LDF Asks Supreme Court to Reverse Ala. Decision Against Rev. Shuttlesworth

    President 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

PRESS RELEASE Director Counsel 
egal efense hand Jack Greenberg 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. dela es tecesecras 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 
o/ FOR RELEASE 

ge THURSDAY 
March 7, 1968 

LDF ASKS SUPREME COURT 
TO REVERSE ALA. DECISION 
AGAINST REV. SHUTTLESWORTH 

1,500 Other Demonstrators Also Affected | 

WASHINGTON---The U.S. Supreme Court was asked today to review and | 
reverse an Alabama Supreme Court ruling against the Rev. Fred L. | 

Shuttlesworth. 

The Court was asked to decide whether Rev. Shuttlesworth and 
1500 Birmingham civil rights demonstrators can be convicted for 
parading without a permit for their Easter week marches of 1963 in 

Birmingham. 

Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. | 
(LDF) argue that Rev. Shuttlesworth did not have to secure a permit 
because the parade ordinance on its face violated the Constitution. 

Rev. Shuttlesworth, the LDF argues, was entitled to ignore the 
permit requirement “because its grant of overbroad discretionary 
licensing power rendered it patently offensive to the First and 
Fourteenth Amendments.” 

Moreover, the attorneys add, if he had applied for a permit and 
it had been denied,"there were no Alabama procedures for effective 
and timely administrative decision-making and judicial review." 

Finally, it is argued, the ordinance speaks of “parade” on the 
"streets." There was no way Rev. Shuttlesworth could have known 

that he needed a permit to lead 52 persons on a walk on the sidewalks. | 

The attorneys point out that Rev. Shuttlesworth is a “notorious 

person in the field of civil rights in Birmingham." | 

The lawyers note that the “attitude of the city administration | 

in general and the police commissioner in particular” was hostile | 

towards Rev. Shuttlesworth and his activities. | 

Prior to the Negro protest demonstrations in the spring of 1963, 
Birmingham officials did not issue permits for walking on the side- 

walk. 

“The police did not usually arrest persons for walking on the 
sidewalks; when they did, the courts did not sustain such con- 
victions," the LDF attorneys argue. 

LDF attorneys predict that Birmingham “football fans on their 

way to the stadium without a parade permit risk prosecution under 
ordinance 1159, should city authorities choose so vigorously to 
protect the sidewalks of Birmingham.” 

Attorneys in the case are Director-C 1 Jack Gr g 

James M. Nabrit III, Norman C. Amaker, Charles Stephen Ralston 

and Melvyn Zarr of New York City; Anthony G. Amsterdam of Phila- 
delphia; and Arthur D. Shores and Orzell Billingsley, Jr. of 

Birmingham. 

’ | 
. 

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NOTE: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is a 
separate and distinct organization from the NAACP. Its correct 

designation is NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., which 

is shortened to LDF. 

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