Stories of Black History in the Tulsa Legal Community

Amos T. Hall 1896-1971

Born in 1896 in Bastrop, Louisiana, and graduated from Gilbert Industrial College in Baldwin, Louisiana, Hall arrived in Tulsa in 1921. While working as a custodian of First Methodist Church, he obtained a set of law books from which he taught himself the law. Admitted to the practice of law in Oklahoma in 1925, Hall was the attorney for the State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a number of years, was a member of the National Legal Committee of that organization and of the Tulsa chapter of the NAACP for twelve years. He appeared in many cases where the civil rights of minorities were infringed, and actively pursued causes to protect voting rights, challenge restrictive covenants, ensure equality in teacher salaries, and protect against racial discrimination in the prosecution of black criminal defendants. For his efforts in raising funds to build the Carver Youth Center on Pine Street, Hall was honored as an Outstanding Citizen of Tulsa by the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce.

He was chairman of the First Baptist Church in North Tulsa, a 33rd degree Mason, a Grand Master of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, served on the boards and committees of organizations such as YMCA, St. Johns Hospital and National Conference for Christians and Jews. Hall acquired honorary doctorate degrees from Langston University school of religion and one in Law from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. He was appointed as a special district judge in Tulsa, January 1969 and elected as an associate district judge in September 1970.

In early legal battles for civil rights, Tulsa lawyer Amos T. Hall joined NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall in suing the University of Oklahoma Law School for refusing to admit Ada Lois Sipuel, a black woman who was otherwise qualified for admission. In 1947, it was “a crime for the authorities of any white school to admit a negro pupil” and a crime for a teacher to give instruction to a student of another race. The Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld the state's policy of segregating black students, and held that the state did not have a duty to admit a black student in a white school, nor did it have to create a separate law school for black students until sufficient demand for such an institution was established. Hall and Marshall successfully appealed the decision. The United States Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution required Oklahoma to provide black law students with the same opportunity for legal education at the same time as it did for any other group. Lacking a "black" law school, the University of Oklahoma, as the only public law school, was required to admit Sipuel. Sipuel graduated from OU law school in 1951. In 1992, Sipuel was appointed to the OU Board of Regents.

Based upon the Sipuel decision, the Oklahoma legislature amended the criminal statutes to permit admission of black students to universities and colleges attended by white students, but only in cases where such institutions offered courses not available in the black schools, and further provided that in such cases instruction "shall be given at such colleges or institutions of higher education upon a segregated basis." Following the law, the University of Oklahoma admitted black students but segregated them from white students within the school.

In 1950, Hall was again before the United states Supreme Court challenging the state’s action in requiring his client, G.W. McLaurin, to sit apart from white students. These separate seats and rows in the classroom library and cafeteria were marked “reserved for colored.” In this landmark civil rights case, Hall convinced the United States Supreme Court that state institutions of higher learning could not constitutionally deprive black students of the opportunities for interaction offered to students of other races. This decision provided the basis for the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of black children was detrimental too their educational and psychological development, and that the doctrine of “separate but equal” education had no place in the field of public education. Thus, Tulsa Lawyer Amos T. Hall influenced some of the most farreaching civil rights decisions in the last 100 years.

Amos T. Hall passed away at the age of 75 in November 1971. A Chapter of the American Inns of Court in Tulsa bears his name.