Legal Defense Fund Suit Challenges Segregated Hospital Facilities

    PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
TOCOLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEWYORK19,N.Y. «© JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS JACK GREENBERG CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY 
President General Counsel Associate Counsel 

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LEGAL DEFENSE FUND SUIT CHALLENGES 
SEGREGATED HOSPITAL FACILITIES 

February 14, 1962 

NEW YORK - NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorneys 

challenged segregated hospital facilities this week in a suit filed 

in Greensboro, N. C. 

The suit attacks, for the first time, the "separate but equal” 

provisions of the 1946 Hill-Burton Act, which provides for federal 

assistance to more than 2,000 hospitals and medical facilities 

throughout the South. 

Jack Greenberg, Defense Fund Director-Counsel, emphasized the 

importance of the suit, saying "it is by now obvious to anyone that 

separate-but-equal in federal or state law violates the U. S. Con- 

stitution. The Hill-Burton Act has such a provision, and by helping 

to perpetuate segregation in health care it continues to foster the 

disgraceful second-class treatment given Negro physicians and 

patients.” 

The suit was filed February 12, in the Federal District Court 

in Greensboro on behalf of six doctors, three dentists and two 

patients who live in the city. The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital 

and Wesley Long Community Hospital and their administrators were 

named as defendants. 

Both hospitals receive federal funds from the Hill-Burton pro- 

gram and are tax-exempt. Applications by the Negro physicians and 

dentists to the hospitals, filed in April 1960, were refused by Cone 

administrators, and not acted on by Long officials. 

Cone hospital segregates Negro patients and Long hospital does 

not admit Negroes at all. A Negro patient desiring to enter Cone 

would have to discharge his regular Negro doctor and accept treat- 

ment from a white staff doctor. 

The Defense Fund complaint charges that the Negro physicians 

"are now suffering and will continue to suffer irreparable injury 



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by the maintenance of defendants' policy, practice, custom and usage, 

including loss of earnings and deprivation of the opportunity to 

further develop the skills necessary for continued proficiency of 

their chosen professions." 

According to the complaint, Negro patients suffer "deprivation 

of the opportunity of receiving medical care in the most complete 

medical facilities available in their locality and the use of said 

facilities with the treatment of their own physicians.” 

The suit asked the court to issue an injunction declaring the 

separate-but-equal portion of the Hill-Burton Act unconstitutional, 

and to enjoin the segregation of staff members and patients at the 

two hospitals. 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorneys representing 

the plaintiffs are Conrad 0. Pearson of Durham, N. C., and Jack 

Greenberg, James M Nabrit, III and Michael Meltsner of New York 

City. 

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