Belford Lawson Jr.

Belford Vance Lawson Jr. (July 9, 1901 – February 23, 1985) was an American attorney and civil rights activist who made at least eight appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was the first African-American man to win a case before the Supreme Court and the first African-American president of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA).

Lawson attended the University of Michigan and was the school's second African-American varsity football player (having been preceded by George Jewett in the 1890s) and the only African American on the varsity during Fielding H. Yost's coaching tenure.

In 1924, after graduating from Michigan, Lawson was hired the head football coach and athletic director at Jackson College (now known as Jackson State University), a historically black college in Jackson, Mississippi. He also served as a professor of social science and the director of the Teachers' Professional Department. In Lawson's three years as the head football coach at Jackson College, the team compiled a record of 0–3 and was outscored 54 to 0.

Lawson was also reported to have held a position as a professor of economics at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia. Morris Brown president John Lewis, a Yale University graduate, was instrumental with Lawson's acceptance to Yale Law School, although Lawson would receive his J.D. from Howard University School of Law in 1932.

In 1933, Lawson founded the New Negro Alliance (NNA) in Washington, D.C., along with John A. Davis Sr. and M. Franklin Thorne, to combat white-owned businesses in black neighborhoods that would not hire black employees. The NNA instituted a then-radical Don't Buy Where You Can't Work campaign, and organized or threatened boycotts against white-owned businesses. In response, some businesses arranged for an injunction to stop the picketing. Lawson, the lead attorney, with assistance by Thurgood Marshall, fought back – all the way to the United States Supreme Court in New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co. (1938) that safeguarded a right to boycott. This became a landmark case in the struggle by African Americans against discriminatory hiring practices, and Don't Buy Where You Can't Work groups multiplied throughout the nation. The NNA estimated that by 1940, the group had secured 5,106 jobs for blacks because businesses could not afford to lose sales during the Great Depression. In 1934, Lawson encouraged National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) special counsel Charles Houston to authorize Thurgood Marshall to file the case of Murray v. Maryland (1935) to challenge University of Maryland School of Law laws requiring racial segregation in its colleges. Marshall won the case, and Donald Murray was admitted to the university's law school.

Lawson was part of the legal team that won Henderson v. Southern Railway Company (1950), challenging the Interstate Commerce Commission's approval of railroad racial segregation practices. The lawsuit resulted in the abolishing of segregation in railroad dining cars.

Lawson was the 16th General President of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek letter organization established by African Americans. The fraternity sponsors an annual Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Contest in which collegiate members demonstrate their oratorical skills first at the chapter level, with the winner competing at the state, regional and general convention. The fraternity says "the purpose of the Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Contest is to identify problems or special topics of interest within society and determine how the problem or topic relates to the goals and objectives of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated." Lawson rented the third floor of his Logan Circle home to fraternity brother and Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr. during Powell's tenure in Congress.

In 1973, Lawson was elected President of the National Council of the YMCA. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1985, after having battled Alzheimer's disease and cancer.