Establishment of LDF Office in San Francisco
Press Release
October 17, 1968
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Press Releases, Volume 5. Establishment of LDF Office in San Francisco, 1968. 5d851110-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/07fce9d6-5122-4306-a389-5202d0516a15/establishment-of-ldf-office-in-san-francisco. Accessed December 04, 2025.
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4 : President
4 Hon. Francis E. Rivers
‘ i i BAA) FE PRESS RELEASE Dire Coe
' egal ‘efense und Jack Creenters
Director, Public Relations
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr.
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 » JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487
Remarks of Jack Greenberg, director-counsel,
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.,
Press Club, San Francisco, October 17, 1968
We have established the new LDF office here in San Francisco in
response to the increasing need for expert legal services for Negroes
and the poor across the urban North and the West.
This is part of our national effort to increase the legal attack
on .the problems of the inner cities. More than a million Negroes have
left the South during the past decade. This year alone, another
100,000 or more will arrive “up North" in the cities.
Specific areas of legal focus here in San Francisco will be
police brutality and other police practices, employment discrimination,
housing bias, among other criminal law problems.
We will continue in our national effort to abolish capital
punishment since this penalty falls in disproportionate numbers on the
black and the poor. One of our most important cases is, of course, in
California where we have obtained stays of execution for all the men
on Death Row.
We are starting here with a small office and staff. However, if
past experience holds, this operation should grow as our attorneys
join others in litigation of importance to the minority communities.
We will continue also to work closely, as in the past, with the
San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, which, as you
may have noticed, is located in the same building.
The LDF, as you may know, has a New York staff of 25 attorneys
who work closely with 250 cooperating lawyers across the nation.
Our lawyers led in pioneering civil rights litigation, including
the Supreme Court's 1954 school integration decision, which laid the
foundation for the vigorous civil rights activity of the past decade.
Our principal early cases were in the South where we still carry
a substantial caseload. However, we now are making a greater effort
in northern cities where our program has several emphases:
* racial distinction must be abolished in public life
* that the poor should enjoy the same legal rights as those with
money
Sy. ie (more)
Statement by Jack Greenberg -2- October 17, 1968
* and that state and local governments should not make arbitrary
distinctions in providing welfare, housing and other public
services.
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NOTE: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is a
separate and distinct organization from the NAACP. Its correct desig-
nation is NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., which is
shortened to LDF.