On Mar 19, 1939, a 28-year-old Black man named Lloyd Gaines went missing just months after winning a lawsuit forcing a university to accept him into their all-white law school. What happened?
Gaines was swiftly rejected after applying to the segregated law school at the University of Missouri (MU) – the only law school in the state.
When they offered to pay for his tuition at an HBCU instead, Gaines not only rejected the offer, but enlisted the help of the NAACP to sue!
When the case lost in the Missouri state courts, Gaines appealed to the Supreme Court. And in December 1938, he won!
The university was ordered to admit him OR create an in-state law school for Black students. But the fight wasn’t over.
They opened Lincoln University Law School in an old beauty shop, with resources far from equal to Mu’s. So the NAACP was preparing to sue again – until they learned Gaines was MISSING.
State officials swore Gaines just ran away under a new identity, but his family believed he was murdered.
To this day, Gaines' fate is unknown. He never got justice. Still, after his lawsuit was dismissed, his case later became instrumental in MU’s integration over a decade later in 1950. His fight was never in vain – a lesson to us all!