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People came out on Thursday, Nov. 17 to pay tribute to Oliver Hill. The civil rights attorney was honored with a portrait of his likeness at the Moton Museum in Farmville. Hill, who died in 2007, filed the lawsuit on behalf of several Farmville students that was later incorporated into Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court case that made public school segregation unconstitutional.

Overall, Hill dedicated his career to ending racial discrimination and was one of two attorneys, alongside Spottswood Robinson III, to file the Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County lawsuit in May of 1951. That case, filed on behalf of 117 Prince Edward County students seeking to integrate public schools, later became one of five cases included in the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case.

Hill’s legal career stretched nearly six decades. An Army veteran who served during World War II, he fought for equal transportation for Black school children, voting rights, desegregation of public housing, and employment protection.

Hill was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the American Bar Association’s Justice Thurgood Marshall Award and a number of NAACP recognitions, including the Spingarn Medal. He is the namesake of the Oliver W. Hill Building in Virginia’s Capitol Square, the first state-owned building named for an African American. Hill died at the age of 100 on Aug. 5, 2007.

Elaine Bankston painted the portrait. The artist has painted over 1,000 commissioned portraits, including a commission by the University of Richmond and one for Gov. McAuliffe. 

Pictured here are Renee Hill, Moton Museum Director Cameron, Patterson, artist Elaine Bankston, and Maurice Hopkins, President of the Oliver Hill Foundation, all gathered at the portrait unveiling.