Principal, Clarence M. Dunnaville
Attorney, PC
Richmond, Virginia
A Warrior For Civil Rights
In 1950, Clarence M. Dunnaville ’57 left Roanoke, Virginia, to
attend college as “far North as my limited financial resources
would carry me, to escape the racial in-equalities of the
South”. Segregated toilets, buses and drinking fountains were
the norm.
He made it as far as Morgan State College in Maryland. While a
senior at Morgan State, a professor secured tickets for him to see
the oral arguments of Thurgood Marshall and Spottswood W. Robinson
III in Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme
Court. Recognizing that one man can make a difference,
Dunnaville applied to a number of law schools when he graduated
from Morgan in 1954.
A singular law school did not accept Dunnaville because as the
rejection letter stated, “it did not accept negroes.” Another law
school accepted Dunnaville’s application with the caveat, “you
cannot attend law school this semester because we have already met
our quota of negro students.” Dunnaville enrolled at St.
John’s Law, which was founded in 1925 because of discrimination
against Jewish and minority citizens; and dedicated itself to
educating the children of individuals who had been denied access to
economic and educational opportunities. He graduated in 1957.
Graduating in 1957 near the top of his class, Dunnaville went to
work as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service.
Dunnaville believes that he was the first attorney of color hired
by this governmental agency. He fondly remembers securing a
legal victory against a prominent real estate investor in upstate
New York which involves every law student’s nightmare – the Rule
Against Perpetuities.
In 1961, he was appointed as an Assistant United States Attorney
for the Southern District of New York. In 1965 he became the first
attorney of color to be hired by AT&T. He took a leave of
absence from AT&T in 1967 to work in Mississippi as a volunteer
attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law,
which was established by President John F. Kennedy. Dunnaville
returned to the South to represent black citizens who were denied
the right to vote and subjected to numerous atrocities. One
evening, in a small Mississippi town while investigating the case
of a black citizen who had been deprived of his civil rights he
requested some information from a constable. The constable
responded by pointing a shotgun in his face and suggesting that he
leave town. Fortunately, he managed to leave unscathed but
was still determined to be a catalyst and conduit of change.
Returning to AT&T, in 1968 he continued his efforts to
eliminate discrimination against minorities. He co-founded
the Council of Concerned Black Executives and the Association for
Integration in Management to promote diversity in the corporate
work place.
In 1970, he was loaned by AT&T to serve as the New York
Executive Director of the Interracial Council for Business
Opportunity, which was involved in creating minority group
entrepreneurs. In the early 1980’s he co-founded Workshops in
Business Opportunities to assist minority entrepreneurs gain
business skills. Throughout the 1980s he continued to work
with minority group entrepreneurs.
In 1990, he decided to once again make his home in
Virginia. In Virginia he continued to be an advocate for
justice. He joined the small law firm of Oliver W. Hill who
was one of the trial lawyers in Brown v. Board of Education and
engaged in numerous activities to promote access to justice and
equality of
opportunity.
In recent years, Dunnaville has dedicated substantial effort to
bringing attention to the work of civil rights attorney Oliver W.
Hill and his colleagues who were leading advocates in civil rights
litigation during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Dunnaville is a
founding member of the Oliver White Hill Foundation which has
purchased and restored Mr. Hill’s boyhood home. Upon
completion of the restoration, Dunnaville formed a coalition of a
law school and legal practitioners who work out of the restored
home to provide legal services to the poor through a practicum of
the law school. The Virginia State Bar awarded the 2009 Lewis
F. Powell Jr. Pro Bono Award to Dunnaville for his work on behalf
of disenfranchised individuals in the 21st century. This
award followed the 2007 Segal-Tweed Founders Award by the Lawyers’
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for outstanding leadership and
service in the cause of equal justice. In October 2009, he was
named by the Virginia Lawyers’ Weekly as a Virginia leader in the
law. Currently he devotes a substantial amount of his time to
projects relating to access to justice by the poor.
Reflecting on his time at St. John’s Law, Dunnaville reminded
students to, “Remain focused during Law School. Work hard and do
your best. The marketplace is tough and you will need a
competitive edge. Be confident in yourself because you have
received an excellent education. Remember, public service is
an excellent opportunity to apply your legal training while making
a positive mark on society.”