The Loudoun County Courthouse served as the location of the 1933-1934 Commonwealth of Virginia v. Crawford case, an important civil rights trial that marked a turning point in the history of both African American lawyers and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) civil rights jurisprudence. In the case of George Crawford, accused of murdering two White women in Virginia, the NAACP for the first time entrusted an all-Black legal team with conducting the high-profile criminal defense of a Black man in a southern courtroom. Crawford’s defense became an important civil rights effort for the NAACP at a time when the gross injustices done to African American citizens within the nation’s legal systems garnered increasing publicity. Black men like Crawford faced considerable risk of being falsely accused of violent crimes and either lynched outright by White supremacists or denied constitutional due process in so-called “legal lynchings”—sham trials rushed to convictions with poor legal representation, an intimidating mob atmosphere, and all-White juries. Crawford’s defense centered on the unconstitutional exclusion of Black men from juries in the South. The unique circumstances leading to Crawford’s Virginia trial attracted national publicity and made the trial one of the earliest, most high-profile demonstrations of Black lawyers’ abilities in the Jim Crow era. The defense lawyers’ highly regarded performance directly undermined White supremacist assumptions about Black inferiority and showcased Black legal expertise and professionalism at a national level. Crawford helped establish an important NAACP pattern of using test cases to shape public opinion and stimulate grassroots efforts. Crawford played a significant role in the NAACP’s emerging campaign to use constitutional law and test cases to dismantle the legal premise of racial segregation embedded in the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).  The exterior and grounds of the Loudoun County Courthouse, built in 1894 and a centerpiece of the Leesburg Historic District, has changed little since 1933-1934. Despite interior alterations in 1956, the Crawford courtroom remains easily recognizable as the 1930s courtroom.