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- Thomas Gillis Nutter (1876 – 1959) was an attorney, businessman, and politician in Charleston, West Virginia, United States. Nutter is best remembered as a pioneer African-American member of the West Virginia Legislature, gaining election in 1918 and re-election in 1920 from an overwhelmingly white district, at a time when state disenfranchisement of blacks across the South had resulted in the exclusion of most blacks from statewide politics. Nutter was active in the NAACP, serving as president for the West Virginia chapter in 1929, and in black fraternal organizations. In that role, Nutter was instrumental in bringing a suit in 1929 that ended the racial segregation of public libraries in West Virginia. In 1929 Nutter was admitted to the American Bar Association, although it officially barred African Americans. In 1948 he won a ruling from a federal court that the city of Montgomery, West Virginia's segregation of its public pool was unconstitutional; without the funds to build a second pool to provide equal access, the city closed its pool for 14 years rather than open it to blacks. "It was the first substantial victory for black Americans fighting swimming pool discrimination in the courts." The case aided the NAACP in its litigation of related pool cases in other parts of the country. (en)
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- Thomas Gillis Nutter (1876 – 1959) was an attorney, businessman, and politician in Charleston, West Virginia, United States. Nutter is best remembered as a pioneer African-American member of the West Virginia Legislature, gaining election in 1918 and re-election in 1920 from an overwhelmingly white district, at a time when state disenfranchisement of blacks across the South had resulted in the exclusion of most blacks from statewide politics. (en)
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