J. Greenberg's Statement on Employment Discrimination

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

7 Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
re Klan Knight Chalmers 

Director-Counsel 
Jack Greenberg 

Statement by Jack Greenberg, director-counsel 
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. ; 
Thursday, October 14, 1965, 10:45 AM B 
New York City 

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Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 

today filed the first law suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights 

Act of 1964, the fair employment practices provision, against the 

alleged discriminatory hiring practices of the Great Atlantic and 

Pacific Tea Company. The suit was filed in the United States 

District Court, Wilmington, North Carolina on behalf of Miss Annie 

M. Brinkley, a Negro citizen who resides in Wilmington? 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys are asking for a preliminary and 

permanent injunction restraining the defendant"from maintaining a 

policy, practice, custom and usage of withholding, denying, attemptinc 

to withhold or deny and depriving or attempting to deprive, and 

otherwise interfering, with the rights of plaintiff and others 

similarly situated to equal employment opportunity at markets and/or 

stores owned and operated by the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea 

Company, Incorporated, without discrimination on the ground of 

race or color." 

This suit grew out of the work of summer field staff hired to 

educate and inform local Negro leadership in ten southern states, ot 

their rights under Title VII, which went into effect July 2, 1965-- 

one year after passage of the historic law. 

The summer workers worked with NAACP branches and other civil 

rights and community groups. They worked in close cooperation 

with Herbert Hill, labor secretary of the NAACP, 

Mr. Hill has appeared before the Equal Economic Opportunity 

Commission in Washington on numerous occasions to present perhaps 

700 complaints to officials of the Equal Employment Opportunity 

Commission. 

(more) 

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



“34 

Statement by Jack Greenberg, director-counsel 
“NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 
Thursday, October 14, 1965, 10:45 AM 
New York City 

Laas 

3 Specifically, in Miss Brinkley's case, we petitioned the 

: for an order that: 

* A & P grant Miss Brinkley back pay from July 20, 1965, 

the date of her “wrongful denial of coploiagt to 

the present. 

* the specific A & P outlet in question, plus the five 

others in Wilmington, plus others across the state 

and elsewhere----cease discriminating against Miss 

Brinkley and other Negro citizens. 

Our complaint states that the policy of the A & P in 

Wilmington, North Carolina, is to employ Negroes as stock boys and 

occasio ally as part-time cashier checkers, If Negroes are 

. s full-time checkers, the number is extremely small, 

é practice is to use Negroes as cashier checkers only when 

“White checkers are absent or during a rush period. 

not accepted because there was no vacancy and that applications 

are not accepted or kept on file unless there is a vacancy, 

Very few Negroes are employed by the A & P (20 Negro males 

and no Negro women in contrast to 150 whites in one area of North 

Carolina), and few, if any, Negroes are employed as cashier checkers, 

The plaintiff, Miss Brinkley, has experience as fe achies 

and has worked in stores such as Kresge's and Greene's, 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission fousa probable 

cause of discrimination in the case of the Wilmington A & P, 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys will be filing from 60 to 100 

similar actions, within the next four months, as the Commission 

hands down decisions on 476 Complaints that have been placed before 

it as a result of our investigations. 

The equal Employment Opportunity Commission only has 

investigatory powers. It found our complaint stated "reasonable 

cause," but was helpless to enforce the finding. 

This deficiency in the law must be corrected if the law is to 

be meaningful, 

(more) 



=o= 

Statement by Jack Greenberg, director-counsel 
NAACP Legal Defense an 
Thursday, 

Se 

d Educational Fund, Inc. 
“October 14, 1965 10:45 A, M, 

Title VII provides that suit must be brought within thirty 

days after the Commission receives a complaint. 

This represents a new and broad legal program for the Legal 

Defense Fund, one that will strongly change the character of our 

current case load.