Oliver White Hill, SR (1907–2007)

Oliver White Hill, Sr. (May 1, 1907 — August 5, 2007) was an American civil rights attorney from Richmond, Virginia. His work against racial discrimination helped end the doctrine of “separate but equal.” He also helped win landmark legal decisions involving equality in pay for black teachers, access to school buses, voting rights, jury selection, and employment protection. He retired in 1998 after practicing law for almost 60 years. Among his numerous awards was the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which U.S. President Bill Clinton awarded him in 1999. (Source: Wikepedia) Though he spent most of his life working and living in Richmond, he did live in my hometown of Roanoke. The house in which he lived in as a child is just up the road from where I work, in a predominantly African American community. His winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom should have been awarded earlier, but thankfully it wasn’t awarded posthumously.

In 1916, the Hills moved to Washington, D.C., where Joseph Hill worked at the Navy Yard during the First World War. Oliver was in…