Affidavits

    - PRESS RELEASE® e 

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

ARTHUR B. SPINGARN oS THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President Director ond Counsel 

WALTER WHITE ROBERT L. CARTER 
Secretary Assistant Counsel 

ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD De MILLE 
Treasurer Pross Relations 

NEGRO TEACHERS WILL BE 
PROTECTED--MARSHALL May 20, 1955 

NEW YORK, May 17.--The NAACP will give Negro teachers who might 

face the possibility of retaliation in the process of segregation to 

desegregation every lawful protection that can possibly be worked 

out to fight for their rights in the courts, legislatures and the 

school boards, Thurgood Marshall, director-counsel of the NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said here tonight. 

It might be that some Negro teachers will become unemployed as 

a result of the "stinking" practice of penalizing Negro teachers for 

desegregation pursuant to law, he said. "We must guarantee to every 

Negro teacher that we will fight to the bitter end with every lawful 

weapon on hand to protect him from being the victim of this dying 

stab at continuing the un-American practice of racial segregation." 

Mr. Marshall spoke at a dinner at the Plaza Hotel given in 

celebration of the first anniversary of the May 17, 195 Supreme 

Court decision outlawing segregation in public education. It was 

sponsored by a group of outstanding Americans with Dr, Ralph J. 

Bunche, UN under-secretary and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and 

Dr. Buell G, Gallagher, president of the City College of New York, 

as co-chairmen, 

The NAACP Legal Defense chief counsel told the audience that 

many local communities as far South as Charleston and Fayetteville, 

Arkansas have desegregated their public schools, Tens, if not 

hundreds of thousands of American children are enjoying democracy 

for the first time. 

However, he said, millions more are still being denied the 

opportunity to enjoy the benefit of the now law of the land and 

continue to be victims of the "virus of racial hatred." 

"If these children are to be rescued it will not be as a result 

of a miracle or wishful thinking," Marshall said. "It will come 

about only as the result of careful, intelligent planning, the use 



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of all scientific and legal know-how, Above all, we must have the 

coordination and use of all available resources in every community." 

Marshall advised the gathering that one of the crudest boot- 

strap arguments advanced by the Southern politicians is: "Because 

we have denied the Negro full equality by enforced segregation we 

cannot now allow him to escape segregation because he is not equal!" 

"This is much like the story of the man who, when on trial for 

the murder of his father and mother, pleaded for mercy because he 

was an orphan," he asserted. 

Special tribute was paid to Mr. Marshall and his legal staff 

for leadership in the battle against segregation and discrimination 

in American life. The dinner was attended by 525 persons. 

Adlai HE. Stevenson, former governor of Illinois and 1952 

Democratic presidential candidate, made a brief appearance on his 

way home froma l-week tour of Africa, He lauded the NAACP Legal 

Defense lawyers for their continued and successful campaigns against 

the un-American practices of which Negroes are victims. 

Principal speaker was N, Y, Attorney General Jacob K, Javits 

who became a last-minute substitute for Harold E, Stassen, He said 

the courts have done their part in vindicating the Constitution as 

to equality of opportunity for all Americans regardless of race, 

ereed, color or national origin. 

"It is the legislatures, national and state, in which the prin- 

cipal effort needs now be made," Javits explained, "The twin objec- 

tives of the foes of discrimination and segregation in the country 

need now to be equality of opportunity in employment and equality of 

opportunity in housing." 

Dr. Channing H, Tobias, chairman of the NAACP Board, told the 

dinner patrons that there is no law that gives to any citizen in a 

democracy the right to pass judgment on what is good and what is not 

good for any other citizen. 

"The only criterion of judgment is what is right and what is 

not right according to the law of the land," he said. 

Roy Wilkins, newly elected executive secretary of the NAACP, 

gave a report of the propress of desegregation across the country. 

He paid particular tribute to the parents and children in the 

school segregation cases. 



Mr, Marshall called upon those who believe in Americanism 

based upon a government of law to "reaffirm our determination to 

eradicate race, caste and religion as determining factors from 

American life." 

"There must be no compromise of principal," he concluded, 

"We cannot settle for less than our Constitution guarantees." 

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TUREAUD-LOUISIANA $ 
SEGREGATION CASE BACK 

) UNIVERSITY 
FEDERAL COURT May 20, 1955 

NEW ORLEA NS, May 19.--The Louisiana State University segrega- 

tion case reached the federal courts again today for the seventh 

time as attorneys for NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund seek 

an affirmance of an order whereby young Alexander P, Tureaud of New 

Orleans would be readmitted to the University Agricultural and 

Mechanical College without further delay. 

In a brief filed in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth 

Circuit here today in behalf of young Tureaud, his lawyers ask the 

court to uphold a second order of the federal district court admit- 

ting the youth to the undergraduate college, 

The case was f st taken to the U. S. District Court for the 

Eastern District of Louisiana at New Orleans on August 27, 1953 

which issued, on September 11, an order restraining the president 

and Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and A. & M. 

College from refusing to admit Tureaud to college. Tureaud was 

admitted to the college on September 15, 1953. The University 

appealed. 

The injunction order was vacated by the United States Court of 

Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on the ground that the case should 

have been heard before a three-judge district court, and remanded 

the case to the district court for this purpose. 

NAACP attorneys who had argued that a three-judge court was 

unnecessary, applied immediately to the U. S, Supreme Court for a 

stay of the Circuit Court's ruling pending review by the high court. 

However, before the Supreme Court could stay the Circuit Court 

action, attorneys for the University officials secured a disolution 

of the injunction against them by the district court based on the 

Circuit Court's mandate. 



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Pursuant to this Tureaud was promptly expelled from the college 

on November 11, 1953. On November 16, 1953 the U. S. Supreme Court 

issued an order staying the circuit court's action pending review by 

it. 

On May 2, 19:4 the high court vacated the circuit court's orcer 

and remanded the case to the latter: court for reconsideration in the 

light of the School Segregation Cases, The circuit court then 

remanded the case to the district court for reconsideration in the 

lirht of the historic. decision of May 17, 1954. This resulted in 

the second injunction order. 

From this second injunction order, the University officials 

againappealed to the Fit’th Circuit where argument on the case will be 

heard today. An application for a stay of the district courts 

second injunction order pending appeal to the circuit court was 

denied by it on April 18, 165, but an early hearing date was set. 

In seeking to have Tureaud's readmission sustained, NAACP Legal 

Defense attorneys argue that the Circuit Court erred in reversing 

the first order since the district court's order was 'tlearly under 

the applicable constitutional standards." 

"In view of the school segregation cases, a single judge clearly 

has authority to enjoin the exclusion of a Negro from a state uni- 

versity solely because of his race and color," the lawyers say. 

They point out that the U. S. Supreme Court in a sweeping and 

clear-cut opinion held that "in the field of public education the 

doctrine of separate but equal has no place, Separate educational 

facilities are inherently unequal." 

There is no lonser any doubt that a state policy maintaining 

racially segregated public educational facilities is contrary to the 

constitutional mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment, they contend. 

In the lipht of these decisions (segregated school cases) no 

state policy, which sees to maintain as a part of the state's pub- 

lic educational system segregated schools for Negro and white stu- 

dents, meets with the requirements of the federal constitution. 

The issue in this case--Tureaud'!s right not to be excluded from 

the Louisiana State University on the basis of his race--no longer 



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presents a substantial federal questi.on 

onvening of a three-judge court, the 

The brief was filed in behalf of young 

A. P. Tureaud, Sr., U. S. Tate of Jallas, a 

New Yor: 

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