Heningburg Statement at Boston Press Conference - 12 White Attorneys Agree to Take Civil Rights Cases in Fla.

    Statement of Gustav Heningburg 
Assistant to the President 
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND 
EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. 
Harvard Club 
Boston, Mass. 
April 20, 1964 
5:30 PM 

Twelve southern white attorneys have made civil rights history 

by agreeing to represent Florida Negroes in civil rights suits, 

They will work under the auspices of the NAACP Legal Defense and 

Educational Fund, Inc. 

This is the first time that a group of southern white attorneys 

have stepped forward to join hands with their Negro colleagues. It 

is also a bold step toward easing the crucial shortage of civil 

rights attorneys in the south. 

Four of the white attorneys, all of whom are working through 

the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, have already started to work: 

*Jerome Bornstein of Orlando has joined with Negro counsel in a 

a suit to desegregate Orange County (Orlando) public schools. 

*Howard Dixon of Miami has joined Negro counsel in a suit to 

desegregate all the state public parks in Florida. 

*Bernard Mandler and Irwin Block, both of St. Augustine, have 

joined in the defense of four Negroes charged with killing a 

member of the Ku Klux Klan. 

The entire committee is under supervision of Earl M, Johnson, 

chief Florida counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. 

Mr. Johnson, a graduate of Howard Law School, represented more 

than 200 persons during recent racial demonstrations in Jacksonville, 

Fla. He also represented 200 demonstrators in St. Augustine in 

addition to numerous other Florida civil rights actions. 

Mr. Johnson will supervise the Fund's entire Florida operation, 

along with Legal Defense Fund Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg of the 

New York headquarters. Mr, Johnson will be advised at all times of 

Florida Legal Defense Fund activities through a summary listing of 

cases; he will assign lawyers and serve as chief liaison with the 

various civil rights groups represented by Legal Defense Fund 

attorneys. 

This is the type of project that the Greater Boston Committee 

of the Legal Defense Fund will be supporting. 



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Statement of Gustav Heningburg -2- April 20, 1964 

The culmination of Charles Morgan, Jr.'s struggle in his native 

Birmingham, Ala. came the day after four Negro Sunday-school children 

were killed in the bombing of a Birmingham church. 

Charles Morgan, saddened an angry, spoke before the Young Men's 

Business Club and said, "A mad, remorseful, worried community asks 

"Who did it? Who threw the bomb? Was it a Negro or a White?! 

"The answer should be, 'We all did it. Every last one of us is 

condemned for that crime and the bombing before it and the ones last 

month, last year, a decade ago, We all did it...Those four little 

Negro girls were human beings. They had lived their fourteen years 

in a leaderless city; a city where no one accepts responsibility, 

where everybody wants to blame somebody else." 

His speech was reported in the press throughout the country. 

Mr. Morgan's ordeal and philosophy has been put down in an 

exciting book: "A Time to Speak" to be published by Harper & Row 

this Wednesday, April 22, 1964.