Martin A. Martin

Martin A. Martin
Swearing in of Martin A. Martin as the first African-American member of the Department of Justice's Trial Bureau
Born	(1910-07-24)July 24, 1910 Pittsylvania County, Virginia, United States
Died	April 27, 1963 Richmond, Virginia
Occupation	Civil rights attorney

Martin Armstrong Martin (July 24, 1910 – April 27, 1963) was a Virginia criminal and civil rights attorney from Danville, Virginia who became the first African American trial attorney in the United States Department of Justice on May 31, 1943. He also became known for his appellate work for Odell Waller in 1942 and the Martinsville Seven in 1950-1951, and as a partner with Oliver Hill, Martin and Spottswood Robinson in a law firm which assisted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in civil rights litigation in Virginia.

Martin was born to Romey Orlando Martin and his wife Hattie Inge in Pittsylvania County, Virginia on July 24, 1910. The family included older sisters, Costello Beatrice Martin and Willie Gladys Martin, older brothers, Maceo Conrad Martin and Romey Orlando Martin, Jr., and a twin brother Andrew Inge Martin. He attended Ohio State University then Howard University Law School, where he became acquainted with fellow students and alumni Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson, who would later become his law partners.

He married twice. Maria Estelle Wright married him in 1942; they had no children when they divorced in 1947. He was survived by his second wife Ruth Martin (1910-1978).

Upon graduation in 1938 and admission to the Virginia bar, Martin established a private legal practice in Danville, Virginia. His general practice included representing the Danville Savings Bank (the state's oldest black-owned financial institution), as well as black teachers in salary equalization lawsuits. Martin also came to head the local NAACP office.

Martin first became involved in a nationally prominent case in September 1941, after the conviction of black sharecropper Odell Waller for killing a white landlord in Gretna, Virginia. Martin developed information that the grand jury and later the trial jury that convicted Waller included only white men who paid the poll tax. Thus, the jury excluded blacks and peers of the defendant. However, the local judge who convicted Waller allegedly instructed the court clerk to deny Martin access to further records, so that he could not show all Pittsylvania County juries were similarly selected.