Suit Filed to Integrate TB Hospitals in Florida
Press Release
December 22, 1964
Cite this item
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Press Releases, Volume 2. Suit Filed to Integrate TB Hospitals in Florida, 1964. 8a209384-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/2575bab1-e222-4ce4-baf4-ba2553da28b2/suit-filed-to-integrate-tb-hospitals-in-florida. Accessed November 23, 2025.
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New York, N.Y. 10019
JUdson 6-8397
NAACP
Defense and Educational F. und
PRESS RELEASE
Pe Allan Knight Chalmers
Director-Counsel
Jack Greenberg
Legal
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday,
December 22, 1964
Associate Counsel
Constance Baker Motley
SUIT FILED TO INTEGRATE
TB HOSPITALS IN FLORIDA
Legal Defense Fund Asks Statewide Action
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.---A suit seeking to end racial segregation in the
State Tuberculosis sanatoriums and hospitals was filed in Federal
Court here today by attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
It is the first suit to integrate all of the hospitals under the
jurisdiction of a state agency.
Legal Defense Fund lawyers are currently engaged in eleven
other suits to desegregate the facilities in individual hospitals
throughout the South. The action today represents the first attempt
to bring statewide equality in Florida health facilities.
Hospitals are not covered by the provisions of the 1954 Civil
Rights Act, but the Legal Defense Fund has already won several
important related cases.
These hold that public hospitals receiving governmental money
and licensed and regulated by state authorities must operate on a
desegregated basis.
In the complaint to the Federal District Court, Legal Defense
Fund lawyers point out that the tuberculosis hospitals are tax
exempt and are licensed
In addition, these
Federal funds under the
On behalf of/seven
TB hospitals, thevLegal
end of segregated Wards
In a related
Jacksonville to
by the state of Florida.
hospitals have received over $2,000,000. in
"Hill-Burton" program, they point out.
Negroes who are or have been patients at the
Defense Fund is asking the Court to order the
and treatment areas.
etion, the Legal Defense Fund filed suit in
gregate the facilities of the Suwannee County
Hospital, a publi
money.
stitution that has received considerable Federal
Hae
Earl M. Johns n of Jacksonville and Tobias Simon of Miami,
Florida cooperating ettorneys of the Legal Defense Fund, were joined
in bringing the suits by Jack Greenberg, Constance Baker Motley, and
Leroy D, Clark, all of the Legal Defense Fund's New York City head-
quarters,
"RIGHTS LAWYERS
KEEP UP TO DATE
WARRENTON, Va.---Fifty-five attorneys attended a "Civil Rights Law
Institute" here last weekend that emphasized legal follow-through of
the public accommodations and employment sections of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964.
The Institute, the third of its kind this year, was sponsored
by the NAACP Legal Refense Fund, Its participanots~-all lawyers, came
from Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana.
"This is part of the Legal Defense Fund's eontinuing program of
keeping its 120 cooperating attorneys, plus otber lawyers, up to date
in the constantly developingsfield of civil rights Yaw," said Jack
Greenberg, Director-Counsel. | ~
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Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public I Night Number 212 R 9.8487