Legal Defense Fund Speeds Aid to Selma Voter Drive

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- 6124faa2-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Volume 2. Legal Defense Fund Speeds Aid to Selma Voter Drive, 1965. 6124faa2-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/59a37db5-4caf-4bd4-8ada-9288d129f989/legal-defense-fund-speeds-aid-to-selma-voter-drive. Accessed November 23, 2025.

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    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 
JUdson 6-8397 

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 

President FOR RELEASE 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers Wednesday 
Director-Cougsel February 3, 1965 

Jack Greenberg 
Associate Counsel 

Constance Baker Motley 

LEGAL DEFENSE FUND SPEEDS 
AID TO SELMA VOTER DRIVE 

NEW YORK---A long distance phone call from tension ridden Selma, 
Alabama this week, set a team of five NAACP Legal Defense Fund 
attorneys into action and gained quick release from jail for nearly 
100 Negroes. ra 

"Sheriff Clark is back at it again. He's arresting Negroes 

left and right down at the court house just as if Judge Thomas 
(Daniel H. of the Federal District Court) had never issuéd’an 
injunction." wee 

Legal Defense Fund Attorney Charles Jones listens carefully to 
the emergency call from Fund cooperating attorney, Peteg Hall. 

The time is 4 P. M. Wednesday, January 27th. 1 "5 
Legal Defense Fund attorneys, Jones and Norman Amaker meet in 

Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg's office. They must speed Up 
preparation of the contempt citation against Negro-hating Sheriff 
James Clark; amend their papers, requesting removal of Negroes 
arrested trying to registez, from state to federal court, so as to 
include those newly arrested. sy & 

The problem is that the papers have to be prepared and presenta 
to Judge Thomas in Mobile the next morning, and it 4s nearly five 
o'clock. Fa 

Even if the New York staff works overtime, as it often does, 
there are no flights to Mobile by the time they finish drafting the 
papers. Nd 

The attorneys confer with officials of Dr. Martin Luther King's 
Southern Christian Leadership Conference who stress the urgency of 
going to court the next day in order to keep the voter-registration 
drive in high gear. > 

Time is short. Attorneys Jones and Amaker decide they have to 
re-draft their paperson the plane, They need a secretary. Miss 
Clarine Ford volunteers. [There is no time for her to go home and 
pack, so she simply phoneg her family to let! them»know where she is 
going. 5 

Six-thirty. Thé NAACP Legal Defense Fund team boards a plane 
for Alabama. Sitting in the reading section, the attorneys 
alternately dictate parts of the complaint to Miss Ford. 

ALABAMA--8:05, Attorney Jones leaves his companion when the 
plane lands in Birmingham, In Birmingham, he confers with Attorney 
Peter Hall for three hours about a new testimony supporting the case 

against Sheriff Clark. 
Nine twenty-three. Attorney Amaker and Miss Ford arrive in 

Mobile where the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of 
Alabama is located, They immediately continue revising the old 

complaint---all night long! 
Cooperating attorney, Vernon Crawford and his secretary, Miss 

Juanita Franklin, join in. 
Thursday, January 28th 5:20 A.M. Attorneys Amaker, Hall and 

Jones, with Miss Ford taking notes, hold a ¢onference call to mesh 
their various assignments into one complaint, 

Seven twenty-nine A.M. Attorney Jones leaves Birmingham for 
Mobile. Wea Ee, 

Nine fifty-seven. Miss Ford and Attorney Amaker meet Attorney 
Jones at the airporte.Together, they organize the final draft of the 
"Plaintiffs Motion fom Additional Relief and Show Cause Order". 

Thirty-six hours and no sleep later, Attorney Amaker stands be- 
fore Judge Daniel H. Thomas arguing the case of Negroes seeking to 
vote in Selma, p 

He and his teammates are successful. 

-30- 
Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 So

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Legal Defense Fund Speeds Aid to Selma Voter Drive

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