The Harris County Attorney’s Office would like to honor Black History Month by highlighting some court cases that have taken place in Harris County. These cases involved Black men and women who have been trailblazers of change and span over 100 years of the fight for equal rights.
Emeline, A Free Person of Color v. Jesse P. Bolls
Our first case takes place in 1847 when a young woman by the name of Emeline sued Jesse P. Bolls who claimed ownership over Emeline for her freedom. The legal battle started after Emeline’s mother’s slaveowner granted her freedom before his death. While it seems the odds were stacked against her, she had a strong case. Peter Gray (founder of Baker Botts, one of the oldest law firms in Texas) was retained as her attorney in what is the first known pro bono case in Houston. At the time, slavery was still legal in Texas and the judge presiding over her case was a slave owner himself. The jury, however, were handpicked by Gray and were six white men who didn’t own slaves. This jury included a former judge and the man whose uncle was Harris County’s namesake. During the trial, Gray had to file an injunction to prevent Bolls from taking Emeline out of the county to sell her. The jury found that Emeline and her children were free, and she was awarded one dollar for damages. Similar cases happened around this time and demonstrated the fight for freedom that took place in a divided country.
Hainsworth v. Harris County Commissioners Court
Robert W Hainsworth, the man who our very own law library is named after, was a freshly graduated lawyer who had come back to Houston to practice law. When he arrived at the Harris County Law Library to conduct research, however, he was met with a single table labeled “Colored” for him to sit at. Hainsworth found this to be unacceptable and unconstitutional, so he sued for open and equal access for all. After being denied, he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 and made national news but was rejected shortly after the “separate but equal” clause was struck down. Despite this setback, Hainsworth went on to bring two other cases to the U.S. Supreme Court during his life including Hainsworth v. Martin (1965) which covered how populous counties are divided to allow equal voting power for candidates of color to the Texas Legislature and Hainsworth v. White (1974) which covered equal treatment for independent candidates who were excluded in Texas primary elections. You can listen to the recording of Hainsworth’s oral argument in the latter case online today. These cases show the resiliency of one man in his fight for equal rights after years of hard work to become a lawyer.
The Houston (TSU Riot) and the TSU Five
After months of students protesting conditions at Texas Southern University(TSU), tensions were rising with police. At some city high schools, students were beaten with chains and ax handles, which led to more protesting. Things finally came to a head in 1967, when an 11-year-old child drowned in a pond at an unfenced landfill. These landfills were regularly placed in black neighborhoods and students protested by blocking the entrance to the landfill for two days, leading to multiple arrests. There were talks about fighting with police that were falsely assumed to be from TSU students, leading the police to blockade all the roads that led to campus and shutting the school down. Tensions continued to grow throughout the day and after a few students threw bottles and rocks at officers, police surrounded the dorm building they assumed it had come from and opened fire. Some students exchanged gunfire with police and police shot nearly 5,000 rounds of ammo into the Lanier Hall men’s dormitory. Police then raided the dorm and arrested 488 students, dragging them outside in their underwear and pajamas. A police officer was killed with a 30-caliber bullet during the incident and despite only three 22-caliber weapons being found in the dorms, police arrested five TSU students for the killing: Douglas Walker, Floyd Nichols, Charles Freeman, John Parker, and Trazawell Franklin. These students were known for their political activism on campus and two of them weren’t even on campus at the time of the raid. These five became known as the TSU Five and while their charges were eventually dropped, their story of fighting for what they believed in along with their fellow students is what we want to highlight here today.
Sources
https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/the-opera-of-emeline/
https://haunmena.com/emeline-houston-case-black-history/
https://www.harriscountylawlibrary.org/robert-w-hainsworth
https://freedomarchives.org/the-story-of-the-tsu-five/
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/houston-tsu-riot-1967/
https://www.crmvet.org/docs/670500_sncc_tsu.pdf