The Harlem Renaissance involved Harlem, a cultural center for black people that pursued talents in the arts, literature, photography, music, poetry and education. People could go there and express themselves without any racial conflicts. Many famous artists received recognition at Harlem. The Crisis magazine published the works of talents held at the Harlem center. This period of free, spontaneous self expression for people of all races encouraged the promotion of racial pride, political and civil rights for many African Americans.

Due to the discovery of oil in 1921, the city of Tulsa was economically thriving with many businesses and schools. Though, the development of the Ku Klux Klan was growing during that time. The tulsa riot took place because of an alleged article in a white newspaper claiming that a black youth tried to assault/rape a young white girl. Word spread throughout the black community that people of the white community were coming to lynch the youth. Eventually, this escalated into a huge riot where thousands of black people were arrested and the black side of Tulsa was burned to the ground.

Charles Hamilton Houston, a Harvard Law school graduate, joined NAACP and decided to challenge legal issues against Jim Crow. He decided to address issues in court mainly about the civil rights of education. With the idea that states should have to build new schools for black people, equivalent to those of white peoples' or admit them into white schools, Houston looked for cases to represent his cause. Lloyd Gaines was a qualified college graduate who was discriminated for being black and was not accepted into the University of Missouri. The Supreme Court agreed the injustice.