“In the Best American Tradition of Freedom, We Defy You”: The Radical Partnership of Joseph Jordan, Edward Dawley, and Leonard Holt

The history of the Civil Rights Movement has long centered on victories won in the Deep South between 1954 and 1965. As inspiring as this narrative may be, it overemphasizes the effectiveness of organizations like the NAACP and downplays more radical, local efforts that often took place in the border states. This article offers a counternarrative to the traditional story. It explores the efforts of three Virginia attorneys—Joseph Jordan, Edward Dawley, and Leonard Holt—who combined direct action tactics, impromptu street theater, and brilliant courtroom arguments into a strategy of “movement lawyering” that soon spread throughout the nation. While Jordan, Dawley, and Holt were not immediately successful and their law firm was put out of business by state harassment, their efforts and strategies helped end the Jim Crow regime in both Virginia and the wider United States.

Littlejohn, Jeffrey L., and Charles H. Ford. “‘In the Best American Tradition of Freedom, We Defy You’: The Radical Partnership of Joseph Jordan, Edward Dawley, and Leonard Holt.” The Journal of African American History 106, no. 3 (June 1, 2021): 496–520. https://doi.org/10.1086/714722.