High Court Responds Immediately to Key Case

    Ag 46 
President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 
PRESS RELEASE Dérector-Goknset 

egal efense und Jack Greenberg 
Director, Public Relations 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 FOR RELEASE NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

SATURDAY 
JANUARY 13, 1968 

SUPREME COURT HAS HALTED 
CONSTRUCTION OF FEDERAL 
NASHVILLE, TENN. HIGHWAY 

High Court Responds Immediately to Key Case 

WASHINGTON---A justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, in an unusual move, 
issued an injunction this week immediately halting construction on a 
portion of Interstate-40, slated to pass through the heart of Nash- 
ville's Negro community. 

Associate Justice Potter Stewart's action, in response to a petition 
filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), 
halts highway construction pending a review of briefs, from both 
sides, by the full court. 

This is the first time federal highway construction has been halted 
on charges of racial discrimination. 

Justice Stewart acted on the same day LDF attorneys filed their peti- 
tion. He gave Tennessee officials until January 26 to oppose the 
LDF's petition to review the decision of a lower court which denied 
the injunction sought. 

Interstate-40, if allowed to follow its present course, "would bring 
destruction and irreparable damage to Negro-owned businesses, 
colleges, universities, schools, churches and residential areas" in 
Nashville, the lawyers assert. 

The LDF is acting in behalf of the Nashville I-40 Steering Committee, 
a group of Negro and white citizens formed to protect the North Nash- 
ville section of the city. 

Their complaint names Governor Buford Ellington, Highways Commissioner 
Charles W. Spright, and Nashville Mayor Beverly Briley. 

LDF attorneys said in their brief that “there are 234 Negro-owned 
businesses in North Nashville, or more than 80 per cent of the Negro- 
owned and operated businesses in the entire county. 

"These businesses have capital assets of about $4,680,000.00 and an 
annual gross volume of business averaging $11,700,000.00. 

"The undisputed evidence," the LDF continued, "was that virtually all 
these Negro businesses will either be destroyed or seriously damaged 
by the proposed route...." 

“Relocation,” the Court was advised, "will be impossible for many of 
the businesses because there is little other commercially zoned 
property in Negro area and racial discrimination will bar them from 
white areas." 

Three Negro institutions of higher learning, Fisk University, Meharry 
Medical College, and Tennessee A&I State University, will also be 
damaged by the highway plans, the lawyers said. 

The interstate route will separate Tennessee A&I State University 
on the northwest from Fisk and Meharry on the northeast. 

Tennessee A&I will be isolated in a narrow strip between I-40 and the 
Cumberland River. 

Fisk and Meharry would be isolated between I-40 and the industrial and 
downtown sector to the south, 

(more) 



Major arterial routes planned in connection with the interstate 
highway will further damage the institutions by separating Fisk and 
Meharry and channeling heavy traffic through their campus areas, the 
brief added. 

The highway, the brief went on, will limit the effectiveness of a new 
neighborhood health center planned by Meharry Medical College in that 
it would be cut off from the population it is slated to serve. 

In contrast, the lawyers observed, the effects of the highway program 

on white institutions was carefully appraised. 

In short, the LDF told the Court that: 

* the Federal Highway Act requires that state highway departments 
consider adverse economic effects on local communities as a 
determining factor in plotting highway routes. Tennessee, they 
maintain, did not; 

* no adequate public hearing was held to discuss construction 
plans prior to their approval and implementation; 

* the highway was discriminatorily routed through the Negro 
district, denying due process and equal protection of the law 
as required under the 14th Amendment. 

LDF attorney Avon Williams is the local counsel. He is joined by LDF 
Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III, Charles H. Jones, 
Jr., and Michael Davidson, all of New York City, and Charles L. Black, 
Jr., of New Haven. 

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NOTE: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (IDF) is a 
separate and distinct organization from the NAACP, serving as the 
legal arm of the entire civil rights mcvement and representing members 
of all groups as well as unaffiliated individuals. 

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