Memorandum on Proper Identification of the LDF

    @s 
President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 
PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel 

egal efense und Jack Greenberg 
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Teesce Dolores te. 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 icity Nuwnnn 212-749-8487 

THURSDAY 
May 18, 1967 

MEMORANDUM 

Reporters Covering the LDF Convocation 1967 

Proper Identification of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 
Fund, Inc. (LDF) 

Jesse DeVore, Director of Public Information 

This memorandum is an attempt to head off a mistake frequently 
made by well-intentioned journalists. We refer to the understandable 
confusion between the two organizations, the NAACP and the NAACP Legal 
Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), These are separate, distinct, and 
individual organizations. 

The LDF was established as an independent organization by the ‘ 
NAACP in 1939. The purpose was to raise tax-free monies for litigation 
and to remove the legal fight from routine organizational confinements. 

Since 1939 the LDF has grown and now serves as the legal arm of 
the entire civil rights movement. Today our attorneys represent all of 
the major civil rights groups and any individual with a bona fide civil 
rights claim, 

Our correct designation is the "NAACP Legal Defense and Educa- 
tional Fund, Inc.," but since this is admittedly long, we shorten it to 
the "NAACP Legal Defense Fund," or to "LDF." 

WHAT HAS THE LDF DONE? 

For the past 28 years the LDF has led the long struggle to secure 
full constitutional rights for every Negro through process of law, 
Hence, the LDF has been responsible for the major breakthroughs in the 
courts, breakthroughs which have paved the way for historic advances, 
including the 1954 decision of the United States Supreme Court outlaw- 
ing segregation in public schools. 

The Director-Counsel of the LDF is Jack Greenberg, successor to 
Thurgood Marshall, now Solicitor General of the United States. He 
heads a staff of 28 full-time lawyers who work with more than 250 
cooperating attorneys stationed across the country. This staff is 
currently handling more than 420 separate cases and representing more 
than 13,000 individuals. 

TODAY THE LDF . 3: 

* represents, through 189 lawsuits in 13 states, the interests of two 
million Negro children in the South still confined to inferior, 
segregated schools--the same poor-quality education that has made 
economic outcasts of their parents. 

is suing for reinstatement of hundreds of southern Negro teachers 
arbitrarily dismissed following partial school desegregation. The 
LDF has already won reinstatement for teachers in Arkansas, North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. 

challenges discriminatory practices against Negro patients or physi- 
cians in federally financed hospitals. Negroes are often placed in 
hallways to make room for whites, relegated to antiquated facilities, 
abused by hospital personnel, 



-2- May 17, 1967 

* represents Negroes denied jobs or promotion solely because of their 
race. Defendants are companies, trade unions, and employment agen- 
cies charged with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 
1964, No attempt to enforce this law in the courts exists apart 
from suits filed by the LDF, 

* defends members of civil rights organizations and unaffiliated 
individuals who have been unfairly arrested in peaceful and consti- 
tutional protest actions against segregation and discrimination, a 
total of more than 20,000 individuals in the past five years. 

LDF INCOME 

The income of the LDF is reflective of the organization's increased 
program in recent years, That budget in 1963 was $750,000; in 1964 
$1,400,000; in 1965 it was $1,716,000; and in 1966 it was 
$2,000,000, 

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