Correspondence from Hair to Ifill, Karlan, and Guinier; Memo from Hair to Birnhak
Working File
August 29, 1989

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Press Releases, Volume 5. LDF Asks Supreme Court to Put Teeth in Its '54 School Ruling; Christian v. Board of Education of Strong School District, Arkansas (Telegram), 1968. 72d0587c-b892-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/59cb9a06-bfbe-42ea-b834-cc9f2abec1fb/ldf-asks-supreme-court-to-put-teeth-in-its-54-school-ruling-christian-v-board-of-education-of-strong-school-district-arkansas-telegram. Accessed August 19, 2025.
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Sa ) o ~ President Hon. Francis E. Rivers PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel egal Eeause ond Jack Greenberg Director, Public Relations NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 iciT Nomen 712-749-0487 FOR RELEASE FRIDAY FEBRUARY 16, 1968 LDF ASKS SUPREME COURT TO PUT TEETH IN ITS *54 SCHOOL RULING Three Cases Seek Halt to Southern Dilatory Tactics WASHINGTON---The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) today filed briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court in three school inte- gration cases. The cases--which the court has already agreed to review--present a critical test of the extent and meaning of that court's 1954 Brown decision. The litigation comes from Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas and deals with issues prevalent across the South, namely, "freedom of choice," gerrymandering of school zones, and "open transfer" plans. These cases present a common pattern in that 80-85% of the Negro stu- dents in the respective communities are still attending all-Negro seg- regated schools just as they were before the Brown decision. The school boards in each of these cases assert that the school system is completely desegregated because all of the Negro students theoreti- cally have a right to attend previously white schools. Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia: *New Kent County is a rural area of Virginia near Richmond which has just two schools, one of which was traditionally for whites and the other for Negroes. It is operating under a "freedom of choice" desegregation plan under which all of the white students in the system continue to attend the traditionally white school and 85% of the Negro stu- dents continue to attend the traditionally and still all-Negro school. Raney v. Gould School District, Arkansas: *Gould, Arkansas, is a small rural community southeast of Little Rock. (Same situation as in Green.) Monroe v. Board of Commissioners of Jackson, Tennessee: *Jackson, Tennessee, is a small city in midwest Tennessee with 13 schools, 8 of which were traditionally white and 5 were Negro. It is operating under a desegregation plan based upon residential zones which the LDF says have been gerrymandered to perpetuate segregation. Again, all of the white students in the system continue to attend the traditionally white schools and 80% of the Negro students continue to attend the traditionally and still all-Negro schools. These cases thus present, in effect, to the Supreme Court the issue of whether "tokenism" in school integration is sufficient to comply with Brown. -30- FBS DOMESTIC SERVICE ‘Check the class oth jesired; {bay LETTER Secee|; WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM otherwise the message will ee cE wrmanee TRIER GRAM =mcae a CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD 4 AT ULN Renmureaies rs PRESIDENT [Wo wos-cr or sve | ro orca | casn no CHARGE TO THE ACCOUNT OF T N Legal Defense & 1.Fund 10 lumbus Circle, ‘Send the following message, subject to the terms on back hereof, which are hereby agreed to Nyc _ 10019 Febuary 15, FOR THE FIRST TIME $100,000 IN DAMA STRONG, ARKANSAS 1968 A COMPLAINT ASKING 3 S OF ELEVEN STUDENTS IN IGROES ALS ONSOLIDATION INTO ONE Is AN _V. BOARD OF EDUCATION FILED IN THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT IRTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE 2 i EYS JOHN WALKER AND NORMAN CHACHKIN AT Jesse DeVore Director of Public Information NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 Inc. Mr. Thomas J. Dygard ASSOCIATED PRESS P.O. Box 789 Little Rock, Ark. 72203 Bureau Chief UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Gazette Bldg., Rm. 30 Little Rock, Ark. Mr. Ernest Dunas N.Y. TIMES Correspondent ARK, GAZETTE 112 W. Third Ave. Little Rock, Ark. 72203 News Desk