NAACP Legal Defense Fund to Champion 'New Underclass' News Article from The Christian Science Monitor

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The Christian Science Monitor

November 28, L984, WednesdaY

SECTIoN: National; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 8L7 WOTdS

HEADLINE: NAACP Leqal Defense Eund to champion 'new underclass'

ByLINE: By Luix Overbea, Staff writer of The Christian Sci-ence Monitor

DATELINE: BOSTON

BODY:,,I feel that our civil-rights gains are threatened by the Reagan
administration, by high unemployment, by threats to our housing and to our
health, " says Julius Levonne Chambers.

Mr. Chambers says he committed his life to becoming a lawyer and ending
racial segregati-on and discrimination 36 years ago when he was 12 and living
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in Mount Gilead, N.C. he saYS.

Today he is the new director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educati-on Fund (LDF), the nation's largest and most successful civil rights Iaw
organization. He succeeds Jack Greenberg, who took office in 1961.

Chambers says his commitment to fighting for civil rights came as the result
of an incident during his childhood.

, ry]y father (who owned his own garage and service station) could not get a
lawyer to take his case in those daysr " he says. ' 'A white man owed him more
than g2,OOO for fixing his tractor-trailer truck, but refused to pay. That was
too much money for a black man to ask from a white man. No lawyer would
represent my f ather j-n court. ' '

Chambers and Mr. Greenberg see a "gtrowing need for LDFr" they said in a
Monitor interview.

During the transition, the two men have set key priorities for LDF - to
reassess the status of civil rights in the United States and to get firsthand
input from the public on what lay people see as key issues in civil rights
today.
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The LDF will take a long look at "the new underclassr " people deprived of
quality education, good housing, and basic health needs "because they are
iow-income residents of inner-city ghetto communities, " says Chambers.

Greenberg foresees a new LDF thrust in two areas - development of a neh,
program to iehabilitate ,'the poorest of black communitLes," and resistance to
Ltforts to cut affi-rmative action, school integration, and voting rights in
behalf of blacks and other minorities.

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Chambers and Greenberg visited Boston recently to help the New England
Connittee of LDF celebrate the 45th anni-versary of the national organization and
to explain the thrust of the fund under new leadership.

Chambers moved from Charlotte, N.C., to New York after being elected
director-counsel of LDF on June Ll-. He is the fund's third chief counsel. When
LDF was founded by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
people (NAACP) in 1939, its first director was Thurgood Marshall, now a justice
on the US Supreme Court and the first black appointed to the nation's highest
tribunal.

The new director's most pressing task wiII be to help resolve a legal dispute
between the LDF and the NAACP over the use of NAACP as part of the LDF's
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official name. The LDF has appealed a federal court order to drop NAACP from its
name within a year.

, rI have made overtures to the NAACP to resolve the conflict, " says
Chambers. ,,The problems we face today demand the time of both organizations. I'ile

can make more progress working together than we can fighting one another. LDF
sti11 works with many NAACP branches. I think we'1l have something worked out
shortly. "

Greenberg, now a law professor at the Colurnbia University Law School in New
york, fondly recalls his 35 years with LDF, 23 of them as director counsel.

He participated in many historic civil rights cases that have integrated
schools, police forces, fire departments, and other areas of American 1ife.
Under his leadership the fund established an internship prograrn which gives
experience to young lawyers. It also operates a scholarship program for 1aw
students.

He has suffered harsh criticism, too. During the l-983-84 school year, black
students at the Harvard Law School boycotted a civil rights course that he and
Chambers tauqrht in a campaign to get the school to hire more black faculty.
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,rI would do it all over agaLtt," Greenberg says as he looks back on his
career that has brought hin honors from black and white universities. "I have
always done what I cared about. hlithout a doubt this nation is a better place to
live because of LDF. "

Chamberrs selection to head the LDF "is a great moment in my life, " says
Greenberg. ,,Our first intern has become the first of our movement's 'youth
corps, to take command here. I'm proud of Ju1ius." Chambers was the first 1aw
school graduate hired as an LDF intern in 1963-64.

Chambers, who filed the lawsuit that integrated schools of Charlotte and
Mecklenberg County sees a better Charlotte today than "those dark days" when
he began to practice law there 20 years d9o, he says.

, rYes, [y law offices were burned down, and I was threaten€dr " Chambers

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