Racial Segregation Unlawful Costly Immoral - Marshall

    - PRESS RELEASE @ @ 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
107 WEST 43 STREET *© NEW YORK 36, N. Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

ARTHUR B. SPINGARN THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President Director and Counsel 

WALTER WHITE ROBERT L. CARTER 
Secretary Assistant Counsel 

ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD DE MILLE 
Treasurer Press Relations 

FP DIATH RVL"ASE: June 6, 195 

RACIAL S*GRTGATION UNLAWFUL 
COSTLY IMMORAL - MARSHALL 

IOWA - "Compulsory racial segregation is now 

not only unlawful and immoral, it is downright un-American," 

Thurgood Marshall, Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense 

and “ducational Fund, Inc., told the graduating class at Grinnell 

College today, “it is costly and damaging to the nation's prestige". 

In order to eliminate the so-called " race problem" in 

this country Marshall said "Americans must recognize and grant 

every other American the right to stand on his own individual mer- 

it without regard to race, creed, color or racial origin." 

Marshall, who led the fight against segregation in public 

schools which resulted in the recent Supreme Court decisions, de- 

livered the commencement address at Grinnell. He received a 

Doctor of Laws degree and became the first Negro to receive an 

honorary degree from this institution. 

The Legal Defense Chief told the young graduates that 

some graduating this season will return to communities already in 

the process of desepregation and others to communities where a 

program of integration will have to be developed. They, therefore, 

should look to the future with this definite understanding! 

“hile the courts and the legislatures can do much to set 

the pattern for the elimination of racs and caste from American 

life", Marshall added, "the major task lies with the individual 

citizen who must bring these official government actions into 

everyday practice." 

In order to do this, it is necessary above all that we 

(more) 



have intelligent leadership on the community level, Marshall said. 

"College graduates today more than ever have a definite responsi- 

bility in taking over the active leadership in their respective 

communities towards the removing of race and caste from American 

life." 

Those who doubt this and those who are afraid of com= 

plete integration in the early future are victims of biased reports 

that Negroes can legally be set aside from the rest of the com- 

munity, Marshall explained. 

The nation's leading civil rights lawyer pointed out 

that one of the most impressive signs of desegregation may be seen 

in the field of education. "leven years ago, as far as known, he 

said, no Negroes were attending southern white institutions of 

higher learning. Today the doors of previously all white graduate 

schools in every southern state except Mississippi, Alabama, 

Georgia, Florida and South Carolina are open to them. 

It is estimated that around 2,000 Negroes are now 

attending southern white colleges, Marshall added. Negroes are 

now attending the graduate or professional schools of 23 southern 

white state-supported institutions. Attending the graduate levels 

of 10 southern white state and municipal schools and are attending 

42 southern white private schools. Marshall also added that white 

private institutions of higher learning have admitted Negro stu- 

dents in 8 southern states. In one school there are now 251 Negro 

students and 5 Negro teachers. He pointed out too that several 

southern Negro colleges have admitted white students and there 

are now over 100 Negro professors and instructors teaching in pre- 

dominantly white schools. 

In elementary and secondary schools outside the south, 

successful desegregation has been effected in 59 separate communi- 

ties in states such as Arizona, California, Delaware, Illinois, 

Kansas, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Mexico, New York, Ohio and 

Pennsylvania. Researchers, he said, suspect that there are many 

other instances of desegregation. 

Marshall said that young people graduating from colleges 

(-2- more) 



7 @ a 

throughout the land this season are entering a new period which 

should "culminate in a society where each individual will have an 

opportunity to work out his own destiny in a clear and wholesome 

atmosphere unfettered by irrational considerations of class and 

caste". He urged the graduates to look forward. 

"In doing so you must remember that the Supreme Court 

has declared: 

‘that in the field of public education the doctrine 

of separate but equal has no place. Separate edu- 

cational facilities are inherently unequal'". 

"This now’ Marshall declared "is the law of the land". 

June 7, 195 
UNITED STATTS SUPRFM™ COURT 

WILL HTAR RE™VTS' CASE 

WASHINGTON, D. C. - The United States Supreme Court to- 

day agreed to review the case of Jeremiah Reeves, Jr., a 17 year 

old Montgomery youth found guilty of rape by an all white Alabama 

jury and sentenced to die in the electric chair. 

The petition asking the High Court to review Reeves! case 

was filed on March 12, 195) by attorneys for NAACP Legal %efense and 

Fducational Fund on the ground that the youth had been denied his 

constitutional rights. 

Reeves was arrested and charged with the crime on Novem- 

ber 10, 1952 on the complaint of a white woman who claimed she had 

been raped by an unknown assailant some four months before. 

The youth was taken to the state penitentiary at Kilby, 

Alabama and held there for 3 days without being allowed to see 

his relatives or consult with anyone. He was subjected to con- 

stant questioning in a room with an electric chair and told that 

unless he confessed to the crime, he would be electrocuted. 

He was taken to the county jail in Montgomery on November 

12 and placed in a room where the woman identified him. ‘Two days 

later he was indicted despite his plea of not guilty. 

At the trial which began November 26 the judge ordered 

( -3- more) 



the court cleared with the exception of witnesses and court 

~\sermetals. A motion by Reeves! attorney for a public trial was 

denied. 

A motion attacking the method of selection of the jury 

was also denied. The jury commissioners selected jurors from 

among their personal acquaintances and clubs which they knew, and 

they knew very few Negroes and Negro-clubs.. As a result, although 

3.6% of the population of Montgomery County was Negro, a maximum 

of 6.5% of any jury was ever Negro, and often no Negroes appeared 

on juries. 

In addition there was testimony about a confession which 

Reeves allegedly made, and he was denied the opportunity to prove 

to the judge or the jury that the confession was coerced by third 

degree tactics employed on him in the electric chair room. 

Near the end of the trial it was learned that a member 

of the jury was the Chief of the Montgomery Reserve Police Force 

whose express purpose is to track down "alleged Negro rapists" 

had been active in the case. Reeves attorney's request for a 

mistrial on this ground was denied by the judge. 

NAACP Legal Defense lawyers will file briefs with the 

Supreme Court by August 25. It is expected that the case will be 

argued in the fall term of the-High Court. 

‘ Legal efense attorneys for Reeves are Thurgood Marshall, 

Robert L. Carter and Jack Greenberg all of New York. Assisting 

are David *. Pinsky and “lwood H. Chisolm of New York and Peter A. 

Hall of Birmingham, Alabama. 

dune 7, 195 

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA = 82 Negro families whose homes and 

apartments are .to-be demolished to.make way for a federally aided 

medical center filed suit today asking the United States District 

Court to order the Birmingham City Housing Authority to stop its 

( <= more) 



discrimination against Negroes in relocating displaced families. 

It also asked the Court to order the City of Birmingham 

to open all of its public housing projects to Negroes. 

The suit was filed by attorneys for the NAACP Legal 

Defense and "ducational Fund, Inc., on behalf of 16 tenants and 

36 home owners. It is the first suit filed alleging racial dis- 

crimination by a city in its operations under the federal slum 

clearance and urban redevelopment program. 

The 82 families are a part of 523 Negroes and 92 whites 

who must be relocated in order to make way for a new veteran's 

hospital, childrens hospital, park and other hospital facilities 

to be erected adjacent to the University of Alabama Medical School. 

The project is a part of Birmingham's overall redevelop= 

ment plan designed to take advantage of a new federal program which 

aids local communities in the clearance of large slum areas. The 

Division of Slum Clearance and Urban Redevelopment of the Housing 

and Home Finance Agency in Vashington, D. C. has approved the 

project and has allocated $,058,000 as a loan. 

The original plan called for erection of a hospital and 

housing facilities on the site but as a result of complaints filed 

by the NAACP, the plan was revised to exclude the housing units. 

Also as a result of NAACP protest the federal agency issued a 

directive which states that "the land involved in the project be 

re-used in such manner as will benefit all segments of community 

and that there be no discrimination against any group because of 

race, creed or color", 

While the hospital is being built under the Hill-Burton 

Act which provides that there be no discrimination with respect to 

the use of facilities, there is no provision which states that 

there should be no separate facilities for Negroes. 

The site to be cleared is a run-down residential area of 

approximately 58% city blocks. Among the 615 families to be re- 

located, 515 are eligible for low-rent public housing. 87 of 

this number are Negroes. 

The law calls for the relocation of the families by the 

(-5- more) 



“7 C i. 

city housing authorities. The city authorities indicate that they 

would relocate the Negro families, but since two-thirds of the 

existing public housing units are closed to Negroes because of 

race, relocation into city units will be impossible. The NAACP 

petition therefore asks that all city units be opened to Negro 

tenants. 

It is also the duty of the City of Birmingham to re- 

locate the home owners who will be forced to sell in order that 

the site be cleared. The homes, however, which the city has been 

showing the Negro families cost much more than they will get from 

the sale of their present homes, making it impossible for them to 

buy the homes the city is offering them. 

In the suit filed today, NAACP Legal Defense attorneys 

asked the Court for an injunction enjoining the housing authority 

of the Birmingham District from enforcing its segregation policy 

in public housing, enjoining the housing authority from evicting 

both tenants and property owners until such time as they can find, 

or the city authority can offer, suitable accommodations which are 

decent, safe and sanitary and at prices or rents which the dis- 

placed families can afford. 

The attorneys for the Negro families are Thurgood Mar- 

shall, NAACP Legal Defense Director-Counsel and Constance Baker 

Motley, Assistant Counsel, both of New York and NAACP attorney 

Peter A. Hall of Birmingham, 

=30=