LDF Files Complaint Against YMCA for Barring Negroes from Membership and Receiving Complete Use of All Facilities

Press Release
September 9, 1968

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LDF Files Complaint Against YMCA for Barring Negroes from Membership and Receiving Complete Use of All Facilities preview

Cite this item

  • Press Releases, Volume 5. LDF Files Complaint Against YMCA for Barring Negroes from Membership and Receiving Complete Use of All Facilities, 1968. 91ade3ea-b892-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/0419e4cd-50b4-4410-a28b-b5e568aa029e/ldf-files-complaint-against-ymca-for-barring-negroes-from-membership-and-receiving-complete-use-of-all-facilities. Accessed November 23, 2025.

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    RELEASE - September 9, 1968 

Nine Negro citizens today asked the U.S. District Court in 

Winston-Salem to enjoin the Reeves Young Men's Christian Association, 

Mt. Airy, Surry County, from barring Negroes from membership and 

hence excluding them from dining and swimming services. 

Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 

(LDF) named Richard Vaughn, president of the organization's board of 

directors, as defendant, 

LDF lawyers argue that the YMCA's "policy, practice, custom 

and usage of refusing to allow plaintiffs and other Negroes similarly 

situated to apply, become members and otherwise receive the full and 

equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, 

advantages and accommodations on the same basis as white citizens 

constitute badges and incidents of slavery in violation of the 

Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and 

further violate the privileges and immunities secured to them by the 

Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States." 

For further information, contact attorney J. LeVonne Chambers 

in Charlotte at 375-8461. | 

Released to: AP, UPI - Charlotte, N.C.

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