The Washington Lawyers' Committee's Fifty-Year Battle for Racial Equality in Places of Public Accommodation

• Published in: Howard law journal 2018-10, Vol.62 (1), p.73-124
• Main Authors: Duncan, Robert B, Lockhart, Karl M F
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 21st century; Attorneys; Bars; Civil rights; Civil Rights Act 1964-US; Committees; Consumers; Discrimination; Employment; Equal rights; Extremism; Hotels & motels; Law; Nightclubs; Race; Restaurants; Society
• ISSN: 0018-6813; 1931-0692

A small group of concerned Washington, D.C. lawyers founded the Committee in response to a 1968 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders report identifying racial segregation and poverty as root causes of the city riots that erupted during the late 1960s.1 The report's recommendations fo- cused on eliminating discrimination in education, housing and employment opportunity; and on dedicating the public resources necessary to ensure all Americans have "a minimum standard of decent living. "5 In service of this integrative goal, the Lawyers' Committee enlisted and worked with private firms to investigate and litigate public accommodation cases in the Washington area from the time of the Committee's creation and the early days of the post-Civil Rights Act desegregation movement.6 Then, starting in 1988, the Committee played a leading role in a series of significant, high-profile national civil rights cases against major hotels and restaurant chains.7 The Committee has since steadfastly pursued the elimination of race discrimination uncovered by diverse consumers, in the D.C. area and beyond, seeking to utilize the services of hotels, restaurants, rental car agencies, retail stores, health clubs, taxicabs and even nightclubs.8 The Committee's pioneering fight against consumer racism-on-going even now more than forty years after the legendary sit-ins at segregated lunch counters-has resulted in important victories for victims of discrimination and changed the way companies do business. From its effective coordination with the Department of Justice to developing and pioneering the use of illuminating empirical studies, the Washington Lawyers' Committee's groundbreaking methods have strengthened the effectiveness of the use of civil rights litigation to challenge and modify the behavior of discriminating businesses that provide public accommodations.9 These innovations should continue to serve the interests of promoting "a single society and a single American identity" in the face of today's changing political and societal divides, and the evolution of disruptive new technologies that are shifting the ways public accommodations are delivered.10 Parts II and III of this Article will review the history of public accommodations law in the United States and discuss the most important work of the Washington Lawyers' Committee over the years in the public accommodations space. In 1865, Congress promptly ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,