Mary Hamilton and "Miss Mary" Case

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In 1963, Mary Hamilton (28) was a Field Secretary for the Congress of Racial Equality in Alabama. Along with hundreds of others, she was arrested during civil rights protests in Gadsden. At a court hearing on June 25th challenging the legitimacy of those arrests, she refused to answer questions on the witness stand until she was addressed with the same courtesy accorded white witnesses.

At that time in the South, and many other parts of the nation, it was customary for judges and prosecutors to address white witnesses by last name and courtesy titles such as "Mr Jones," or "Mrs. Smith," while addressing all non-white witnesses by the first name only without honorific. When Etowah County Solicitor Rayburn addressed Mary Hamilton by her first name only, she refused to answer his questions, telling him "I will not answer a question until I am addressed correctly." When she continued to insist on receiving the same courtesy accorded white witnesses, Judge Cunningham held her in contempt and sentenced her to 5 days in jail and a $50 fine. She was taken immediately to prison without any opportunity of defending herself against the charge.

After serving the 5 days, she refused to pay the fine and was allowed out on bond to appeal the contempt conviction. The Alabama Supreme Court denied her appeal. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund appealed her case to the Supreme Court in Hamilton v. Alabama, 376 U.S. 650, which is sometimes referred to as the "Miss Mary" case. In March of 1964, the Supreme Court summarily overturned Mary Hamilton's contempt citation, ruling that all those brought to the bar of justice must be addressed equally with titles of courtesy, regardless of race or ethnicity -- a ruling that governs court procedure nation-wide to this day.

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