III 110th CONGRESS 1st Session S. RES. 161 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES April 18, 2007 Mr. Webb (for himself and Mr. Warner) submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to RESOLUTION Honoring the life of Oliver White Hill, a pioneer in the field of American civil rights law, on the occasion of his 100th birthday.

Whereas Oliver White Hill was born on May 1, 1907, in Richmond, Virginia, moved with his family to Roanoke, Virginia, and graduated from Dunbar High School in Washington, DC; Whereas Mr. Hill earned his undergraduate degree from Howard University and received a law degree from Howard University School of Law in 1933, graduating second in his class behind valedictorian and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; Whereas, in 1934, Mr. Hill became a member of the Virginia Bar and began his law practice in Roanoke, Virginia, and continued in Richmond, Virginia, in 1939, leading the Virginia legal team of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1940 to 1961 and serving as one of the principal attorneys on the historic Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954; Whereas Mr. Hill interrupted his law practice to serve in the United States Armed Forces from 1943 to 1945, and was later appointed by President Harry S Truman to a committee to study racism in the United States; Whereas, in 1948, Mr. Hill became the first African-American elected to the Richmond, Virginia, City Council since Reconstruction, and later served in appointed capacities with the Federal Housing Administration and the then-newly-created Department of Housing and Urban Development; Whereas Mr. Hill served as legal counsel in many of the Nation’s most important civil rights cases concerning equal opportunity in education, employment, housing, transportation, and the justice system; Whereas Mr. Hill has remained actively engaged with civic enterprises at the community, State, national, and international levels, and earned numerous accolades and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President William Jefferson Clinton in 1999; the NAACP Spingarn Medal in 2005; and the dedication of a building on the grounds of the Virginia State Capitol in his honor by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2005; and Whereas Mr. Hill served as a mentor to generations of attorneys, activists, and public servants: Now, therefore, be it

That the Senate honors the life and legacy of Oliver White Hill, a pioneer in the field of American civil rights law, on the occasion of his 100th birthday.