Education
Houston graduated first in his class.
Houston taught English for two years at the historically black Howard University. Houston became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. Houston led the effort to gain Howard Law School's accreditation by the Association of American Law Schools and the American Bar Association.
Career
In 1917, Houston enlisted in a segregated officers training program and served in World War I as a second lieutenant in a segregated U.S. Army field artillery unit. Under his leadership, Howard Law School trained nearly a quarter of the nation's black law students. Many of influential civil rights lawyers in the nation studied at Howard during Houston’s tenure (James Nabrit, William Hastie, Spottswood Robinson, A. Leon Higginbotham, Robert Carter). Houston’s contributions to ending segregation were recognized after his death.
Charles Houston dedicated his life to freeing his people from the bonds of racism. He successfully challenged racial segregation in public schools in areas where no separate but equal facilities existed. He played a significant role in dismantling the Jim Crow laws and helped train future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. Known as "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow", he played a role in nearly every civil rights case before the Supreme Court between 1930 and Brown v. Board of Education (1954).