Oliver Hill

Oliver White Hill was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1907. He was an undergraduate at Howard University, when his uncle, a lawyer, died. Hill's aunt gave him her husband's law books. "I was a happy-go-lucky sophomore. Then I read the Constitution and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and realized that Congress had given us rights which the Supreme Court had taken away from us. I knew right then that I wanted to become a lawyer and end legalized segregation." Under the tutelage of Charles Hamilton Houston, Dean of Howard Law School, Hill graduated in 1933, second in his class behind his friend, Thurgood Marshall. His landmark cases involved matters such as desegregation on buses and trains; free bus transportation for black public school children; the right of black citizens to serve on juries and participate in primary elections; and the desegregation of public assembly and of recreational facilities. He served as director of the Virginia chapter of the NAACP for 20 years. During this time, he and a team of 13 lawyers filed more civil rights cases in Virginia than were filed in any other southern state. His most famous case, Davis v. Prince Edward County Schools became part of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In 1942 Hill founded the Old Dominion Bar Association. In 1948, he was the first black elected to Richmond City Council since the Reconstruction era. At 91 he retired from his Richmond law firm, Hill, Tucker and Marsh, after practicing law for nearly 60 years. He is the recipient of numerous awards as a civil rights advocate and lawyer, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999.