Charles A. Chandler

Born in West Point, Mississippi in 1897 and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Charles Augustus Chandler earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Fisk University in 1920, graduating magna cum laude. He received his LLB from Yale in 1923. He was a member of the editorial board of the Yale Law Review.

Chandler settled in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he became a well-known attorney who argued many cases in federal court. He served as the NAACP lawyer in Oklahoma. With backing from the NAACP, he successfully argued Lane v. Wilson before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1939, a landmark case striking down the state’s grandfather clause and expanding voting for Black people across the country. In 1940, Chandler brought another case to the Supreme Court, but the highest court dismissed it. Simmons v. Board of Education was an early case challenging segregation in public schools.

In 1944, Chandler and his family moved to Cleveland, where he continued to practice law. In 1963, he was appointed to the civil division of the city law department in Cleveland. He was a Republican and a member of the East Mount Zion Baptist Church, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, the NAACP, and several legal organizations. Chandler died in Cleveland in 1980.