Background
He grew up in the city"s first and most successful black neighborhood, Freedmen"s Town.
He grew up in the city"s first and most successful black neighborhood, Freedmen"s Town.
Shortly after completing high school, Carter moved to Nashville, Tennessee and graduated magna cum laude in 1917 from Fisk University.
Military During World War I, Carter Walker Wesley volunteered to be in the United States. Army through a program called the black officers training program He eventually went on to serve as a lieutenant in France until 1918. Wesley and his unit were sent to Europe where he fought in the Argonne and Verdun regions.
In 1918, Wesley was assigned to 372nd infantry regiment in France and trained with French officers.
Later he transferred to the 370th and fought in the battle of Oise-Aisne the same year. Wesley commanded the company when the captain became wounded.
He was released in 1919 after returning from the ninety third division
Legal Wesley was inspired by West.E.B. Du Bois and various black leaders to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and began his career in law. He began attending law school at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois before World War I and became active in civil rights issues as an attorney.
At one point, he suggested that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People stop depending on white attorneys to work on cases in Texas.
Texas claimed that it had no role in the primary because that was the exclusive domain of the state Democratic Party. Townsend, 295 United States. 45, 55 South. Court 622, 792 L. Education 1292 (1932).
Wesley did not give up the fight, and although it took until 1944, in Smith v.
Allwright, 321 United States. 649, 64 South. Court 757, 88 L. Education 987 (1944), the Court finally struck down the Texas white primary, finding that the discriminatory voting practice was unconstitutional.
Wesley was also instrument in desegregating the University of Texas Law School, by providing support for Herman Sweatt, who was not admitted because he was black. Wesley even employed Sweatt at one of his newspapers while the suit was going through the courts.
Newspaper and Publishing Active in the civil rights movement as an attorney, Wesley eventually became interested in the power of the press, and switched his focus to the publishing industry.
He took a job with the Houston Informer, a newspaper for African Americans, and became the editor of the paper in 1929. He was then promoted to vice president of the newspaper company in 1930 and became manager by the end of 1932. Wesley eventually took a controlling interest in the newspaper and help it grow to become, in 1945, the largest black-owned business in Houston.
Wesley was also the owner of the Dallas Express.
Which was one of the papers that were published by Freedman"s Publishing Company. Wesley was sent with ten other black publishers to Germany to "investigate claims of discrimination against black servicemen in that country.".
Carter Walker Wesley worked with members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, including Thurgood Marshall, to fight the state of Texas and the Texas Democratic Party in order to end the racially discriminatory white primary.