NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Mississippi Travel Victory

Press Release
October 3, 1963

NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Mississippi Travel Victory preview

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  • Press Releases, Volume 1. NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Mississippi Travel Victory, 1963. f44fce8a-b492-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/6ef148c6-df5a-4de2-9d99-1e23dffc6d61/naacp-legal-defense-fund-in-mississippi-travel-victory. Accessed July 01, 2025.

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NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
1OCOLUMBUS CIRCLE » NEWYORK19,N.Y. © JUdson6-8397 

* DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS JACK GREENBERG CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY 
President Director-Counsel Associate Counsel 

October 3, 1963, 

s 
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND IN ¥ 
MISSISSIPPI TRAVEL VICTORY ‘ 

NEW ORLEANS,--- The U.S. Fifth Circuit of Appeals this week 
ordered six Mississippi public transportation companies to end 
racial discrimination within their vehicles and their terminals, © 

This decision, won by attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense 
Fund, clears the way for Negro citizens to enter federal courts 
and gain relief when carriers refuse to end the practice of 
separate waiting rooms. 

It also marks the first time that the six carriers have been 
- brought under specific court order to cease their jim crow prac- 
F-taices, 

Some of the carriers have been guilty of maintaining dual 
“waiting rooms even though segregation policies and signs have 
been removed, 

Carriers injoined by Legal Defense Fund attorneys are the 
Jackson City Lines Inc,, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, 
Continental Southern Lines, Inc, (Trailways), Southern Greyhound 
Lines and the Illinois Central Railroad, Inc. 

The Circuit Court acknowledged the claim of the defendant 
companies, that all racial signs in and around their facilities 
have pesh removed and that discriminatory laws are no longer 
followed, Th 

However, the Court noted that segregation is the pattern in 
Mississippi, and that it is within this climate that the carriers 
"continued to maintain their policies and practices of racial 
discrimination" long after numerous court rulings that such is 
unconstitutional, 

"Under these circumstances," the Court summarized, "the 
threat of continued or resumed violation of appellants (Negroes) 
federally protected rights remains actual. 

"Denial of injunctive relief (to Negro citizens) might leave 
the appellees (carriers) free to return to (their) old ways," of 
discrimination the Court declared, 

The decision was the result of an action filed in 1961 by 
Samuel Bailey and two other Negro residents of Jackson, Miss. for 
themselves and their fellow Negro citizens, 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys who won the important 
case include R, Jess Brown, of Vicksburg, Miss., Jack Greenberg, 
Constance Baker Motley-and Derrick Bell, all of the Fund‘s New 
York headquarters, ‘i 

=20-—

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