LDF to Focus on Problems of the Inner City in '68

    Hon, Francis E. Rivers 

PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel 
egal efense und Jack Greenberg 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC Dicetior, Public Relitions 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6.8397 Jesse DeVore Jr: NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 
FOR IMMEDIATE 
RELEASE’ 

Remarks of Jack Greenberg, director-counsel 
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) 
Prepared for Delivery to members of the Chicago Committee 
of the Legal Defense Fund and the Chicago Committee of the 
National Negro Business and Professional Committee in Support 
of the Legal Defense Fund, at the Arts Club of Chicago, 
7 pom. Friday, January 26, 1968 

LDF TO FOCUS ON PROBLEMS 
OF THE INNER CITY IN ‘68 

During 1968 the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 

(LDF)'s staff of 25 full-time lawyers working with 250 cooperating 

counsel will expand their legal energies in an increased attack on 

problems of the Inner City. 

This program, which is well underway, is focusing on some of 

the northern urban centers. 

This program has two basic premises: 

* that the poor should enjoy the same legal rights as anyone 

else. 

* and that the state and local governments should not make 

arbitrary distinctions in providing welfare, housing and 

other public services. 

Much of this national activity has been made possible by a one 

million dollar grant from the Ford Foundation-~~largest in civil 

rights history---to the LDF for establishment of the National Offic: 

for the Rights of the Indigent (NORI). 

The LDF has brought actions in the courts and before adminis- 

trative agencies dealing with rights to counsel and to bail, pro- 

tection from arbitrary evictions and from capricious or discrimi- 

natory application of welfare regulations, and other fundamental 

guarantees, 

These issues are legally undeveloped. 

As with civil rights in the 1930's, when the LDF was founded, 

precedent must be made upon sound legal foundation. 

This increases the importance of planning and nationwide 

coordination of the efforts of the private attorneys, Legal Aid 

Societies, law schools, and government-sponsored neighborhood law 

offices. 

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This effort was formally launched here in Chicago in November 

of 1966 when the LDF gathered 200 of the best legal minds in the 

nation at the University of Chicago Law School. 

As a result of that "Conference on Law and Poverty," we are 

able to make this report here today by briefly presenting some of 

our key cases, currently in litigation across the north, which will 

illustrate the scope and content of this new effort. 

Garnishment of wages for failure to pay for goods, which are 

often overpriced and of inferior quality, is a perennial problem 

which plagues the ghetto resident. We are making the first major 

test of the legality of procedures under a garnishment law which 

exists in approximately 20 states in the Supreme Court of the 

United States. 

In a Milwaukee, Wisconsin case, we are attacking a law which 

permits a creditor to stop 50% of the wages of an employee simply 

by paying a three dollar fee and serving papers on the employer. 

The employee has absolutely no way in which he can get court 

proceeding to show that the withholding of his wages is improper, 

until the trial on the creditor's main claim against the debtor 

is concluded. This is usually some five or six months later. 

We are asserting that such a procedure violates the constitu- 

tion since every man ought to have a right to his day in court 

before his property is taken away from him. 

The garnishment case is illustrative of a whole range of harsh 

means for seizing what has recently been characterized as the "new 

property" of the poor -- welfare benefits, tenure in public 

housing, and the like. From our national perspective, we are 

uncovering a common theme -- namely that welfare benefits, tenancy 

in public housing, and attendance of public schools can be sum- 

marily snatched from the poor without giving them an opportunity 

to be heard; especially with the assistance of an attorney. 

We have one case in Mississippi and are assisting attorneys 

in San Francisco in a similar case in an effort to stop welfare 

departments from terminating grants prior to giving recipients an 



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explanation -- and an opportunity to object. 

We are taking, for the second time, a case to the Supreme 

Court of the United States which asserts that public housing 

authorities should not be able to put poor people in the street 

until they, too, have had some hearing to oppose the eviction. 

In New York City we will shortly take to the Supreme Court 

of the United States the case involving the right of a lawyer 

from a legal aid society to be present at a conference between 

school officials and the parent: which could result in the assign- 

ment of a student to schools for incorrigible and emotionally 

disturbed children, 

While we have been concerned with the fairness of garnishment 

procedures, the fundamental problem lies in the fraudulent con- 

sumer practices which occur before poor persons are dunned for 

collection, 

We have instituted a program to oppose many consumer fraud 

practices in New York City. We are pushing the premise that the 

courts can void contracts which are oppressive and unfair, even 

though the buyer may have, through his lack of information, 

voluntarily signed the contract. 

We also have a number of cases dealing with one of the most 

abused of the poor -- the illegitimate child. 

We are opposing, in one case, the attempt of the state to 

take nine children away from three mothers solely on the ground 

that the children were born out of wedlock. We have filed a 

friend-of-the-court brief in another case in which the state 

refuses to let an illegitimate child sue for the wrongful killing 

of his mother although it permits all legitimate children to’ 

sue. 

While the LDF has traditionally worked through private 

practitioners in the south, we now, through NORI, have established 

a formal agreement to work cooperatively with some of the new 

federal programs to give legal services to the poor in troubled 

cities such as San Francisco, California; St. Louis, Missouri; 

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Cleveland, Ohio; and Wilmington, Delaware. We are also giving 

assistance to other legal aid societies and private attorneys on 

particular cases affecting indigents in New York City, Hartford, 

Connecticut and Newark, New Jersey. 

An outstanding example of local and national legal program- 

ming in this emerging area exists here in Chicago. 

The six month old Chicago Legal Services Project is beginning 

to play an important and pioneering role. This non-profit agency 

is directed by a Board of Advisors consisting of seven prominent 

Chicago attorneys and a community organization consultant. 

All have had extensive involvement in working with Chicago 

community groups, dealing with poverty related problems, during 

the last five years. 

These leaders, assisted by some 50 local volunteer attorneys, 

have addressed themselves to local problems. The LDF has provided 

consultation on legal strategy, legal research and office and 

staff maintenance. 

The Project is now assisting ten community organizations 

throughout the city. 

It has assisted in negotiating nine collective bargaining 

agreements between landlords and tenants on the West Side of 

Chicago and in Harvey, Illinois. Through these agreements, one 

community group in Lawndale is working with the Maremont Foundaticn 

to develop condominium and cooperative housing in slum areas. 

Counseling has also occurred in matters of criminal defense 

where community members have been arrested for exercising their 

First Amendment rights of free speech. 

Legal counsel is being provided to community organizations to 

help in commercial developments which will upgrade the economic 

base of the ghetto community on the near West Side. Action is 

being considered against the Chicago Housing Authority challenging 

arbitrary eviction provisions. 

Members of the Chicago Legal Services Project are involved 

with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's "Operation 



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Breadbasket" in its attempt to upgrade tha econothic base’ of black © 

communities through expanding Negro jobs and businesses. 

The program outlined here today is not limited to aiding 

Negroes. It seeks to assist all ethnic and social groups which 

find themselves grappling with legal problems associated with 

poverty. 

We have -- for example -- given assistance to California 

Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., 90% of whose clients are Mexican 

Americans, and, we will shortly institute cooperative relations 

with legal aid societies servicing Indian reservations. 

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Editor's Note: Please bear in mind that the NAACP Legal Defense 
and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is a separate 
and distinct organization from the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 
serving as the legal arm of the entire civil 
rights movement and representing members of all 
groups as well as unaffiliated individuals.