Motion to Intervene as Appellees Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Intervene
Public Court Documents
March 4, 1998

26 pages
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Press Releases, Loose Pages. Memorandum, 1963. e6184467-bd92-ee11-be37-6045bddb811f. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/bc8d4710-c035-407c-aa3f-d71061ddcc7f/memorandum. Accessed August 19, 2025.
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PRESS RELEASE NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 1OCOLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS JACK GREENBERG CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY President Director-Counsel Associate Counsel October 9, 1963, MEMORANDUM. TO: NEWS EDITORS AND WRITERS FROM: Jesse DeVore, Director of Public Information New York: Days JUdson 6-8397 Evenings - RI 9-8487 Washington, D.C. -(October 14 and 15) Statler-Hylton Hotel, Phone: (Area Code 202) EXecutive 3-1000, SUBJECT: Supreme Court begins New Term with five sit-in cases, during which attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund will present argument, which, if successful, will vindicate thousands of sit-in demonstrators and cast a new light on the issue of public aeccemmodations, BACKGROUND _ Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund will argue three sit-in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court beginning this Monday morning October 14; they are of counsel in a fourth case; and are working cooperatively with lawyers in a fifth. All five will be heard successively with six and a half hours of argument expected to conclude Tuesday, according to Jack Green- berg, director-counsel of the Fund, The cases involve Negro student demonstrators who protested against discriminatory public accommodations in South Carolina and Maryland (two cases from each) and Florida. Although presented in a single brief, the three NAACP Legal Defense Fund cases will be argued by three noted civil rights attorneys: Charles F, Rarr, et al, v. City of Columbia, South Carolina, will be argued by Matthew J. Perry of Columbia; Simon Bouie and Talmadge J. Neal v, City of Columbia, South Carolina, will be argued by Constance Baker Motley, associate-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund; and, Robert Mack Bell, et al., v. Maryland, will be argued by Mr. Greenberg. aes - _(See biographical notes attached) This is the third year that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a separate corporation from the NAACP, has defended sit-in demon- strators before the High Court, The Fund, which serves as the legal arm of the entire civil rights movement, is currently defending 7,500 persons involved in 124 separate civil rights actions involving all the major civil rights groups, more, Sit-in cases before Supreme Court NEWS ANGLE There are three unique factors in this collective brief, which was prepared by a battery of 18 lawyers: (1) The pin pointing of state responsibility in the maze of arguments on private property rights, etc, (2) Assistance of four noted legal scholars in preparing the brief, including Richard R. Powell, leading authority on property, (3) Citing of the laws of 14 other nations, But, perhaps the point of hardest news will be the argument which urges that southern states should take affirmative steps to protect Negroes seeking equality in public accommodations, The brief points out the improbability of punishment for sit-in type conduct in any of the Western European democracies or in England or any of the British Commonwealth nations. Legal Defense Fund attorneys further point out that the states have affirmative responsibility to protect equal rights of citizens and argue that the southern states have not met this responsibility when they allow lunch counter segregation. The brief also urges that while constitutional prohibitions against racial discrimination must be applied to the public life of the community they need not govern the private and personal lives of citizens, Three patterns, by which southern states (South Cazolina and Maryland in this instance) deny Negroes equal justice, are summarized in the brief filed Tuesday, August 27, 1963, * State courts and public officials “are employed to enforce a scheme of racial discrimination originating in a nominally ‘private’ choice," * "Where a nominally "private' act or scheme of racial dis- crimination is performed,..because of the influence of custom, and where such custom has been in turn, in significant part, created or maintained by formal law.” * Where laws are maintained that place "a higher value on a narrow property claim" than on the claim of Negroes "to move about free from inconvenience and humiliation of racial discrimination," The Legal Defense Fund is urging that sourthern states have im- properly decided to back store owners who cite local custom and state laws calling for jim crow treatment of Negroes. The attorneys said "maintaining a 'narrow' property right, which consists of nothing but the exclusion of Negroes" should not be allowed "to justify a state in knowing support of public dis- crimination," The brief further stated that "it is scandalous that states impose the burdens of state citizenship on Negroes, and benefiting from the imposition on them of the duties of federal citizenship, not only should fail to protect them in their right to be treated equally in fully public places, but should instead place the weight of law behind their humiliation," It was stressed in the brief that "the records in these cases affirmatively establish that no private or personal associational interest is at stake," more. Sit-in cases before Supreme Court "This is obvious on the face of it: the relation involved is that of a restaurant-keeper to a casual customer," The attorneys continued saying that "the events and the issues in these cases are in the fully public rather than in private life, "A restaurant is a public place, contrasting totally with the home and other traditional citadels of privacy," Moving to the charge that the sit-ins students provoked breach of the peace, the brief said "there was no showing of any act of violence and there was no showing of any act ‘likely to produce violence," The Legal Defense Fund lawyers took exception to the theory that the "possibility that the mere presence of Negroes in a place customarily frequented only by white persons is punishable as a threat to peace," They quickly added that such could not be so, due to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Joining the NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys in prepara- tion of the brief were four internationally noted legal scholars: Professor-Emeritus Richard R, Powell, Columbia University Law School, and author of the widely acclaimed and used treatise "Real Property", He was also reporter on property for the American Law Institute's "Restatement of Property", Long recognized as a leading expert in this legal speciality, Dr. Powell now teaches at Hasting College of Law, San Francisco, California. Also assisting on the brief was Professor Hans Smit of Columbia University, a Member of the Bar, Supreme Court of the Netherlands; Professor Charles L. Black, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale University; and Louis L. Pollak, Professor of Law, Yale University. NAACP Legal Defense lawyers on the brief included Jack Greenberg, Constance Baker Motley, James M. Nabrit, III, Derrick A, Bell, Leroy D, Clark, Michael Meltsner and Inez V. Smith, all of New York, Also Juanita Jackson Mitchell, and Tucker R. Dearing, Maryland; Joseph L, Rauh and John Silard, Washington, D.C.; William T. Coleman, Jr,, Pennsylvania; Matthew J, Perry and Lincoln C, Jenkins, South Carolina, = 80's