Loudoun County’s historic courthouse, in Leesburg, Virginia, now bears the name of groundbreaking civil rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston, whose arguments within its walls led to U.S. Supreme Court rulings, and more equitable education for area families.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, and eventually becoming dean of Howard University Law School, Houston became the first general counsel of the NAACP.
In 1933, inside the Loudoun County courthouse at the intersection of King and Market streets, Houston led an all-Black legal team in the defense of George Crawford, a Black man charged with murdering two white women in Middleburg.
The defense spared Crawford from a death sentence, and laid the groundwork for a Supreme Court ruling on the inherent bias in all-white juries.
Houston’s advocacy also challenged the notion of “separate but equal” schools and helped to end segregation in Virginia.
“He was the architect of change in Loudoun County,” said Loudoun NAACP president Michelle Thomas, in a renaming ceremony at the courthouse on Monday.
“Today we gather not to just rename a courthouse, but to celebrate a legacy that continues to guide us in our efforts towards justice and equality.”
In the 1930s, Southern states spent less than half of what was allotted for white students on education for Black students.
“He said the schools we have our Black children in are death traps,” said Thomas. “You built these schools, and if something happened, if a fire breaks out, they’d have no way to get out of the building.”
At the time, Thomas said Loudoun County leaders “were comfortable with it, and the community was comfortable with it. Charles Hamilton Houston came to disrupt racism, he came to dismantle inequality, and we’re all better for it.”
Houston did not live to see desegregation declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education. He died in 1950 from a heart attack.
Following a recommendation from the county’s Heritage Commission, the Board of Supervisors approved the naming of the historic courthouse in honor of the celebrated civil rights attorney in 2023.
During the ceremony, Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall said, “I think we are the greatest country on Earth, but I believe we get here through people who show us the things that we need to work on. Charles Hamilton Houston did that. He showed us our strength, but he showed us our flaws, and that is the most patriotic thing an American can do.”
Thomas said Houston’s work has enabled citizens to “have no fear of being able to show up as their individual selves, and for that, we are grateful. We’re not just naming a building, we are giving justice a name in Loudoun County.”