The year was 1949, and 25-year-old Gregory Swanson was already a practicing lawyer in Martinsville when he set his sights on a master’s degree from the University of Virginia. He had a degree from Howard University, but Risa Goluboff, former Dean of UVA’s law school, says he wanted to teach.
“He heard that the Turell Law School – an African-American law school in Washington, D.C. — was looking for faculty and that one needed an advanced degree for the position,” she explains. “Gregory Swanson was interested, and he was ambitious, and he decided to apply for such a degree.”
UVA law school historian Randi Flaherty says Southern universities did not admit black students. Instead, the Commonwealth gave them money so they could afford to enroll in out-of-state schools…