Howard University Law Alumni Association was formed to be one of the premier law school alumni associations in the world to effectuate change in our nation to promote equal justice under the law for all. It is particularly committed to both the professional endeavors of its members and the advancement and support of Howard University School of Law.

Pursuing Equal Justice Under the Law for All: Rolling History of Howard University Law Alumni Association

This web page builds on the “Historic Howard Law Alumni: Guardians of the Civil War Constitutional Amendments” authored by Robert L. Bell, Class of 1977. With his permission, we have used excerpts of it as the basis for a rolling history of Howard University Law Alumni Association. We thank Robert L. Bell, the first Historian of Howard University Law Alumni Association for his contributions to this history.

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From the first graduating class of Howard Law School, her alumni have always provided America and the world with voices for hope and equal justice under the law for all. To understand this profound statement, we must take a brief glance of U.S. history. Since emancipation and beyond, there was a need for institutional training for an expanded population of lawyers of color to undertake the finest quest of breathing life into the Civil War Constitutional Amendments. The jurisprudential aim of this continuing noble quest is to establish - - in reality - - equal justice under law for all. In order to further this sacred quest for equal justice, and to make the American’s promise of equal justice under law, a reality after the Civil War, Howard University School of Law started as a Law Department of Howard University during the Reconstruction Period. This was a radical period and the training of black lawyers to use the law in furthering the emancipation of their people was a radical idea. However, with the institutional birth of the black lawyer, this period promised a new birth of freedom for America. Professor J. Clay Smith, in his seminal book, Emancipation (1993), tells us that it was at Howard University School of Law in 1869 that the first class of black law students in the United States was organized. As the parent of all black lawyers in America, Howard University School of Law is the genesis of Houstonian Jurisprudence and was the ground floor for blazing the path for equal justice under law and making our country a more perfect union. Howard University School of Law is truly an enduring and shining exemplar of the Reconstruction Era and the guardians of the soul and spirit of the Civil War Constitutional Amendments.

It was in this spirit of pursuing equal justice under law for all as its mission that attracted William Houston, the father of Charles Hamilton Houston, to Howard Law School. William Houston graduated from Howard Law School in 1892 and founded one of the earliest known black law firms in Washington, D.C. William’s son Charlie, as he was affectionately called, would graduate from Harvard Law School after having served as the first black editor on the Harvard Law Review. Charlie set up practice with his father and would later head Howard University Law School as Vice Dean. Recognizing the true mission of the black bar and Howard Law School, Houston transformed the law school into a laboratory and workshop dedicated to training students and lawyers to struggle for equal justice under law in order to complete the democratization of America. At Howard Law School, and later with the NAACP, the National Bar Association and the Washington Bar Association, among others, Charles Hamilton Houston, with his eye on the Howard Law legacy, personally laid the legal groundwork, now known as Houstonian Jurisprudence, for training a new generation of lawyers capable of challenging all forms of injustices and championing the equal rights of all under law. To achieve this goal, Houston insisted that: “There should be a three-ringed fight going on at all times.” Houston saw the long-view of matters and would advise his students and colleagues: “Do not lose heart if victory does not come at once. Persevere to the end.”

To further his legacy at Howard Law School, Houston, with an efficient and effective voice for equal justice under law, passed his talent for clarity of thought and hard work on to his law students and associates in the legal vineyard. Amongst Houston’s many illustrious students, was perhaps, the best known graduate of Howard University Law School, Thurgood Marshall, who became the first black Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Similar to Houston, Marshall saw and embraced the Howard Law legacy in accepting the reality and totality of the historic democratization struggle for equal justice under law for all when he stated that: “It is not how far we came but how far we can go.” In accepting the baton passed by Houston and Marshall, Dr. Martin Luther King, a preacher who initially wanted to be a lawyer, became a social engineer from the pulpit and in the street. Dr. King fully appreciated the great historical strides toward equal justice made by Houston and Marshall, when he was called on to stand up and insist upon the implementation and enforcement of the court victories under the Civil War Amendments.

It has been the many generations of Howard University graduates who have been educated, trained and inspired by Houston at Howard Law School and beyond, to make equal justice a reality under the legal philosophy of aluminous, Professor J. Clay Smith, a professor at Howard University School of Law, who characterized and crystallized the doctrine of Houstonian Jurisprudence. It is quite apparent that Houstonian Jurisprudence gave historical purpose and meaning to building on Houston’s groundwork in the courtroom and beyond to topple the old enslavement jurisprudence of Dred Scott-Plessy and defeat it with the liberating Houstonian Jurisprudence of the Brown decision.

Today, Howard University Law Alumni Association help facilitate Howard Law graduates and its students in their efforts in democratization our country and renewing their commitment to the legacy Charles Hamilton Houston and the duty of Howard Law School to understand and use the principles of Houstonian Jurisprudence and social engineering to complete our nation’s process of democratization. And, as a result, change has come to America, and Howard Law graduates are in the forefront, effectuating equal justice under law for all, embracing the mission and work of Howard Law School and its graduates as guardians of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America. Such is the path to truly becoming one nation under God and law, indivisible, with liberty, equality and justice for all.