Without a Trace: The Disappearance of Lloyd L. Gaines

I Read a Thing

Lloyd L. Gaines had already made national headlines at the age of 28 when he, with the help of the NAACP (National Association for the advancement of Colored People), triumphed in a landmark civil rights case against the University of Missouri where the Supreme Court ordered U of M's Law School to admit him despite their strict segregation policies. During the course of the multiple trials leading to the Supreme Court ruling, Lloyd attended various rallies and speaking engagements at the behest of the NAACP. He was exhausted from the constant publicity tours, speaking engagements, and lack of privacy that had become the norm in such civil rights cases and he just wanted to be, as he put it, "a plain, ordinary man whose name no one recognized". When leaving the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity house in southside Chicago that Sunday evening, March 19, 1939, he told a housekeeper that he was going out to buy stamps and would return soon. He was never seen again.

We'll explore this famous missing persons case in this episode of I Read a Thing's True Crime Tuesday. Let's dive in.

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