LDF and Local Urban League Sue to Keep Racially Mixed Schools

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Gabrielle Kirk McDonald Oral History

    NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL 

FUND, INC. (LDF) 

FOR RELEASE 

October 28, 1968 

LDF AND LOCAL URBAN LEAGUE SUE 

TO KEEP RACIALLY MIXED SCHOOLS 

MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY--The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 
Pund, Inc. (LDF), which won the legal battle that brought the 
U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 school desegregation ruling, today 
filed suit against education officials in Morris County. 

LDF filed the suit in association with the Morris County 
Urban League. 

Today's action by LDF marks a major attack on de facto school 
segregation which its attorneys say is prevalent in neighborhood 
school systems in the North. 

In an appeal and petition to the State Board of Education and the Commissioner of Education, LDF Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, 
staff attorney Gabrielle A: Kirk, and attorney Frank F. Harding, 
from the local firm of MacKenzie and Harding named the following 
groups as defendants: 

the Township of Morris School District and Board 
of Education, the Town of Morristown School District 
and Board of Education, the Township of Harding Board 
of Education, and the Borough of Morris Plains Board 
of Education. 

The attorneys are acting on hehalf of Negro and white parents from both Morris Township--a wealthy, predominately white area-- 
and Morristown. 

Morris Township now sends its 750 students, most of whom are 
white, to Morristown High School. The school has an enrollment 
of about 2,000 students. 

The attorneys say that the suburban community plans to withdraw 
its students and build its ow high school. 

They say that if these students are withdrawn, the percentage of Negroes in the Morristown High School will double. 

If this occurs, according to them, a racial imbalance will 
be created, and the education of both Negroes and whites will be 
seriously affected. 

"We mean that white and Negro children would be deprived of 
quality, integrated education because the township high school 
would be almost entirely white and the Morristown High School will 
be predominately black," Mr. Greenberg explained. 

Education experts presently rate Morristown High School as one 
of the top secondary schools in the nation. 

The parents who are against building a separate high school 
are asking the State to consolidate the two school systems. 

State statistics show that 41% of the students in Morristown 
schools are Negroes. 



LDF AND LOCAL URBAN LEAGUE SUE 
TO KEEP RACIALLY MIXED SCHOOLS October 28, 1968 

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Negroes make up only 2% of the Morris Township enrollment, 

which includes kindergarten through ninth. grade. 

The parents contend that consolidation would provide an ideal 

educational unit; that it would mean educational opportunities 

that neither system alone could provide. 

As an example, they point to substantial savings in admini- 

strative costs and an ideal racial balance. 

LDF's chief, Mr. Greenberg, said that suits such as the one 

filed today are imperative when boards of education act in ways 

which create racial imbalance in school systems. He said the 

suits are necessary if quality, integrated education is to be 

maintained and if it is to become a reality in areas where it 

does not exist. ; 

=30- 

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.