Supreme Court Clears 3,000 Student Sit-In Demonstrators
Press Release
December 16, 1964

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Press Releases, Volume 2. Supreme Court Clears 3,000 Student Sit-In Demonstrators, 1964. 28209384-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/29fef9f1-d8d8-4d3c-a06d-6dc91bda776e/supreme-court-clears-3-000-student-sit-in-demonstrators. Accessed April 22, 2025.
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10 Columbus Circle New York, N.Y. 10019 JUdson 6-8397 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund PRESS RELEASE : FOR RELEASE President Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers Wednesday, Director-Counsel December 16, 1964 Jack Greenberg Associate Counsel Constance Baker Motley SUPREME COURT CLEARS 3,000 STUDENT SIT-IN DEMONSTRATORS NAACP Legal Defense Fund Ends Four Year Drive WASHINGTON---Four years of NAACP Legal Defense Fund labor came to fruition here this week when the U.S. Supreme Court wiped out charges against some 3,000 participants in peaceful sit-in demonstrations. Jack Greenberg, director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, greeted the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling, saying it vindicates "these young people whose courage awakened the conscience of the nation and led to passage of the Civil Rights Act." Mr. Greenberg announced a three-point follow-up to the ruling: * A "massive mop-up operation to clear all Chey | of all charges against them. * Plans to "call upon the Community Relations Service which was set up by the new Civil Rights Act...to use its good offices to persuade local prosecutors to drop these prosecutions and spare us the expense and labor of further litigation." * "But, when cases cannot be settled by agreement, we are ready to proceed in court....." Thurgood Marshall, former Legal Defense Fund Director-Counsel, now a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit pledged defense of “every peaceful non-violent demonstrator", when the most recent rash of sit-ins spread in 1960. "We have now kept that pledge," Mr. Greenberg asserted. "The Legal Defense Fund now represents more than 13, OCO persons arrested for various types of demonstrations against racial discrimination---sit-ins, freedom rides, peaceful parades and down the line," he added. This week's ruling grew out of the cases of Arthur Hamm and the late Rev. C. A. Ivory of Rock Hill, S.C., and Frank James Lupper and *Thomas Robinson of Little Rock, Ark. : The demonstrations, in these cases, took place in 1960, before passage of the new Civil Rights Act. $ Backed by a battery of 16 attorneys, Mr. Greenberg argued before the Supreme Court in August of this year. long This marked the Lega? Defense Fund's fifth annual appearance before the Supreme Court on the issue of sit-in demonstrations. Under direction of Mr. Marshall in 1960 and Mr, Greenberg from 1961 on, there has been one series of sit-in cases per year before the high court. saps Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487