Loudoun County’s historic courthouse, the Charles Hamilton Houston Courthouse, is located at the intersection of King and Market Streets in downtown Leesburg on the grounds of the Loudoun County Courthouse Complex. In 2023, the Board of Supervisors approved naming the courthouse for Houston, a pioneering civil rights attorney, whose work in Loudoun County was of national significance.
In 1933, when he was the dean of Howard University’s Law School and legal counsel to the NAACP, Houston led an all-Black legal team assembled by the NAACP to defend George Crawford, who was accused of murdering two white women in Middleburg. The case brought national attention to the issue of all-white juries, facilitated widespread recognition of the abilities of Black lawyers and laid important groundwork in the NAACP’s emerging campaign to use federal constitutional law to dismantle racial segregation.
Loudoun County is pursuing a National Historic Landmark designation for the historic courthouse. A decision from the National Park Service is expected by the end of 2023.