1.4 Henry D. Espy, NAACP Attorney, Saint Louis, Missouri

Houston, Redmond and St. Louis attorney Cecil Espy began forming their case. The NAACP, on behalf of Lloyd Gaines, petitioned for a writ of mandamus in the Boone County Circuit Court.

1.3 John D. Taylor, Democrat, MO House of Representatives, 39th District

However, the State of Missouri was not going to go down without a fight. In mid- January, 1939, John D. Taylor, a representative from Keytesville, MO, introduced a bill in the Missouri legislature designed to postpone integration of the University. Taylor, chairman of the House Appropriations committee, proudly called himself “an unreconstructed rebel.” Taylor’s proposal, House Bill No. 195, authorized Lincoln University to “establish whatever graduate and professional schools are necessary to the equivalent of the University of Missouri.”

1.5 Sherman D. Scruggs, 11th President of Lincoln University, 1938-1956

The LU Board of Curators ordered its president, Sherman Scruggs, to have a law school up and running and ready for Lloyd Gaines by September 1, 1939. This task seemed insurmountable; establishing a law school on an equal par with that of MU in eight months would, in the least, be miraculous.