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Title
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Homer G. Phillips
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Description
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Homer G. Phillips was an influential lawyer and civil rights activist from Sedalia, Missouri. He attended Howard University Law School in Washington, DC, and later established a successful law practice in St. Louis.
In 1919, Phillips co-founded the Civil Liberties League, an African American political organization representing Black interests in the Progressive wing of the Republican party. In the early 1920s, he co-founded the St. Louis Negro Bar Association, later known as the Mound City Bar Association. He defended many African Americans in criminal cases following the 1917 race riots in East St. Louis, and in 1922, Phillips led the demand for a hospital for the Black community. His efforts led to the construction of Homer G. Phillips Hospital and School for Nursing, which opened several years after his death. The hospital served Black residents and trained Black medical professionals until the early 1980s.
When the City of St. Louis enacted a segregation ordinance in 1916, Phillips and the local branch of the NAACP filed for a temporary injunction on the ordinance. US District Judge David Dyer granted the injunction until Buchanan v. Warley could be the US Supreme Court. The Buchanan v. Warley decision set the precedent that ordinances that prohibited the sale or purchase of properties by Blacks in white-majority neighborhoods violated Fourteenth Amendment protections.
Phillips was attacked and killed by several men with guns while waiting for a streetcar on June 18, 1931. The motive behind his assassination remains unknown.
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Homer G. Phillips
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Subject
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Homer G. Phillips Hospital and Nursing School
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Civil Rights Activist
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Civil Liberties League
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Black Progressive Republican political figure
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St. Louis Negro Bar Association
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Mound City Bar Association
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1917 Race Riots East St. Louis
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Temporal Coverage
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April 1, 1880 - June 18,1931
