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.”