It Costs Money to Make Integration Work

    PRESS RELEASE® i e 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
107 WEST 43 STREET * NEW YORK 36, N. Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

oe THURGOOD MARSHALL 
nelly ae Sarg Director and Counsel 

ROBERT L. CARTER shag fetter! Ceo 
ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD De MILLE 
Treasurer Press Relations 

FOR RELEASE: APRIL 13, 1955 

NOTE TO EDITOR: This is the second in a series of weekly articles 
written by outstanding leaders in the fields of 
education, religion, labor, business and the pro- 
fessions in support of the NAACP Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund special fund-raising campaign now 
being conducted in cooperation with National News- 
paper Publishers Association member newspapers, 

IT COSTS MONEY TO MAKE INTEGRATION WORK 

By Will Maslow 

(Mr, Maslow, Director of the Commission on Law and 
Social Action, is also General Counsel of the American 
Jewish Congre; for several years has been teaching 
courses on race relations and anti-Semitism at the 
New School for Social Research and has written many 
articles for professional journals on civil rights, 
He is chairman of the Commission on Civil Rights of 
the National Association of Intergroup Relations 
Officials, former Director of Field Operations for 
the war-time President's Committee on Fair Employment 
Practice, has been trial attorney and trial examiner 
for the National Labor Relations Board and an asso- 
ciate counsel for the New York City Department of 
Investigations.) 

There are many weys to attack Jim Crow, and most of them have 

been tried at one time or another, They have one thing in common-- 

they require time and money. Now, we do not spend time or give 

money without some assurance that we will get results, If we look 

to results, we find soon enough that the NAACP Legal Defense and 

Educational Fund is a sound investment. 

The Fund operates on an assumption that is now generally 

accepted by civil rights groups: We can use the law to break 

down discrimination and prejudice; we can use it to get and keep 

equal rights and privileges, Less and less do we urge, plead or 

beg. We believe we have certain rights as Americans and we assert 

them wherever we can, 

One result of this emphasis on law has been the eampaign for 

civil rights legislation, While that campaign has not made any 

gains in the United States Conpréssy marly useful laws’ have been 

passed in a number of states, 



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Another part of the job is to get public officials to end 

Jim Crow in government operations. 

That campaign has seen a number of victories, the most 

important being the end of segregation in the armed forces. The 

chief objective still ahead is discrimination in the federal 

housing program. 

But this is all a matter of getting new laws and regulations. 

It is much better and really more important to make full use of 

the laws we already have, The most important of these is the 

United States Constitution, which among other things, requires all 

states to give their citizens "equal protection of the laws." For 

more than 50 years, that great guarantee has been nullified by the 

"separate but equal" doctrine. 

The chief job of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund 

has been to get the courts to enforce the constitutional guarantees 

of equality, A simple, basic thought underlies its work: the 

Constitution guarantees certain rights to all citizens here and 

now and we want to enjoy those rights here and now, 

The NAACP Lawyers have been at work a long time, Their long 

fight is beginning to pay off, More than 10 years ago they won 

a great victory that has made it possible for millions of Negroes 

to vote in the South, Last May, they won their biggest victory so 

far when the Supreme Court condemned segregation in the public 

schools, 

These and other victories have had concrete results, Millions 

of southern Negroes have taken advantage of the 19) ruling, even 

though die-hard resistance still keeps other millions from the 

polls. Several thousand Negroes are attending colleges and univer- 

sities in the South from which they were previously excluded, 

Segregation in public housing has been ended in many northern and 

western cities, though it has not been touched in the South. 

Finally, the public school decision has already brought 

desegregation moves in Baltimore, Washington, St. Louis and other 

border areas, 

However, there is still a lot of work ahead, First, no one 

expects the Jim Crow schools of the deep South to be abandoned 



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overnight just because of one Supreme Court decision, The poli- 

ticians who control the governments of the southern states have 

made elaborate plans to nullify, evade or impede the Supreme Court 

ruling. It will take hundreds, even thousands of lawsuits to make 

that ruling a reality in every school district in the land. 

Second, even after official segregation in the public schools 

is ended, we will still have segregated schools, playgrounds, 

movies and churches because of discrimination in housing, In the 

North even more than the South, the ghetto walls maintained by 

"gentlemen's agreements" and other oppressive real estate practices 

threaten to rob us of the fruits of all other civil rights vic- 

tories, The attack on this evil has been begun, For example, 

Legal Defense has brought suit to halt discrimination in the mon- 

ster Levittown development in Pennsylvania, 

No one doubts that the job of making the Supreme Court deci- 

sion work -- in schools, in housing and in all other aspects of 

our daily life -- can be done. Whether it will be done, and how 

soon, depends upon how much support the NAACP Legal Defense and its 

allies get to carry the heavy load, 

Won't you send whatever you can--and send it today--to NAACP 

Legal Defense, 107 West 3rd Street, New York 36, N. Y. 

305