Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board Brief of Appellee
Public Court Documents
October 5, 1998

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Press Releases, Volume 4. LDF Asks Halt of Evictions for Illegitimate Pregnancy by Alabama Housing Authorities, 1967. c2dd6f93-b792-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/ea19bfc1-80c2-4cfb-89c2-33fd711e4d9d/ldf-asks-halt-of-evictions-for-illegitimate-pregnancy-by-alabama-housing-authorities. Accessed August 19, 2025.
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ww President Hon. Francis E. Rivers PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel egal efense und Jack Greenberg Director, Public ions NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. jane 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUd: 6-8397 see ae ‘olumbus Circle, New York, N.Y. ison 6- FOR RELEASE po SIGHTJNUMBER 212-749-8487 SATURDAY February 11, 1967 LDF ASKS HALT OF EVICTIONS FOR ILLEGITIMATE PREGNANCY BY ALA.HOUSING AUTHORITIES BIRMINGHAM-~-The U.S. District Court here was asked yesterday to halt eviction of two Negro women and their families from public housing in Talladega, Alabama because of the pending birth of illegitimate childrer. Mrs, Everline Lewis and her children were ordered out of the Knox- ville Homes because Mrs. Lewis' daughter, who does not reside with her, is expecting an illegitimate child. Another tenant of the same public housing development, Mrs,Margaze Truss, has been ordered evicted because she is expecting an illegitmate child. Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) filed motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction o' grounds that both women, and the class they represent, were denied: * proper and sufficient notice * adequate and reasonable grounds * a fair hearing on the charges. LDF lawyers argue that eviction of the families would violate the "basic purpose of all publicly supported low-income housing as set forth in the policy provisions of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937," That act, the attorneys assert, seeks to "remedy the unsafe and unsanitary housing conditions and the acute shortage of decent, safe and sanitary dwellings for low-income" families. LDF attorneys added that "the Talladega policy does not help eliminate the problems attendant to slum dwellings: it creates them, "It deprives low-income people of desperately needed housing by its exclusionist policy. "Depriving children of a decent home to live in neither serves to curb the rate of illegitimacy nor to benefit other tenants in the project," the attorneys said. In conclusion, the Court was told that "due process requires that plaintiffs be given some opportunity to be heard. "Hearings are an important protection from arbitrariness. “Tenants should have the right to have decisions on such issues based on evidence and not on rumor or fancy. "For the indigent, eviction is a serious penalty," the lawyers sail -30-