Seven Distinguished Leaders Named Defense Fund Directors

Press Release
October 22, 1965

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  • Press Releases, Volume 3. Seven Distinguished Leaders Named Defense Fund Directors, 1965. a6c72265-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/690992ae-a2e0-429b-b619-8e5264d0b2e6/seven-distinguished-leaders-named-defense-fund-directors. Accessed November 09, 2025.

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

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE FOR RELEASE 

3 Friday 
ree, Allan Knight Chalmers October 22, 1965 

 Ceoakere 

SEVEN DISTINGUISHED LEADERS 
NAMED DEFENSE FUND DIRECTORS 

NEW YORK--Seven men, prominent in education, business, law and 

civil rights, have been named to the Board of Directors of the 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Judge Francis E, 

Rivers, board president, announced today. 

The new board members are: 

* Peter L, Buttenweiser, director of instruction at North 

Carolina Advancement School, Winston-Salem, N. C. 

* A, G. Gaston, prominent Birmingham, Ala., businessman whose 

enterprises include a 65-unit motel, 7O-unit apartment house, $1.5 

million insurance company and a bank with assets totalling more 

than $8 Million. 

* Dr, Percy L. Julian of Oak Park, I11., founder of Julian 

Laboratories, Inc. and Laboratories Julian de Mexico, S. A., both 

subsidiaries of Smith, Kline and French Laboratories. 

* Damon J. Keith, senior partner in the Detroit law firm of 

Keith, Conyers and Anderson, and prominent civic leader. 

* Burke Marshall, former head of the Civil Rights Division of 

the U. S. Department of Justice, now in private legal practice. 

* Dr. David G, Salten, executive director of the Federation 

of Jewish Philanthropies, New York, and former superintendent 

of schools in New Rochelle and Long Beach, N. Y. 

* Asa T. Spaulding, president of North Carolina Mutual Life 

Insurance Co., the largest Negro-owned insurance company in the 

nation. 
The Legal Defense Fund, often called the legal arm of the 

civil rights movement, represents members of all civil rights 
organizations, as well as unaffiliated individuals with legitimate 
civil rights claims. 

It was founded as an independent organization by a group of 
distinguished NAACP board members in 1939, and now handles an 
estimated 90 per cent of all civil rights litigation not handled by 
the Justice Department. 

The Board of Directors, under Judge Rivers, is responsible for 
overall policy of the Legal Defense Fund, 

Jack Greenberg, director-counsel, is the Fund's chief 
administrative officer. -30- 

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

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