Ask Supreme Court to Apply Civil Rights Act to Sit-Ins

    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 

JUdson 6-8397 

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 

oe, Allan Knight Chalmers 

Direet 
i Grecuberg 

taiuee Baker Motley FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
: August 25, 1964 

ASK SUPREME COURT TO APPLY 
CIVIL RIGHTS ACT TO SIT-INS 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund Seeks Ruling on Three Year Issue 

Washington, D.C.--The U.S. Supreme Court was asked to enforce the 
new Civil Rights Act today and overturn two 1960 "sit-in" convic- 
tions. 

The cases, growing out of demonstrations against lunch counter 
discrimination in South Carolina and Arkansas, were filed by Jack 
Greenberg, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 

As yet, the high court has not rendered a decisive ruling on 
the issue of sit-in demonstrations as a tactic to encourage racial 
integration. 

In addition, the Legal Defense Fund attorneys argue that the 
U.S. Constitution, even without the Civil Rights Act, prohibits 
individual states from convicting peaceful sit-in demonstrators when 
they seek service at places of public accommodation which bar Negroes. 

This argument, has been made by the Legal Defense Fund 
in previous sit-in cases before the high court. In June of this 
year, three justices took each side of the issue, and three others 
expressed no view. 

Fund attorneys also maintain that the Negro petitioners in 
these two cases, have been subjected to official state action which 
sought to enforce segregation. 

This, they say, is contrary to the equal protection clause of 
the 14th Amendment. 

In addition, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund asserts that the laws 
of South Carolina and Arkansas, which the Negro demonstrators are 
alleged to have violated, do not forbid such demonstrations. 

The main thrust of these cases turns on Title II of the Civil 
Rights Act; the public accommodations section. 

Section 201 of Title II states that "all persons shall be en- 
titled to full and equal enjoyment of goods, services, facilities, 
privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public 
accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or 
segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national ; 
origin." 

Mr. Greenberg said, "the 'offense' with which the Negro peti- 
tioners are charged is now removed, by the paramount federal author- 
ity, from the category of punishable crimes. 

"The Civil Rights Act, besides being paramount national law, is 
part of the law of every state. . . ." Mr. Greenberg said. 

Mr. Greenberg was assisted by a battery of 17 attorneys from 
six states. 

(more) 
Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 es 



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Ask Supreme Court to Apply -2- August 25, 1964 
Civil Rights Act to Sit-Ins 

Both cases, that of Arthur Hamm and the late Rev. C.A, Ivory of 
Rock Hill, S.C.; and that of Frank James Lupper and Thomas Robinson 
of Little Rock, Ark,, were pending when the Civil Rights Act was 
signed on July 2nd. 

Rev. Ivory, a widely respected community leader and an invalid, 
was seated in his wheel chair when denied service at the lunch 
counter of his local McCrory's variety store. 

Specifying their position in the state action portion of their 
argument, the Legal Defense Fund attorneys point out that South 
Carolina and Arkansas, “as a matter of well known history, have lent 
state power to support the custom of segregation. 

"Both states," for example, they say, "still retain on their 
statute-books extensive Jim Crow codes." 

Thus, the lawyers emphasize that the Negroes are being denied 
equal protection of law. rt i £ 

Re z 

The attorneys also stressed the vagueness of the South Carolina 
and Arkansas laws and proceedings under which the petitioners were 
convicted. Pe 

They sighted the case of Rev. Ivory and Mr. Hamm, in which they 
argue that the demonstrators were denied due process of law by: 

*the inappropriateness of the language of statutes used é convict 
in light of evidence presented, t 

*the refusal of the prosecutor to specify the law under which they 
(Rev. Ivory and Mr, Hamm) were charged, 

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*the refusal of the trial judge to specify the law under Ween they 
were charged, * 

*the consequent vagueness of the law set forth in the instructions 
to the jury, ; 

*the difference between the law charged the jury and the law used 
as the basis for the appellate court's sustaining of the lower 
court's conviction, 

Joining Mr. Greenberg were Constance Baker Motley and James M. 
Nabrit, III, of the Fund's New York City headquarters; Ohanles L. 
Black, Jr., of New Haven, Conn.; Matthew J. Perry and Lincoln C. 
Jenkins, of Columbia, $.C.; Donald James Sampson and Willie T.¥#Smith, 
Jxe., of Greenville, $.C.; Harold B. Anderson, of Little Rock,* Ark.; 
and Wiley A. Branton, of Pine Bluff, Ark. 

Additional counsel are Anthony G. Amsterdam and William T. 
Coleman, Jr., of Philadelphia, Pa.; and Marvin E. Frankel, Micheel 
Meltsner, Frank Heffron, Leroy D. Clark and George B. Smith, of 

“New York City. 

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