, and the Long Road to Justice

“Endersby and Horner do a nice job of putting the case into its sociopolitical context. They describe Missouri as a state that supported and fought to uphold segregation even though the state constitution did not mandate it. They also show how important the thriving local black press was in keeping the public informed as well as building popular support for civil rights initiatives.”—American Book Review

“Endersby and Horner focus on the vital role played by the NAACP and its lawyers—including Charles Houston, known as ‘the man who killed Jim Crow’—who advanced a concerted strategy to produce political change, as well as on the African American newspaper journalists and editors who mobilized popular support for the NAACP’s strategy.”—Law and Social Inquiry

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Acknowledgments

Illustrations

Introduction

1. Lloyd Gaines and the Missouri Milieu

2. Charles Houston and the NAACP’s Legal Strategy

3. Gaines and Losses

4. Substantially Equal If Separate

5. Gaines in the Press

6. Public Reaction and Legislative Response

7. The Case Returns to Missouri

8. The Mystery of Lloyd Gaines

9. The Gaines Legacy

Epilogue

Notes

References

Index

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