Timeline

Explore more than 80 years of bold and visionary civil rights leadership. The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) was founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall in 1940, at a time when the nation’s aspirations for justice and due process of law were stifled by widespread state-sponsored racial inequality. This timeline chronicles LDF’s journey from that era to the present. Through it all, LDF’s mission has always been transformative: to achieve racial justice, equality, and inclusivity. 

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    1. 1929-1935

      • LDF Milestones

        Charles Hamilton Houston

        Charles Hamilton Houston (1895-1950) trains Howard University School of Law students to challenge the legal barriers of segregation, later leading to the founding of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). One of his mentees is Thurgood Marshall. Houston leaves Howard in 1935 to serve as the NAACP’s first General Counsel, playing a pivotal role in nearly every U.S. Supreme Court case in the two decades before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954.