Leesburg Historic District
Loudoun County Courthouse - African American Presence

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Loudoun County Courthouse. (Scenic America)

Three brick courthouses—dating from 1761, 1811, and 1895—have served Loudoun County on this same site. Slave auctions were once held on the steps. Today the building is recognized for its role in the struggle for freedom and equality. The National Park Service designated the Loudoun County Courthouse as an Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site because two free black men were tried here for helping women and children escape from slavery. In 1883, African Americans petitioned for their rights and, fifty years later, Charles Hamilton Houston became the first African American attorney to argue a major case in a southern courtroom.

Designations: National Register of Historic Places; National Park Service, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Site

Resources

• Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, “The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom: The Loudoun County Courthouse.” http://www.balchfriends.org/Glimpse/URNCourt.htm

People in the Places

Leonard A. Grimes (1815-1874) 

Leonard A. Grimes

Leonard Grimes, a free black man, operated a successful hackney carriage business—similar to today’s taxi service—in Washington, D.C. in the 1830s. Grimes also helped people escape from slavery, and became an early organizer of the Underground Railroad. In 1839 authorities arrested Grimes and charged him with aiding a woman named Patty and her six children flee from slavery in Loudoun County. Prosecutors tried Grimes at the courthouse in Leesburg in early 1840. Noted attorneys argued his case and prominent white patrons from Washington testified to his good character. Grimes was found guilty but given the lightest sentence possible: two years in prison in Richmond.

After his release Leonard Grimes became a minister, moved with his family to Massachusetts, and became pastor of Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston. It became known as “the Fugitive’s Church,” since it helped people fleeing slavery. One member, Anthony Burns, attracted national attention when authorities captured and re-enslaved him. When Grimes and members of his congregation could not free him from jail or secure his release through the courts, they raised money to purchase him from his owner in Virginia.

During the Civil War, Grimes led a delegation of ministers who met with President Abraham Lincoln. They asked for and received Lincoln’s promise of official protection as they went to the South and ministered to refugees from slavery in the Union lines. Grimes also lobbied the government to allow black soldiers to fight for the Union and, when successful, recruited for the Army. After general emancipation he helped freed people improve their lives. Even though he lived most of his life in the North, Grimes dedicated himself to people of the South in various ways. Through his work, he became a widely-know and highly respected statesman as well as clergyman. At Boston’s day-long memorial for Abraham Lincoln, he rode in the carriage of dignitaries during the procession and delivered the closing benediction at the service.

Resources

• Lee, Deborah A. “Leonard Andrew Grimes”in The Essence of A People II: African Americans Who Made Their World Anew in Loudoun County, Virginia, and Beyond. Kendra Y. Hamilton, ed. Leesburg: Black History Committee of the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, 2002.
• Friends of the Thomas Balch Library. A Glimpse into the History of African Americans in Loudoun County. http://www.balchfriends.org/Glimpse/lgrimes.htm

Nelson T. Gant (1822-1905) 

Nelson T. Gant. (Zanesville Times-Recorder)

Nelson Gant was liberated in 1845 when John Nixon emancipated him in his will and provided money for resettlement of Gant and other freed people in Ohio. But Gant was reluctant to leave Loudoun County, as his wife Maria remained enslaved in Leesburg. Gant worked hard for the year he was allowed to stay in Virginia and tried to purchase his wife, but her owner Jane Russell refused. He joined his family and friends in Zanesville, Ohio, and became acquainted with abolitionists there. He raised more money and returned to Virginia, staying for a time with Underground Railroad activist Dr. Julius LeMoyne in Washington, Pennsylvania, where he met Martin Delany. Russell still refused Gant’s offer, and the couple disappeared. They were betrayed by a black man and arrested in Washington, D.C., then transported to Leesburg for trial. Prominent attorneys, including John Janney (later president of Virginia’s secession convention), argued that Maria’s mistress allowed them to be married by a minister so she could not testify against him. Nelson and Maria Gant were released and local Quakers helped finance her purchase. The couple worked off the debt on a farm near Goose Creek and the couple removed to Zanesville, Ohio. There, Nelson Gant served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, became an innovative farmer and successful businessman, and a lay leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Resources

• Friends of the Thomas Balch Library. A Glimpse into the History of African Americans in Loudoun County. “The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom: The Loudoun County Courthouse.”
  http://www.balchfriends.org/Glimpse/URNCourt.htm
• Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission. Nelson T. Gant Homestead. http://culture.ohio.gov/project.asp?proj=nelson

Charles H. Houston (1895-1950) 

Charles Houston (second from left) with NAACP executive secretary Walter White (far left) and other NAACP attorneys in 1933. (NAACP Records, Library of Congress)

In 1933 at the Loudoun County Courthouse, Charles Houston became the first African American attorney to argue a major case in a southern courtroom. The case reveals the deep roots of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. A black man, George Crawford, was arrested for the murder in 1932 of Middleburg socialite Agnes Illsley and her maid Mina Buckner. The NAACP had engaged Charles Hamilton Houston, the vice dean of the Howard University Law School, to head its legal defense team and it was looking for a case that would highlight inequities in the legal system. Although Crawford was convicted—by the time of his trial almost everyone thought he was guilty—the case was considered an important legal victory for Houston and the NAACP. Houston proved that black citizens were barred from serving on juries and Crawford was given life in prison instead of the expected death penalty. Additionally, the defense team was all black; another civil rights milestone in the South.

Charles Houston became known as “the man who killed Jim Crow.” His legal strategy led to Brown v. Board of Education and the Supreme Court decision that segregated schools were not equal. For the story about how Charles Houston helped Loudoun County African Americans obtain a new high school, see Douglass High School.

Resources

• McNeil, Genna Rae. Groundwork: Charles Hamilton Houston and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.
• Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown V. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality. 1975. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
• Friends of the Thomas Balch Library. A Glimpse into the History of African Americans in Loudoun County. “Essential Understandings and Their Supporting Documents,” Section 6. http://www.balchfriends.org/Glimpse/EssUnderstanding.htm
• Howard University School of Law. Brown @ 50: Fulfilling the Promise. http://www.brownat50.org/brownBios/BioCharlesHHouston.html
• Library of Congress. With an Even Hand: Brown v. Board at Fifty. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/