Description
Robert Lee Brokenburr was born in Phoebus, Virginia, on November 16, 1886, to Elizabeth Bakker Brokenburr and Benjamin Brokenburr, who was formerly enslaved. [1] Brokenburr attended the alma mater of Booker T. Washington, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia, and graduated from the private black college in 1906. [2] He then studied law at Howard University where he earned his degree in 1909. [3] Following his graduation from Howard, Brokenburr moved to Indianapolis upon the advice of George L. Knox, owner of the illustrated black newspaper the Indianapolis Freeman. [4] He quickly established himself as a practicing attorney after being admitted to the Indiana Bar in 1910. [5]
Soon after he arrived in Indianapolis, Brokenburr was introduced to successful black cosmetics business owner Madam C.J. Walker by George L. Knox, and he later became her general counsel. [6] While working with Walker, Brokenburr became a more visible figure in the city and the African American community. His association with Walker, who was quickly becoming a celebrity across black America, helped Brokenburr make a name for himself early in his law career. He was also a very active presence in the black institutions of Indianapolis. Brokenburr frequently supported African American organizations such as black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, the Senate Avenue YMCA, and the Flanner House, and served as the second president of the Indianapolis chapter of the NAACP. [7]
During his first decade in Indianapolis, Brokenburr’s various activities around the city helped him to rise to a place of prominence within the black community of Indianapolis. One of his biggest contributions came in 1922, when he helped to organize the Better Indianapolis Civic League, which protested the construction of a segregated high school in Indianapolis. [8] In a petition brought before the Indianapolis School Board of Commissioners by Brokenburr on behalf of the League, he stated that the segregation of schools was “unjust, un-American, and against the spirit of democratic ideals.” [9] Despite the Better Indianapolis Civic League’s efforts, the school board voted to build Crispus Attucks High School, which served as a segregated black school for decades after its construction in 1927. [10] Although the fight was unsuccessful, Brokenburr garnered the attention of both black and white citizens of Indianapolis.
After gaining this recognition, Brokenburr began to take on the legal struggles for civil rights in Indiana. As support for white supremacy rose in the 1920s with the rise of the KKK in Indiana, he took on many cases to protect African Americans. One such case was Gaillard v. Grant, in which he argued against a zoning ordinance that enforced segregation in Indianapolis neighborhoods. [11] In 1926, this ordinance was found to be unconstitutional, as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. [12] Brokenburr also represented the plaintiffs in Bailey v. Washington Theatre Company, a case where a black couple—civil rights activists Katherine “Flossie” and Dr. Walter T. Bailey—was denied entry into a Marion movie theater. [13] Unfortunately, the couple’s case ended with a 1941 Indiana Supreme Court decision which upheld the right of a private business to arbitrarily exclude patrons. [14]
Perhaps Brokenburr’s most important legal contribution to civil rights in Indiana was his decision to represent Herbert James Cameron quid pro quo in July 1931. Sixteen year old Cameron had been arrested with two other black teenagers the previous summer on charges of murder and rape in Marion, Indiana. [15] The other two teens, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, had been murdered in a brutal lynching on August 7, 1930, and while Cameron escaped the wrath of the abating lynch mob that night, he still faced charges for the alleged crimes. [16] As Cameron stood trial under the shadow of the electric chair, Brokenburr and fellow black Indianapolis attorney R.L. Bailey successfully delayed the trial and changed its venue in order to grant Cameron a more objective jury. [17] After more than a week of passionate arguments, the jury found Cameron guilty of being an accessory to voluntary manslaughter, a verdict which carried a maximum sentence of two to ten years in the Indiana State Reformatory. [18] Thanks to the efforts of attorneys Robert L. Brokenburr and R.L. Bailey, the teenaged lynching survivor had been “snatched from the jaws of death” a second time. [19]
Brokenburr not only served Indianapolis as a lawyer, but also as a legislator. In 1912, 1932, and 1934, he ran for a seat in the Indiana House of Representatives, but lost each election. [20] However, in 1940 he won his race for State Senate, making him the first African American to be elected to that chamber. [21] During his terms in the senate from 1941 to 1947 and from 1953 to 1963, Brokenburr fought for progress towards civil rights in Indiana. [22] While in office, he authored more than 50 bills focusing on issues such as equality in housing opportunities and proportional representation of black officers in police forces across the state. [23] He also authored a bill that desegregated the Indiana National Guard in 1941. [24] Because of his success as a statesman in the Indiana Senate, Brokenburr was appointed by President Eisenhower and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as an alternate delegate for the United States at the United Nations General Assembly in 1955. [25]
During his career, Robert Lee Brokenburr’s accomplishments advanced the livelihoods of not just the African American community, but of all Hoosiers. After serving the Indianapolis community for over half a century, Brokenburr retired in 1971. [26] In 1974, he passed away at the age of 87. [27] Brokenburr truly lived by the motto “live to serve,” as he dedicated his entire life to the fight for equality in Indiana. [28] Brokenburr, like countless other black lawyers across the country, devoted his career to helping “America move toward realization of its professed commitment to legal equality.” [29] Through his considerable efforts, Robert Lee Brokenburr improved the lives of all Hoosiers. [30]
Source
[1] Stephen F. Thompson and Curtis R. Barsic, “Robert Lee Brokenburr Papers and Photographs, ca. 1937-1973,” last modified August 2010, https://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/robert-lee-brokenburr-papers-and-photographs.pdf.
[2] Ibid.; “History,” Hampton University, accessed November 1, 2019, http://www.hamptonu.edu/about/history.cfm.
[3] Stephen F. Thompson and Curtis R. Barsic, “Robert Lee Brokenburr Papers and Photographs, ca. 1937-1973,” last modified August 2010, https://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/robert-lee-brokenburr-papers-and-photographs.pdf.
[4] Stanley Warren, “Senator Robert L. Brokenburr: He Lived to Serve,” Black History News and Notes no. 83 (2001): 4.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, 5
[8] Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century, ed. Lana Ruegamer, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000): 57.
[9] Connie A. McBirney and Robert M. Taylor, Peopling Indiana: the Ethnic Experience (Indianapolis, IN: Indiana Historical Society, 1996): 22.
[10] Thornbrough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century, 57-58.
[11] Ibid., 53.
[12] Ibid.
[13] James H. Madison, A Lynching in the Heartland: Race and Memory in America (New York, NY, Palgrave, 2001): 97.
[14] Bailey v. Washington Theatre Co., 218 Ind. 513 (Ind. 1941).
[15] Thornbrough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century, 67.
[16] Ibid., 67-69.
[17] Madison, A Lynching in the Heartland, 106
[18] Ibid., 106-107.
[19] Ibid., 108.
[20] Warren, “Senator Robert L. Brokenburr,” 4
[21] Stephen F. Thompson and Curtis R. Barsic, “Robert Lee Brokenburr Papers and Photographs, ca. 1937-1973,” last modified August 2010, https://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/robert-lee-brokenburr-papers-and-photographs.pdf.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Warren, “Senator Robert Lee Brokenburr,” 6.
[24] “Brokenburr Guard Bill Becomes Law,” Indianapolis Recorder (Indianapolis, IN), Mar. 15, 1941.
[25] Warren, “Senator Robert Lee Brokenburr,” 7.; United States Department of State, U.S. Participation in the UN: Report by the President to the Congress for the Year 1955, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1956): 271.
[26] Stephen F. Thompson and Curtis R. Barsic, “Robert Lee Brokenburr Papers and Photographs, ca. 1937-1973,” last modified August 2010, https://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/robert-lee-brokenburr-papers-and-photographs.pdf.
[27] “Illustrious, History-Making Career Ends With Death of Atty. Robert L. Brokenburr,” Indianapolis Recorder (Indianapolis, IN), Mar. 30, 1974.
[28] Warren, “Senator Robert Lee Brokenburr,” 7.