Tucker, Samuel Wilbert, 1913-1990

Samuel Wilbert Tucker; June 18, 1913, Alexandria, VA – October 19, 1990, Richmond, VA; father, Samuel A. Tucker, a real estate agent and NAACP member; Alexandria provided no high school for black children, so after graduating from 8th grade, he had to "bootleg" a high school education across the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., at Armstrong High School; attended Howard University; earned his undergraduate degree in 1933. Tucker soon qualified for the Virginia bar exam based on his studies in Watson's law office, but had to wait til June 1934, when he reached age 21, to begin practicing law; two years with the Civilian Conservation Corps, Tucker and his friend George Wilson (a retired Army sergeant) began in earnest dismantling segregation in Alexandria, first at the public library opened just 2 blocks from his home in August 1937, but which refused to issue cards to black residents; In 1939, Tucker organized a sit-in at Alexandria Library, which refused to issue library cards to black residents; during WWII Tucker entered the Army and served in the 366th Infantry; after war moved his law practice to Emporia, Virginia; filed many civil rights lawsuits; In 1966, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund named Tucker "lawyer of the year"; Tucker's greatest legal achievement was probably Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, which challenged a freedom-of-choice plan the school board had enacted supposedly to desegregate the county schools on a voluntary basis, and which allowed white children to attend segregation academies at public expense. The case went to the Supreme Court of the United States, which heard statistical arguments from Tucker that the plan was no more than segregation by another name, 14 years after Brown;