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- Morella, a mother to nine children (three of her own and six of her late sister who died from cancer) and an English professor at Montgomery College (1970-1986), began her political career in 1972 as a founding member of the Montgomery County Commission for Women and served as its President (1973-1974).
msa.maryland.gov › msa › educBiographies - Constance A. Morella - Maryland State Archives
Connie Morella served in the Maryland House of Delegates and the United States House of Representatives for a combined total of almost twenty-five years. She was truly a representative for her constituents, and always considered their best interests when she voted “yea” or “nay.”
- Separate and Unequal
- New Schools, Old Problems
- Fighting Back
- A Direct Attack
- "May It Please The Court"
- Black and White at The Court
- Dodging Brown
- Children of Brown
- In Virginia, Victory at Last
- Brown's Legacy
Blacks and whites were educated in separate school systems that resembled each other in form but little else. In 1947, nearly 45 percent of classes in black grade schools in the District had 40 or more children, compared with 1 percent of the classes in white schools. The year before the Brown decision, the District spent $240 per white student and...
Under pressure from legal challenges, DC and its suburbs began moving in the late 1940s to improve black schools. To ease overcrowding, the District converted 21 under-capacity white schools to use for blacks, often touching off white protests. Montgomery County built four elementary schools for blacks as well as Carver High School, which now serve...
In the mid-1930s, a dashing young NAACP lawyer named Thurgood Marshall barnstormed through Maryland and Virginia suing school systems for equal pay for black teachers. Marshall, whose mother was a Baltimore teacher struggling to pay her bills, earned his first victory in Montgomery County, where officials agreed to equalize salary schedules that pa...
Lawyer Charles Houston was hospitalized in the fall of 1949 with severe heart problems. From his bed before he died, he told Gardner Bishop to ask his friend James Nabrit Jr., a professor at Howard law school, to take over the legal work for Consolidated Parent. The son of a Georgia pastor, Nabrit as a boy witnessed the lynching and burning of a bl...
The Supreme Court heard ten hours of oral argument on the five Brown cases in December 1952, and another ten hours a year later. The courtroom stars were Thurgood Marshall, the handsome, folksy NAACP leader, and the opposing counsel, 79-year-old John W. Davis, the 1924 Democratic presidential nominee and a veteran of 250 Supreme Court cases. James ...
After the court's 1954 ruling, Chief Justice Earl Warren moved to integrate the corps of pages at the Supreme Court. He asked the Capitol Page School, which was run by the DC school system, to enroll its first black student. Charles V. Bush, 64, a financial consultant and former business executive, broke the color line at the Capitol Page School an...
Outside DC and Montgomery County, officials did little to meet the Brown mandate. Prince George's County adopted a "freedom of choice" plan that allowed blacks to petition to go to white schools, but officials granted few transfers. It did not desegregate its last black schools until 1970; two years later a federal judge ordered Prince George's to ...
Integration was painful for many blacks. Outside DC, they often were enrolled in white schools a few at a time, the smartest and most mature students handpicked to test the waters and reassure whites. These children faced an often-hostile culture largely alone. The isolation was made worse by the fact that school systems, worried that social mixing...
Four years after Brown, desegregation arrived in Virginia. The courts finally had struck down the legal maneuvers of Harry Byrd's "massive resistance," and on February 2, 1959, four black children took their seats alongside whites at Arlington's Stratford Junior High (now H.B. Woodlawn). The event made front pages around the world. Squads of police...
With the Brown decision, Earl Warren meant to secure educational equality for black Americans. By that measure, it has not succeeded. Minorities lag far behind whites in academic achievement. The gap has plagued the District for decades and has emerged as the top concern of inner suburbs like Fairfax and Montgomery counties. DC classrooms are today...
Constance A. Morella, an educator and political leader has always led the way on issues of concern to women, especially in the areas of domestic violence, sexual harassment, reproductive freedom, and health.
Mar 28, 2024 · At 93, Connie Morella can look back at her lasting and unique legacy in Montgomery County politics. Before starting her career in politics, Morella was a teacher in Montgomery County.
Feb 11, 2021 · Montgomery County’s Connie Morella turns 90 years old on February 12th. Morella was well known for being a beloved Republican elected in a heavily Democratic district, often winning reelection with over 70% of the vote.
Oct 12, 2015 · “People Have Lost Their Trust in Congress” —Connie Morella Morella, 84, is a former US representative who served Maryland’s 8th Congressional District from 1987 to 2003. She was elected eight times despite being a Republican—a moderate one—in a district that...
Connie Morella served as U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris from 2003-2007. She is the first U.S. Ambassador to the OECD ever to have served in the U.S. Congress.
