Greenberg Statement on Mississippi School Board and HEW Integration Plans
Press Release
November 6, 1969
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Press Releases, Volume 6. Greenberg Statement on Mississippi School Board and HEW Integration Plans, 1969. 6e39d1d8-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/3319e2fd-d890-4a4b-a1e4-d66f2065b5d2/greenberg-statement-on-mississippi-school-board-and-hew-integration-plans. Accessed December 04, 2025.
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Statement by Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel,
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
November 6, 1969
Our lawyers are meeting today with counsel for the Mississippi
school boards, the U.S. Department of Justice and experts of the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare in conference with
Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Our proposed order to the Court states that (1) the Court should
order immediate desegregation; (2) the plans previously prepared
by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare for each of
these districts should go into effect within 8 days or less; and
(3) in the case of three school districts for which HEW plans
proposed desegregation in 1970-71, we ask that HEW revise those
plans within 5 days to provide for immediate implementation,
and in no event implementation taking longer than 8 days from
submission of the plans.
The period 6f 8 days was selected because these plans originally
were designed for implementation within 8 days following the issuance
of a court order. The period of time is, therefore, not selected
arbitrarily but is based on the intrinsic nature of the plans
themselves.
Most of the Mississippi school boards involved have already
submitted their own proposed plans to the Court of Appeals as
proposed substitutes for the HEW plans. The school boards' proposals
have no uniformity and are all peculiarto the counties involved.
But the point is that they have been submitted and generally contain
mid-school year deadlines.
The Department of Justice proposed order is slower by far than
what the Mississippi school boards themselves have done. The
Department of Justice has proposed no time limit on when the school
boards should present plans; even though those boards have, for
the most part, acted rapidly. The Department of Justice has proposed
no time limitations on the issuance of an order or for the completion
of desegregation, whereas the Mississippi school boards, generally,
have done that.
We continue to maintain the position which we advanced before
Supreme Court of the United States and which it ordered on October
The time for litigation has passed and the time for integration is