Yvonne D. Stark - Wilson

Yvonne Wilson is a woman of achievement, accomplishment, and ambition. It all started when she enrolled in Lincoln University; the only public institution for higher education in Missouri that admitted African Americans. She later went on to become a teacher, principal and systems director in the Kansas City School District. Mrs. Wilson was involved in many civic/social activities including the Metropolitan Community Colleges and the Bruce Watkins Cultural Heritage Center. She had many accomplishments including her positions as the President of Lincoln University Board of Curators and the first African American President of the Missouri Association of Elementary School Principals. Finally, one of her top accomplishments was being appointed to the Missouri House of Representatives.

Josephine Silone Yates

Josephine Silone Yates was very active at Lincoln University during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was one of Lincoln University’s best known teachers during this time and was the first woman elected to a professorship with the university. Yates served Lincoln University as the Head of the Department of Natural Science from 1879- 1889 and Head of the Department of English and History from 1902- 1910. Josephine Silone Yates was also very active outside of Lincoln University being elected the first president of the Kansas City Women’s League, which was a women’s club that she helped organize in 1893. She also contributed under the pseudonym R.K. Porter to the Boston Herald and the Los Angeles Herald. Yates was involved with and contributed greatly to the National Association of Colored Women’s Club serving as Vice President from 1887- 1889, Treasurer from 1889- 1900, and President from 1901- 1906.

1.2 News Article About US Supreme Court Justices Rule in Favor of Lloyd Gaines by 6 to 2 Vote in The Call Newspaper

Following the decision, northern newspapers hailed it as “the Supreme Court speaking out in defense of the quality of human rights.” The Kansas City Call, one of the leading black newspapers in Missouri, declared, “If keeping the races separate is so important to Missourians that coeducation is unthinkable then let them count the cost!” The NAACP’s long-term plan for casting financial burden upon the Jim Crow states was now a reality.

2.1 Lloyd Gaines close up image

Charles Hamilton Houston and other NAACP attorneys assembled in early October 1939 to take depositions in preparation for the hearing scheduled a week later in Columbia to determine whether the university had complied with the Gaines decision. Attorneys took depositions from all of the instructors of the new LU law school as their preparation for the court proceedings wound down. The deposition of Lloyd Gaines was next. Attorneys planned to ask Gaines whether he considered Lincoln to be as good of a law school as Missouri and whether he planned to enroll. Called for questioning, Gaines did not respond. He could not be located anywhere. Lloyd’s mother, Callie Gaines, recalled that in January her son “left here to go to Kansas City to make a speech. That’s the last I saw of him.” While in Kansas City, Gaines spoke at the Centennial Methodist Church. He also looked for work, but not finding any caught a train for Chicago, telling people in Kansas City that he would stay a few days and return home.