The Story Behind the Photo

In September of 1950, Gregory Hayes Swanson (center) registers for classes at the University of Virginia Law School.  Swanson was the first African American student to be admitted to the University of Virginia Law School in its 131-year history.

Four years before the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education struck down legal segregation in public schools, the University of Virginia Law School enrolled an African-American student for the first time in its 131-year history. On September 5, 1949, a special three-judge federal court, in a case fought by the Virginia branch of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the University of Virginia was ordered to grant admission to 25-year-old Gregory Hayes Swanson.

At the time, Swanson, a native of Danville, Virginia, held bachelor’s degrees in political science and law from Howard University. He had also been recently admitted to the Virginia Bar, and was practicing law in Danville when he applied to the law school in November 1949. Swanson submitted his application to the University of Virginia because he wanted to study corporation and insurance law, and it was the only state-supported institution with a law school. Despite his qualifications and majority support from faculty and students, the university’s Board of Visitors rejected his application because it felt obligated to comply with the State Constitution’s ban on integrated educational facilities.

With assistance from the Legal Defense Fund, Swanson filed a case against the University of California, which came on the heels of the previous successful rulings in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents (1950).  In those cases, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of black students by state-funded institutions in higher education stigmatized them and deprived them of access to an equal education. Following the precedents set by victories in the earlier cases, in a trial that lasted less than 30 minutes, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a state institution maintaining only one tax-supported graduate “cannot bar Negroes for reasons of race or color,” and ordered Swanson’s admission.

Though Swanson successfully enrolled in the fall of 1950, he was barred from living on campus and isolated from social activities. In July 1951, he withdrew from the university, citing harassment and racial hostility. Swanson went on to practice law in Martinsville and Alexandria, Virginia and later for the Internal Revenue Service until he retired in 1984. Though he withdrew from the University of Virginia, Swanson’s case paved the way for other African Americans to successfully gain admission to the school sans legal enforcement.