Summary of Juan Williams's Eyes on the Prize

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Charles Houston was a vice dean of Howard University’s School of Law in Washington, D. C. He was recording the dramatic disparity between black schools and white schools in South Carolina. His film showed what those statistics meant to the lives of some of the twelve million blacks in America.

#2 During World War I, Charlie Houston was a judge-advocate in military cases involving blacks. He learned that it did not take much evidence to successfully prosecute black soldiers. He decided that if he had to go into the army, he would go as an officer.

#3 Houston returned to Washington in 1919, and saw a series of race riots there. He wanted to fight for those who could not fight back, so he applied to Harvard Law School.

#4 Houston began teaching law at Howard University in Washington, D. C. , in 1924. He wanted to train black lawyers to represent black clients, and he believed that the legal system would change if black lawyers continued to pressure it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822521858

IRB Media

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Insights on Juan Williams's Eyes on the Prize

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Charles Houston was a vice dean of Howard University’s School of Law in Washington, D. C. He was recording the dramatic disparity between black schools and white schools in South Carolina. His film showed what those statistics meant to the lives of some of the twelve million blacks in America.

#2

During World War I, Charlie Houston was a judge-advocate in military cases involving blacks. He learned that it did not take much evidence to successfully prosecute black soldiers. He decided that if he had to go into the army, he would go as an officer.

#3

Houston returned to Washington in 1919, and saw a series of race riots there. He wanted to fight for those who could not fight back, so he applied to Harvard Law School.

#4

Houston began teaching law at Howard University in Washington, D. C. , in 1924. He wanted to train black lawyers to represent black clients, and he believed that the legal system would change if black lawyers continued to pressure it.

#5

In 1927, Houston was named director of a national survey conducted by Howard University on the training and activities of black lawyers in America. The study found that America had few black lawyers well versed in constitutional law.

#6

Charles Houston, who was appointed vice dean of Howard’s law school in 1929, turned it around in two years. He was a social engineer, who understood the Constitution and used it to better the lives of underprivileged citizens.

#7

During the time of the Civil War, General Carl Schurz conducted an investigation of post-Civil War conditions in the South for the White House. He found that while blacks were now free, they were still considered the property of society, and could be beaten with no consequence.

#8

The separate-but-equal doctrine was established by the Supreme Court in 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, in which they ruled that segregation between whites and blacks is within the bounds of the Constitution so long as equal accommodations are made for both.

#9

Houston worked on a long-term strategy to end segregation in the South. He began by attacking segregation in professional and graduate schools, as judges were lawyers and would be able to see the absurdity of having separate law schools.

#10

Jim Crow was a character created by minstrel shows, and he quickly became a standard comic figure of blacks. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the name had evolved into a synonym for blacks and their comic way of life.

#11

In 1938, Charles Houston argued the case of Lloyd Lionel Gaines, a