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Loren Miller (judge)
Encyclopedia
Loren Miller was an American
, California
Superior Court Justice, County of Los Angeles
, appointed by former governor Edmund G. Brown in 1964, serving until 1967. Miller was a specialist in housing discrimination, whose involvement in the early stages of the American Civil Rights Movement
earned him a reputation as a tenacious fighter for equal housing opportunities for minorities. Miller argued some of the most historic civil rights cases ever heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was chief counsel before the court in the decision that led to the outlawing of racial covenants.
, to John Bird Miller (born a slave), and to Nora Herbaugh. His family moved to Kansas
when he was a boy, and he graduated from high school in Highland, Kansas
. Later, he attended the University of Kansas
; Howard University
; and Washburn University, in Topeka, Kansas
, where he earned his bachelor of laws degree in 1928. He was admitted to the Kansas bar the same year, and practiced law there before moving to California
to pursue his first interest, journalism
.
In early 1930s, Miller moved to Los Angeles, California
, where he began to publish in the California Eagle
, a black weekly newspaper. Miller returned to the field of law and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1933. Miller's fiery Depression-era journalism earned wide respect in Los Angeles's black community. As an attorney, Miller brought the same keen intellect and incisive rhetorical style to the courtroom. Longtime friend and client Don Wheeldin remembered that Miller was so dynamic that other lawyers would actually postpone their own cases just to hear him.
By the 1940s, he was raising his voice in protest over policies and practices that discriminated against African Americans. In the wake of World War II
, many blacks had left their rural southern homes to seek economic opportunity in California
, only to face discrimination and bias, particularly in housing. In the ensuing struggle for housing restrictive covenant
s were used to keep the migrants from spreading out beyond the area of original Negro settlement. The war workers had to find living space somewhere, and the white middle class began to look for better homes. The result was wholesale disregard for, and violation of, racial covenants, and a subsequent vigorous counter-attack. A staggering number of lawsuits were brought, approximately two hundred were filed in Los Angeles
in a four year period, and other cities had much the same experience. Miller won the court case Fairchild v. Raines (1944), a decision for a black Pasadena, California
family that had bought a nonrestrictive lot but was sued by white neighbors anyway. In 1945, Miller became the attorney for the restrictive covenant
case representing Hattie McDaniel
, Louise Beavers
, Ethel Waters
, and others of the stars that had moved to what was called the "Sugar Hill" section of Los Angeles. But some whites, refusing to be comforted, had drawn up a racial restriction covenant among themselves. For seven years they had tried to sell it to the other whites, but failed. Then they went to court. Superior Judge Thurmond Clarke decided to visit the disputed ground—popularly known as "Sugar Hill
." Next morning, Judge Clarke threw the case out of court. His reason: "It is time that members of the Negro race are accorded, without reservations or evasions, the full rights guaranteed them under the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution
. Judges have been avoiding the real issue too long."
By 1947, Miller had represented more than one hundred plaintiffs seeking to invalidate housing covenants that prevented blacks from purchasing or renting housing in certain areas. The son of a slave, Miller found that housing discrimination was among the most explosive social problems in the nation and spent years representing the interests of low income clients. As a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU), he became a well-known spokesman for the rights of minorities to enjoy equal access to housing and education. He was openly critical of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), declaring that FHA policies fostered a Jim Crow
policy that kept blacks confined to "tight ghettos" and provoked racial tension. In 1948, Miller wrote in The Nation, ". . . the federal government through FHA furnished it model race-restrictive clause for builders and subdividers from 1935 to 1947, and during that period the FHA refused to guarantee home construction loans unless race restriction were inserted in subdivision deeds. Racial covenants became the fashion, almost a passion, in conveyancing, and were demanded by banks and lending institutions in all real-estate developments." Commenting on the effect of racially restrictive covenants, he noted that contrary to the claims of those who supported the covenants, residential segregation
did not preserve public peace and general welfare but rather resulted in "nothing but bitterness and strife." Miller was one of the first to recognize that bias in housing would be an explosive social issue in the United States. The greatest tension, he predicted, would exist where an all-white area adjoined an all-black area, because "there white Americans stand eternal guard to keep their Negro fellow Americans out." He denounced as "money lenders" and "hucksters of prejudice" the owners of slum properties where many members of minorities are forced to live under substandard conditions because of the "artificial housing shortages . . . in the Negro community." Perhaps the most celebrated case Miller and partner Thurgood Marshall
were involved in, Shelley v. Kraemer
, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S. Ct. 836, 92 L. Ed. 1161 (1948), in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared that racial covenants on property cannot be enforced by the courts.
Later, Miller was named cochair of the West Coast legal committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP). In that capacity, he became the first U.S. lawyer to win an unqualified verdict outlawing residential restrictive covenants in real estate sales that involved Federal Housing Administration
(FHA) or Veterans Administration
(VA) financing. With the rise of private corporate litigators like the NAACP to bear the expense, civil suits have become the pattern in modem civil rights litigation.
Charlotta Bass
sold the newspaper California Eagle
in 1951 to Loren Miller, the former city editor of the Eagle, and began writing for the Eagle, which earned him a reputation in the black community as an articulate and outspoken defender of African Americans. He was a civil liberties lawyer, had a particular interest in discrimination and housing. In the ensuing years under Loren Miller's stewardship, The California Eagle
continued to press for the complete integration of African Americans in every sector of society, and to protest all forms of Jim Crow. Among Miller's primary civil rights concerns were housing discrimination, police brutality, and discriminatory hiring practices in the police and fire departments. He also contributed numerous articles to such journals as The Crisis
, The Nation
, and Law in Transition.
In 1953, Miller represented the case Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249, Los Angeles, California. In this racially restrictive covenant case, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded upon Shelley v. Kraemer
by disallowing damage awards when racial covenants were violated. Barrows had been awarded damages when she sued Jackson for violation of a restrictive covenant that barred the sale of Jackson’s property in Los Angeles to a “non-Caucasian.” The Court upheld a decision by a California District Court of Appeals that determined the awarding of damages a state action that discriminated against African Americans. With the rise of private corporate litigators like the NAACP to bear the expense, civil suits have become the pattern in modem civil rights litigation.
In 1964, former governor Edmund G. Brown of California appointed Miller to the Superior Court of California, where he served until his death.
.
"This is a chronicle of what the Supreme Court has said and done in respect of the rights of Negroes, slave and free, between 1789 and 1965. As a "ward" of the U. S. Supreme Court for the last 100 years, the Negro has had to solicit assistance in order to exercise the rights and privileges taken for granted by other citizens, from riding on Pullman cars to voting in primary elections. Historically, the Supreme Court's response to the Negro's plea for redress of grievances has been uneven. For a 60-year period following enaction of the Civil War Amendments, the Negro petition met with rebuff and evasion, when, in the mid-1930s, the Court began to return to the original meaning of those amendments, "it overturned or ignored its own strangling precedents and even assumed an amazing leadership in the area of civil rights." Here, then, is an original work of American history that presents a picture of our changing society as seen from the viewpoint of those who were systematically excluded from it, and who had to become petitioners to change its course."
Obituary: Judge Miller, Civil Rights Figure, Dies: "Municipal Judge Loren Miller, one of the most prominent figures in the history of the civil rights movement in California, died Friday night at Temple hospital in Los Angeles. He was 61. Dr. Rea Schneider, the attending physician, said Judge Mill died of emphysema, a severe respiratory illness, complicated by pneumonia. The time of death was 9:53 p.m. Dr. Schneider said the judge was admitted to the hospital late last Sunday and was immediately transferred to the intensive care unit. "He had a history of progressive shortness of breath," she said, "but worked with it against great odds until last week." Before his appointment to the bench by former Governor Brown in 1964, Judge Miller argued some of the most historic civil rights cases ever heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was chief counsel before the court in the decision that led to the outlawing of racial covenants. Last year, Judge Miller published The Petitioners, a book outlining the history of the high court's civil rights actions. In addition to his legal duties, Miller for years was publisher of the California Eagle
, the West's oldest Negro weekly newspaper. A native of Nebraska, he was educated in public schools there and in Kansas. He was graduated from the Washburn Law School in Topeka, Kansas
. He was a vice president of the National Association of Colored People, a member of the NAACP's legal committee, a member of the Civil Rights Committee of the State Bar Association. Miller's wife, Juanita Ellsworth, is a social worker. He is also survived by two sons, Loren Jr. and Edward."
Loren Miller Bar Association (LMBA) was founded in August 1968, Seattle, Washington
. At its core, the LMBA is first and foremost a civil rights organization. From its infancy, LMBA adopted a vigorous platform of confronting institutionalized racism and the myriad social and economic disparities affecting the African-American community.
Created in 1977 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the State Bar of California
, the prestigious Loren Miller Legal Services Award is given annually to a lawyer who has demonstrated long-term commitment to legal services and who has personally done significant work in extending legal services to the poor.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
Superior Court Justice, County of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, appointed by former governor Edmund G. Brown in 1964, serving until 1967. Miller was a specialist in housing discrimination, whose involvement in the early stages of the American Civil Rights Movement
African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...
earned him a reputation as a tenacious fighter for equal housing opportunities for minorities. Miller argued some of the most historic civil rights cases ever heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was chief counsel before the court in the decision that led to the outlawing of racial covenants.
Biography
Loren Miller was born 1903, in Pender, NebraskaPender, Nebraska
Pender is a village in Thurston County, Nebraska, United States, located on the Omaha Indian Reservation. The population was 1,002 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Thurston County...
, to John Bird Miller (born a slave), and to Nora Herbaugh. His family moved to Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
when he was a boy, and he graduated from high school in Highland, Kansas
Highland, Kansas
Highland is a city in Doniphan County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,012. It is part of the St. Joseph, MO–KS Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Highland is located at...
. Later, he attended the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
; Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
; and Washburn University, in Topeka, Kansas
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...
, where he earned his bachelor of laws degree in 1928. He was admitted to the Kansas bar the same year, and practiced law there before moving to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to pursue his first interest, journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
.
In early 1930s, Miller moved to Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, where he began to publish in the California Eagle
California Eagle
The California Eagle was one of the oldest and longest-running African American newspapers in Los Angeles, California and the West. It started in 1879, founded by John J. Neimore, who had escaped slavery in Missouri...
, a black weekly newspaper. Miller returned to the field of law and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1933. Miller's fiery Depression-era journalism earned wide respect in Los Angeles's black community. As an attorney, Miller brought the same keen intellect and incisive rhetorical style to the courtroom. Longtime friend and client Don Wheeldin remembered that Miller was so dynamic that other lawyers would actually postpone their own cases just to hear him.
By the 1940s, he was raising his voice in protest over policies and practices that discriminated against African Americans. In the wake of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, many blacks had left their rural southern homes to seek economic opportunity in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, only to face discrimination and bias, particularly in housing. In the ensuing struggle for housing restrictive covenant
Restrictive covenant
A restrictive covenant is a type of real covenant, a legal obligation imposed in a deed by the seller upon the buyer of real estate to do or not to do something. Such restrictions frequently "run with the land" and are enforceable on subsequent buyers of the property...
s were used to keep the migrants from spreading out beyond the area of original Negro settlement. The war workers had to find living space somewhere, and the white middle class began to look for better homes. The result was wholesale disregard for, and violation of, racial covenants, and a subsequent vigorous counter-attack. A staggering number of lawsuits were brought, approximately two hundred were filed in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in a four year period, and other cities had much the same experience. Miller won the court case Fairchild v. Raines (1944), a decision for a black Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
family that had bought a nonrestrictive lot but was sued by white neighbors anyway. In 1945, Miller became the attorney for the restrictive covenant
Restrictive covenant
A restrictive covenant is a type of real covenant, a legal obligation imposed in a deed by the seller upon the buyer of real estate to do or not to do something. Such restrictions frequently "run with the land" and are enforceable on subsequent buyers of the property...
case representing Hattie McDaniel
Hattie McDaniel
Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American actress to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind ....
, Louise Beavers
Louise Beavers
Louise Beavers was an African-American film and television actress. Beavers appeared in dozens of films from the 1920s to the 1930s, most often in the role of a maid, servant, or slave. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Beavers was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, one of the four African-American...
, Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
, and others of the stars that had moved to what was called the "Sugar Hill" section of Los Angeles. But some whites, refusing to be comforted, had drawn up a racial restriction covenant among themselves. For seven years they had tried to sell it to the other whites, but failed. Then they went to court. Superior Judge Thurmond Clarke decided to visit the disputed ground—popularly known as "Sugar Hill
West Adams, Los Angeles, California
West Adams, also known as Historic West Adams, is a large district located in the center of Los Angeles, California, southwest of Downtown and west of USC...
." Next morning, Judge Clarke threw the case out of court. His reason: "It is time that members of the Negro race are accorded, without reservations or evasions, the full rights guaranteed them under the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
. Judges have been avoiding the real issue too long."
By 1947, Miller had represented more than one hundred plaintiffs seeking to invalidate housing covenants that prevented blacks from purchasing or renting housing in certain areas. The son of a slave, Miller found that housing discrimination was among the most explosive social problems in the nation and spent years representing the interests of low income clients. As a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
(ACLU), he became a well-known spokesman for the rights of minorities to enjoy equal access to housing and education. He was openly critical of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), declaring that FHA policies fostered a Jim Crow
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
policy that kept blacks confined to "tight ghettos" and provoked racial tension. In 1948, Miller wrote in The Nation, ". . . the federal government through FHA furnished it model race-restrictive clause for builders and subdividers from 1935 to 1947, and during that period the FHA refused to guarantee home construction loans unless race restriction were inserted in subdivision deeds. Racial covenants became the fashion, almost a passion, in conveyancing, and were demanded by banks and lending institutions in all real-estate developments." Commenting on the effect of racially restrictive covenants, he noted that contrary to the claims of those who supported the covenants, residential segregation
Residential Segregation
Residential segregation is the physical separation of cultural groups based on residence and housing, or a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level."...
did not preserve public peace and general welfare but rather resulted in "nothing but bitterness and strife." Miller was one of the first to recognize that bias in housing would be an explosive social issue in the United States. The greatest tension, he predicted, would exist where an all-white area adjoined an all-black area, because "there white Americans stand eternal guard to keep their Negro fellow Americans out." He denounced as "money lenders" and "hucksters of prejudice" the owners of slum properties where many members of minorities are forced to live under substandard conditions because of the "artificial housing shortages . . . in the Negro community." Perhaps the most celebrated case Miller and partner Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...
were involved in, Shelley v. Kraemer
Shelley v. Kraemer
Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 , is a United States Supreme Court case which held that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate.-Facts of the case:...
, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S. Ct. 836, 92 L. Ed. 1161 (1948), in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared that racial covenants on property cannot be enforced by the courts.
Later, Miller was named cochair of the West Coast legal committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
(NAACP). In that capacity, he became the first U.S. lawyer to win an unqualified verdict outlawing residential restrictive covenants in real estate sales that involved Federal Housing Administration
Federal Housing Administration
The Federal Housing Administration is a United States government agency created as part of the National Housing Act of 1934. It insured loans made by banks and other private lenders for home building and home buying...
(FHA) or Veterans Administration
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
(VA) financing. With the rise of private corporate litigators like the NAACP to bear the expense, civil suits have become the pattern in modem civil rights litigation.
Charlotta Bass
Charlotta Bass
Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass was an American educator, newspaper publisher-editor, and civil rights activist. Bass was probably the first African-American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the United States; she published the California Eagle from 1912 until 1951...
sold the newspaper California Eagle
California Eagle
The California Eagle was one of the oldest and longest-running African American newspapers in Los Angeles, California and the West. It started in 1879, founded by John J. Neimore, who had escaped slavery in Missouri...
in 1951 to Loren Miller, the former city editor of the Eagle, and began writing for the Eagle, which earned him a reputation in the black community as an articulate and outspoken defender of African Americans. He was a civil liberties lawyer, had a particular interest in discrimination and housing. In the ensuing years under Loren Miller's stewardship, The California Eagle
California Eagle
The California Eagle was one of the oldest and longest-running African American newspapers in Los Angeles, California and the West. It started in 1879, founded by John J. Neimore, who had escaped slavery in Missouri...
continued to press for the complete integration of African Americans in every sector of society, and to protest all forms of Jim Crow. Among Miller's primary civil rights concerns were housing discrimination, police brutality, and discriminatory hiring practices in the police and fire departments. He also contributed numerous articles to such journals as The Crisis
The Crisis
The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , and was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois , Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, W.S. Braithwaite, M. D. Maclean.The original title of the journal was...
, The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, and Law in Transition.
In 1953, Miller represented the case Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249, Los Angeles, California. In this racially restrictive covenant case, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded upon Shelley v. Kraemer
Shelley v. Kraemer
Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 , is a United States Supreme Court case which held that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate.-Facts of the case:...
by disallowing damage awards when racial covenants were violated. Barrows had been awarded damages when she sued Jackson for violation of a restrictive covenant that barred the sale of Jackson’s property in Los Angeles to a “non-Caucasian.” The Court upheld a decision by a California District Court of Appeals that determined the awarding of damages a state action that discriminated against African Americans. With the rise of private corporate litigators like the NAACP to bear the expense, civil suits have become the pattern in modem civil rights litigation.
In 1964, former governor Edmund G. Brown of California appointed Miller to the Superior Court of California, where he served until his death.
The Petitioners
In 1966, Judge Miller wrote The Petitioners: The Story of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Negro, a book that recounts the vital role of the U.S. Supreme Court in shaping the lives of African Americans in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
"This is a chronicle of what the Supreme Court has said and done in respect of the rights of Negroes, slave and free, between 1789 and 1965. As a "ward" of the U. S. Supreme Court for the last 100 years, the Negro has had to solicit assistance in order to exercise the rights and privileges taken for granted by other citizens, from riding on Pullman cars to voting in primary elections. Historically, the Supreme Court's response to the Negro's plea for redress of grievances has been uneven. For a 60-year period following enaction of the Civil War Amendments, the Negro petition met with rebuff and evasion, when, in the mid-1930s, the Court began to return to the original meaning of those amendments, "it overturned or ignored its own strangling precedents and even assumed an amazing leadership in the area of civil rights." Here, then, is an original work of American history that presents a picture of our changing society as seen from the viewpoint of those who were systematically excluded from it, and who had to become petitioners to change its course."
Death
The Honorable Loren Miller died in Los Angeles on July 14, 1967.Obituary: Judge Miller, Civil Rights Figure, Dies: "Municipal Judge Loren Miller, one of the most prominent figures in the history of the civil rights movement in California, died Friday night at Temple hospital in Los Angeles. He was 61. Dr. Rea Schneider, the attending physician, said Judge Mill died of emphysema, a severe respiratory illness, complicated by pneumonia. The time of death was 9:53 p.m. Dr. Schneider said the judge was admitted to the hospital late last Sunday and was immediately transferred to the intensive care unit. "He had a history of progressive shortness of breath," she said, "but worked with it against great odds until last week." Before his appointment to the bench by former Governor Brown in 1964, Judge Miller argued some of the most historic civil rights cases ever heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was chief counsel before the court in the decision that led to the outlawing of racial covenants. Last year, Judge Miller published The Petitioners, a book outlining the history of the high court's civil rights actions. In addition to his legal duties, Miller for years was publisher of the California Eagle
California Eagle
The California Eagle was one of the oldest and longest-running African American newspapers in Los Angeles, California and the West. It started in 1879, founded by John J. Neimore, who had escaped slavery in Missouri...
, the West's oldest Negro weekly newspaper. A native of Nebraska, he was educated in public schools there and in Kansas. He was graduated from the Washburn Law School in Topeka, Kansas
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...
. He was a vice president of the National Association of Colored People, a member of the NAACP's legal committee, a member of the Civil Rights Committee of the State Bar Association. Miller's wife, Juanita Ellsworth, is a social worker. He is also survived by two sons, Loren Jr. and Edward."
Legacy and honors
In 1968, Loren Miller Elementary School, a new $1,200,000 campus in South Central Los Angeles, was named after Judge Miller.Loren Miller Bar Association (LMBA) was founded in August 1968, Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
. At its core, the LMBA is first and foremost a civil rights organization. From its infancy, LMBA adopted a vigorous platform of confronting institutionalized racism and the myriad social and economic disparities affecting the African-American community.
Created in 1977 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the State Bar of California
State Bar of California
The State Bar of California is California's official bar association. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, and prescribing appropriate discipline...
, the prestigious Loren Miller Legal Services Award is given annually to a lawyer who has demonstrated long-term commitment to legal services and who has personally done significant work in extending legal services to the poor.