Loudoun Times-Mirror— Thursday, March 14, 1940
From Thomas Balch Library Newspaper File

Negroes Press School Claims To Educators
Houston, Colored Attorney,
Urges Educational Equality
For Colored In Loudoun

At no other time in the history of the Loudoun County school system has quite the same educational problems arisen as did here Tuesday when the Loudoun County School Board granted a hearing to a delegation of 30 or more local colored people headed by Charles H. Houston, colored, Washington attorney—the group stating its mission to obtain equal educational opportunities for Negro children in public schools of Loudoun. Houston, a member of the District of Columbia Board of Education, spoke here at the instance of the County Wide League, colored patrons’ organization in Loudoun.

Houston, in asking permission to address the School Board on Tuesday, stated that it was his desire to be heard before the new school budget was adopted and that he believed a clear explanation of the rights and liabilities involved would produce an equitable distribution of facilities and funds.

He further said that research had convinced him that the superintendent and the members of the County Board of Education are exposed to personal liability damages for many of the discriminations which they now inflict upon the Negro children.

Houston last made a public appearance in Leesburg in 1933 as a representative of the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People in behalf of George Crawford who was tried in the courts of Loudoun in connection with the slayings of Mrs. Spencer Illsley and Mrs. Mina Buckner, a hideous crime that stirred all Loudoun.

Addressing his remarks to the board members, all of whom were present, Houston pointed with ridicule the conditions existing in the Negro high school at Leesburg, particularly with reference to laboratory equipment, building safety and discrimination in class subjects. He demanded an accredited school in the county. Teacher salaries were attacked, as was the lack of janitor service, electric lights and other conveniences. He said the colored race was deprived of consolidation of schools and transportation, that white buses passed by the doors of the colored. Constitutional rights also were advanced.

Houston, it is reported, pointed out many of these same facts at a meeting of several hundred colored people held in Middleburg on February 18 where he went at the invitation of the County Wide League in observance of Negro History Week.

Records on file in the officer of County Superintendent of Schools show that in recent months general provision had been made for the construction of a new high school at Leesburg. The School Board had already prepared for adoption on Tuesday a resolution requesting a Literary Fund loan with which to construct an auditorium on a new lot at Leesburg for a colored school. The matter would have been presented on Monday to the members of the County Board of Supervisors.