Thurmond Clarke

Thurmond Clarke (June 29, 1902 – February 28, 1971) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California and the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Education and career Born in Santa Paula, California, Clarke graduated from Los Angeles High School and received a Bachelor of Laws from the USC Gould School of Law in 1927. He was a deputy district attorney of Los Angeles County, California from 1927 to 1929, and then a deputy city attorney of the City of Los Angeles from 1929 to 1932. He was a Judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court from 1932 to 1935, appointed by Governor James Rolph and was elevated to the Superior Court of Los Angeles County by Governor Frank Merriam, serving in that position from 1935 to 1955. In December 1945, Judge Clarke dismissed the suit of eight white property owners who tried to force fifty African-American occupants (250 residents) from an area known as West Adams in Los Angeles. Plaintiffs contended that the defendants had violated property restrictions against blacks. The defendants, who included actress Hattie McDaniel and singer Ethel Waters, replied that the original subdivision restrictions had expired and that more than half of the area was then owned by black people. Clark decided that no testimony would be taken in the case, and he wrote that "it is time that members of the Negro race are accorded, without reservations and evasions, the full rights guaranteed to them" under the Federal Constitution.