The Road to Brown: The Man Who Killed Jim Crow

The Road to Brown: The Man Who Killed Jim Crow
The Road to Brown is the story of segregation and the brilliant legal assault on it, which launched the Civil Rights Movement. It is also a moving and long overdue tribute to a visionary but little known black lawyer, Charles Hamilton Houston, “the man who killed Jim Crow.” Moving from slavery to civil rights, The Road to Brown provides a concise history of how African Americans finally won full legal equality under the Constitution from the precedent-setting cases Houston waged during the 1930s, to the final posthumous 1954 triumph of Brown v. Board of Education. It depicts the interplay between race, law, and history. The example of Charles Houston’s determination will inspire today’s students to take America further down the long road to social justice.

Credit: Produced, directed, and written by William Elwood. Distributed by California Newsreel, 1990. 56 min.