Samuel Wilbert Tucker (June 18, 1913 – October 19, 1990) was an American lawyer and a cooperating attorney with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

[2][3] A partner in the Richmond, Virginia, firm of Hill, Tucker and Marsh (formerly Hill, Martin and Robinson), Tucker argued and won several civil rights cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, including Green v. County School Board of New Kent County which, according to The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights In America, "did more to advance school integration than any other Supreme Court decision since Brown.

[4] After two years with the Civilian Conservation Corps, Tucker and his friend George Wilson (a retired army sergeant) began in earnest dismantling segregation in Alexandria, first at the public library opened just 2 blocks from his home in August 1937, but which refused to issue cards to black residents.

[9] Tucker was admitted to the state bar in 1934, ironically in the same courtroom where a jury had acquitted him of the trolley car incident which occurred in 1927, and began practicing in Alexandria.

Also, while the District of Columbia had built an integrated public library decades earlier with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie (and which Tucker had often visited, as he did a Black subscription library also in the District), the City of Alexandria had long ago refused similar funds, though Andrew Carnegie had lived and worked in Alexandria during the American Civil War, before making his fortune.

Tucker defended the men in the ensuing legal actions, which resulted in the disorderly conduct charges against the protestors being dropped by city attorney Armistead Boothe (who would later become a key figure in desegregating Virginia schools), and in a branch library being established for blacks.

[14][15][16] Other African-American newspapers covered the legal action, reporting such developments as Tucker's cross-examination of the police, bringing forth an admission that had the men been white they would not have been arrested under similar circumstances.

[18] The photograph of the sit-in participants in jackets and ties calmly but resolutely being escorted from the library by uniformed police has itself become a learning aid in Alexandria.

As World War II ended, the Virginia State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had W. Lester Banks[21] as executive secretary, Dr. Jesse M. Tinsley of Richmond and later E. B. Henderson of Falls Church as president, and Oliver W. Hill, Martin A. Martin and Spottswood Robinson as attorneys (the latter as liaison to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund).

The white legal establishment in Greensville County often did not appreciate Tucker's criminal defense tactics, which attacked not only the evidence against his poor black clients, but racial imbalance in the system itself.

For example, Tucker defended Jodie Bailey who, after drinking, stabbed the popular white proprietor of an automobile repair business during a charge dispute, and the man died.

That collection of bills also contained seven relating to NAACP activities, and expanded the definitions of the common law legal ethics offenses of barratry, champerty and maintenance.

[26] The case was repeatedly dismissed without prejudice (allowing prosecutors to re-file), particularly after Commonwealth's attorney Harold Townsend asserted that Tucker had no right to confront or even identify his accusers because this was a bar proceeding.

The case went to the Supreme Court of the United States, which heard statistical arguments from Tucker that the plan was no more than segregation by another name, 14 years after Brown.

He also appeared a year later in Washington, D.C., before the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose the nomination to the Supreme Court of Judge Clement Haynesworth, who had often upheld school segregation.

Though Tucker knew he would never win more than 30% of the vote against the powerful incumbent, he believed the battles important to register the protests as well as aspirations of black voters in the district.

[40][41] In 1998, Emporia, Virginia, dedicated a monument in Tucker's honor, with an inscription calling him "an effective, unrelenting advocate for freedom, equality and human dignity – principles he loved – things that matter.

The institute seeks to reach future lawyers, in particular minority candidates, at an early age to provide them with exposure and opportunity to explore the legal profession they might not otherwise receive.