Mississippi School Order Prompts Mixed Reactions from 'Rights Attorneys

    a 10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 

: JUdson 6-8397 

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 

July 11, 1964 nt 
Allan Knight Chalmers 

vel 

Greenberg 
ssotiate Coun 
Constance Baker Motley 

MISSISSIPPI SCHOOL ORDER 
PROMPTS MIXED REACTIONS 
FROM ‘RIGHTS ATTORNEYS 

Hit Segregationist Views of Court 

JACKSON, MISS,--The NAACP Legal Defense Fund this week aired 

Mixed feelings about the Federal District Court order calling 

for grade-a-year school desegregation in three Mississipni com- 

munities. 

Among the 63 children involved in the suits are Darrell 

Kenyatta and Reene Denise Evers, children of slain NAACP Field 

Secretary Medgar Evers. 

The Fund, through Assistant Counsel Derrick Bell, who handled 

the suits in Jackson, Leake County and Biloxi, issued the following 

statement in reaction to the decision of Judge Sidney R. Mize: 

"We are gratified that a Federal District Court in Mississippi 

has entered a final injunction requiring a plan to begin public 

school desegregation in the state this fall. 

"However, we of the Legal Defense Fund are disappointed that 

the court, whose order offered so great a potential for peaceful 

acceptance of school desegregation, expressed at such length its 

disagreement with the Supreme Court's decision of 1954. 

"We are also disappointed at the court's agreement with seg- 

regationist testimony that Negroes are inferior to whites and 

both races fare better in separate schools," Mr. Bell said. 

"This position was entirely discredited by the Supreme Court 

in the Brown case, and has been rejected recently by the Court of 

Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which reviewed similar testimony 

in cases from Birmingham, Ala. and Savannah, Ga., brought by 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys. 

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Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 



NAACP Legal Defense Fund -2- July 11, 1964 

"In the Savannah case, the Court of Appeals noted 

that the real fallacy of 'the classification theory' is 

that many Negro pupils are superior to many white pupils 

in achievement and aptitude. 

"The court noted that the constitution does not pro- 

hibit assigning individual students to particular schools 

on the basis of intelligence, achievement or other apti- 

tude under a uniformly administered program in which race 

is not a factor. 

"But the court added that no educational process is 

constitutional where 'the-individual Negro student is not 

to be treated as an individual and allowed to proceed along 

with other individuals on the basis of ability alone with- 

out regard to race.'" 

Attorney Bell further noted that additional legal 

action may be necessary if the Mississippi school boards 

propose unacceptable plans. 

RULING BANS ALL-WHITE JURY; 
FREES GEORGIA 'RIGHTS WORKER 

Legal Defense Fund Hails Crucial Victory 

ATLANTA, GA,--Jack Greenberg, NAACP Legal Defense Fund 

director-counsel, this week hailed a Georgia Court of 

Appeals ruling that reversed the assault conviction of 

white civil rights worker Ralph Allen. 

The court said systematic exclusion of Negroes from 

juries violates the rights of Negro and white defendants. 

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NAACP Legal Defense Fund -3- July 11, 1964 

"If other courts adopt the reasoning of this opinion," 

Mr. Greenberg said, "white civil rights workers will have 

greater protection against discriminatory arrests and 

judicial proceedings. Numerous other Legal Defense Fund 

cases involving white rights workers--currently being tried 

or appealed--will also be favorably affected. 

"Furthermore, should southern white attorneys begin 

to raise the issue of discriminatory jury selection on 

behalf of their white clients, the entire practice of ex- 

cluding Negroes from this important aspect of citizenship 

May soon come to an end," Mr. Greenberg concluded. 

Mr, Allen's arrest and conviction were on a charge 

of assault with intent to murder. A field secretary of the 

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Mr. Allen was 

engaged in a voter-registration project in Americus, Ga. 

He was arrested during a night demonstration for allegedly 

throwing a bottle at a policeman. He denied the charge. 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys had earlier secured 

the release of Mr. Allen and four other rights workers 

who had been held for over two months without bail in an 

Americus jail. Three of them faced possible death sen- 

tences on a charge of "insurrection." 

Persistent Legal Defense Fund action, including an 

appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, led to their release 

and dismissal of the insurrection charge last October. 

But Mr, Allen was convicted on the assault charge in 

December and sentenced to two years imprisonment. 

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NAACP Legal Defense Fund -4- July 11, ‘964 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND 
SUES N.CAKOLINA HOSPITAL 

High Point Hospital Not Directly Covered by ‘Rights Act 

GREENSBORO, N.C.--Segregation at High Point Memorial Hospital 

was attacked by NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys in U.S. 

District Court here this week. 

The recently passed civil rights act does not directly 

prohibit hospital bias. 

Donald Lindsay, who suffers from arthritis and Mrs. 

Bessie L, Haltom, who has a heart condition, seek treatment 

at High Point Memorial, Both are protesting the discimina- 

tory practices of that institution. 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys say both patients, each 

a resident of High Point, "would be segregated solely he- 

cause of race and would be assigned a bed on a floor in the 

west wing of the hospital which is reserved for Negro pa- 

tients only." 

High Point Memorial is the only hospital in High 

Point, N.C. 

In addition, High Point residents B. Elton Cox, 

Thomas Fuller and Charles S, Addision would seek comprehen- 

sive physical examinations at High Point Memorial but have 

not done so because of discimination, the attorneys say. 

The Legal Defense Fund complaint points out that 

High Point Memorial maintains "a number of policies and 

practices of racial segregation and discrimination," These 

include: 

*Segregated delivery rooms for white and Negro 

patients; 

*Segregated newborn nursery facilities; 

*Segregated room and ward facilities. (All Negro 

patients, with the exception of pediatric patients, 

are placed on one floor in the west wing, 

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NAACP Legal Defense Fund -5- July 11, 1964 

*Segregated eating facilities are maintained for 

Negro nurses and other Negro personnel. 

The complaint also states that igh Point Memorial 

has received approximately $1,099,019 from the United States 

in recent years for various expansions, under provisions 

of the Hill-Burton act. 

The U.S. Supreme Court swept away legal foundations 

for jim crow practices in 2,000 hospitals and medical facil- 

ities in eleven southern states last March. 

North Carolina was one of the states covered, 

The Hill-Burton act was passed by Congress in 1946 

so that federal funds could be used by states for building 

medical facilities and hospitals. 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys handling the case 

include Robert R. Bond, Wilminton; Conrad 0, Pearson, 

Durham; J. LeVonne Chambers, Charlotte; and Jack Greenberg 

and Michael Meltsner of New York City. 

NATION'S FIRST LEGAL 
INTERN "GRADUATES" 

Enters Law Profession in South 

NEW YORK, N.Y.--After a year of wide ranging study and prac- 

tice of constitutional law, Julius LeVonne Chambers, one of 

the nation's first legal interns, left New York City this 

week to enter the second phase of his career. 

Mr, Chambers has opened an office in North Carolina 

and will continue to participate in civil rights cases. 

A native of Mt. Gilead, N.C., Mr. Chambers studied 

and practiced law for one year at the New York City head- 

quarters of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. 

He was the first Negro law school graduate to parti- 

cipate in such an educational program, which is comparable 

to that of the medical profession. 

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NAACP Legal Defense Fund -6- July 1:, *964 

The Fund's legal internship program was established 

last year through a grant from the Field Foundation. It 

seeks to combat the crucial shortace of civil rights lawyers 

in the south. 

Young Cham during his year in New York City 

worked under supervision of Legal Defense Fund attorneys and 

assisted in research, preparation of briefs and, in some 

cases, litigation. 

Jack Greenverg, director-counsel of the Legal Defense 

Fund, warmly praised Mr. Chambers' work as a legal intern 

and predicted an advance in the legal representation of 

Negroes as Mr. Chambers and other legal intezns begin to 

practice in the south, 

Mr. Chambers attended North Carolina College in Durhaa 

where he served as president of the student body. Mr. 

Chambers also wom honors in history end social studies and 

went on to become a member of the collegiate Who's Who, 

In addition, he holds the following honors: Graduate, 

Summa Cum Laude, North Carolina Collece; LLB, high honors, 

University of North Carolina School of Law; Woodrow Wilson 

Fellow, University of Michigan; John Hay Whitney Fellow, 

University of North Carolina, 

He came to national attention when he became the 

first of his race to become Editor-in-Chief of the North 

Carolina Law Review and to graduate first in his law class. 

= While attending the University of North Carolina, he 

was elected to the Rererey legal fraternity, the ce..ous- 

wide honorary society and several other student honor groups. 

Mr. Chambers, 28, who is married to the former 

“Vivian Verdell Giles of Kannascolis, N.C., has also completed 

work on his Master of Laws degree at Columbia University, 

- New York City, where he served as a law instructor. 

pace ae