The Oklahoma Bar Journal May 2023

O klahoma L egal H istory

Injustice in Choctaw County How a Largely Forgotten Oklahoma Trial Set Thurgood Marshall on a Path to Power

By Michael J. Davis

T HERE ARE TIMES IN AMERICAN HISTORY when a setback offers an opportunity, and smart lawyers are always on the lookout for such moments when the chances of an outright legal victory are slim. This was certainly the attitude of Thurgood Marshall in the case of Lyons v. Oklahoma , which brought the young NAACP attorney to the small town of Hugo to defend an accused young Black man, Willie D. Lyons. 1

The fact that Dunjee was interested in the aid of Marshall, who was only seven years out of law school, is a testament to his growing reputation at the time. Marshall was on the precipice of arguing his first solo case before the U.S. Supreme Court, that of Chambers v. Florida . 3 The Chambers facts were starkly similar, where four Black men had been pres sured into a confession through intimidation, threats of violence, persistent interrogation and sleep deprivation over the course of many days. Marshall, now in charge of the legal division of the NAACP, 4 would prevail in that case and even use it as applicable precedent in the Lyons case. At the time, Marshall’s salary with the organization was a meager $2,800 annually, even in his leadership role. He supplemented his income by delivering groceries. 5

A PHONE CALL FROM OKLAHOMA TO NEW YORK Still in the incipient phase of his career, Thurgood Marshall was only 31 years old when longtime Oklahoma civil rights activist Roscoe Dunjee called the Harlem, New York, offices of the NAACP. Dunjee explained that an Oklahoma man had purportedly been tortured into a false confes sion by authorities in the days fol lowing a brutal nighttime slaying of a family in the rural southeast corner of the state, often referred to as Little Dixie . Marshall replied that it was a case “which we should be in on with all of our resources.” 2 Opposite page: Thurgood Marshall (center), later a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, challenges the OU College of Law alongside civil rights pioneer Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher and Tulsa attorney Amos Hall during the 1948 legal battle. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

‘TWO MEN SHOT PAPA AND MAMA’

On a cold New Year’s Eve night, in the last hours of 1939, gunshots rang out across the agricultural fields just northwest of Fort Towson. Elmer and Marie Rogers and their three young children were a poor sharecropper’s family in a small tenant house. 6 Caught entirely by surprise, with buckshot coming through the window, Elmer was immediately incapacitated, and Marie was shot shortly thereafter as she ran to the porch encourag ing her seven-year-old son James Glenn to grab the baby and run. 7 As he ran, the home went up in flames, covering up much of the evidence and surely killing his four-year-old brother, Elvie Dean, as well. Unfortunately, all James Glenn Rogers ever saw of the assailant was a man’s hand, and it was entirely unclear to his mind

Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.

MAY 2023 | 7

THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL