The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was asked today to order the operator of the Birmingham City bus line…

Press Release
April 28, 1960

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The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was asked today to order the operator of the Birmingham City bus line… preview

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Press Releases, Loose Pages. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was asked today to order the operator of the Birmingham City bus line…, 1960. bb2a569f-bc92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/74741fe3-8b1c-4975-bf0b-0a22830e6cfc/the-fifth-circuit-court-of-appeals-was-asked-today-to-order-the-operator-of-the-birmingham-city-bus-line. Accessed October 10, 2025.

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    - PRESS RELEASE® ® 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
10 COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK 19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS o> THURGOOD MARSHALL 
Director-Counsel President 

April 28, 1960 

BIRMINGHAM, ALA., Apr. 28 -- The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals 

was asked today to order the operator of the Birmingham City bus line 

to put an end to its passenger segregation policy. 

In a brief filed today with the court 13 Birmingham Negroes asked 

the Court of Appeals to issue an injunction restraining the Birminchain 

Transit Company from segregating its passengers by race. 

The case originated out of an incident of October 20, 1958, when 

9 of the 13 Negroes were arrested for refusing to move from the front 

section of a bus to the rear, They were charged with and convicted of 

breach of the peace. 

A week prior to the arrests, two city ordinances requiring racial 

segregation of passengers in public transportation were repealed and a 

new one enacted. The new ordinance allowed operators of buses and taxic 

to establish their own rules for seating passengers and made failure to 

obey bus drivers a misdemeanor. The bus company then placed signs 

seading "White passengers eat from front, colored passengers seat from 

“ear,” on its buses. 

At the time the old ordinances were repealed and the new ones 

enacted, a suit brought by a group of Negroes seeking to enjoin the 

city commissioners from enforcing the segregation codes was pending in 

the district court. The suit was dismissed after the repeal of tho:ze 

laws. 

Follcwing the arrests and convictions, the Negroes filed a suit in 

che federal district court seeking an injunction against the bus com- 

any. The court held that the police officers who made the arrests 

violated the Negroes’ constitutional rights and that the city could not 

use the law te require segregation, but that the bus company was a "pri 

vate" operator and was not subject to the restraints of the Fourteenth 

Amendment. 

It is this latter portion of the ruling of the district court 

that the Negroes are now appealing. In the brief filed with the Fifth 



Circuit Court of Appeals their attorneys argue that the district court 

erred in denying the injunction against the bus company which continues 

to require Negroes to ride in the back of its buses. 

Attorneys representing the 13 Negroes are Thurgood Marshall, Ja 

Greenberg and James M. Nabrit, III of the NAACP Legal Defense and 

Educational Fund staff in New York City, and Arthur D. Shores of 

Birmingham, Ala. 

=n30e-

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The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was asked today to order the operator of the Birmingham City bus line…

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