Greenberg Statement at Press Conference to Announce Legal Intern Program

    Remarks of Jack Greenberg, 
Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal 
Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 
at Press Conference, August 15, 1963, 
10 Columbus Circle, Suite 2030, 
New York City. 

Since most street demonstrations invarjably end in a 

courtroom and since hundreds of school and public accommo- 

dations cases remain to be filed and won, the NAACP Legal 

Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. has been expanding its 

activities to continue to serve, as in the past, the legal 

arm of the civil rights movement. 

We now represent more than 7,500 demonstrators involved 

in 125 civil rights actions across the country. These 

comprise members of all the major civil rights organizations. 

The current crisis has caused a vast increase in civil 

rights litigation. Two factors are primarily responsible: 

a) the wave of peaceful protest demonstrations that 

began with the sit-ins in 1960, and capped off by Birmingham 

and its aftermath. 

b) sharpened opposition to court orders requiring 

desegregation, characterized by increasing complex legal 

activity, on part of the southern white community, to 

counter our legal efforts. 

For obvious reasons, almost no southern white lawyers 

will handle race relations cases. In many places, there 

are no Negro attorneys with training adequate to cooperate 

with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. 

Tallahassee, for example, the capital city of Florida, 

does not have one practicing Negro lawyer. C. B. King of 

Albany, Ga. is the lone civil rights attorney in southwestern 

Georgia. There are only three Negro civil rights lawyers in 

the entire State of Mississippi. 

There are virtually no Negro lawyers anywhere in the 

most crucial parts of the rural South. 



-2- Remarks of Jack Greenberg 

So, today we are announcing some of the steps in process 

to cope with this situation, through long-range planning: 

I. We have Julius LeVonne Chambers with us today who 

will join our staff next month as our first legal intern. 

He and other participants were and will be chosen with the 

understanding that they eventually plan to practice law in 

southern communities where there is an acute shortage of ; 

attorneys qualified to handle civil rights cases. 

The interns will work in this office, under supervision of 

our legal staff. They will assist in research, litigation, 

and preparation of briefs. 

Internship will be completed in one year. They will then 

go to a community in the South where a civil rights lawyer 

is needed, and where reasonable prospects exist for an 

eventual private practice. For the first three years of 

their practice we will assist them in getting started. 4 

Another young attorney will join Mr. Chambers during 

the first phase of our program, which is being underwritten 

by an initial $25,000 grant from the Field Foundation. We 

expect this program to expand. 

II. In keeping with our pledge to defend all civil rights 

demonstrators seeking our assistance, the staff of the NAACP 

Legal Defense Fund has doubled during the past year. We 

had five attorneys working in this office in October 1961. 

In October 1962, we had nine. We plan to have 17 by the 

end of this year, and we are bringing them in just as fast 

as we can absorb them. 

In addition, we now have 100 cooperating attorneys 

throughout the South, an increase of 25 per cent during 

the past three years. 

III. Our physical facilities were doubled by our move ‘to 

this suite of offices three weeks ago. This was made possi- 

ble by our expanding budget. We projected a $650,000 budget 

in 1962 and secured it. We projected a $750,000 budget fon 

Comment 

this year, but if the current trend of contributions continue? < 
as 

we will budget $1,100,000-for 1963. 



-3- Remarks of Jack Greenberg 

IV. We will hold practicing law institutes, to share 

the latest legal knowledge with our cooperating counsel,in 

three southern cities -- Washington, D. C., Atlanta, and 

Dallas -- this fall. These will be conducted by professors 

from Columbia, Yale, Howard and other Law Schools. These 

seminar-like sessions will cover crucial legal areas such as: 

constitutional law, including freedom of speech; school and 

public facility desegregation; federal procedure; criminal 

law; evidence. 

We will then publish manuals which will serve as a 

continuing guide to cvil rights attorneys. 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers from South Carolina, 

Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi will attend the 

Atlanta institute. 

Attorneys from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North 

Carolina will attend the Washington, D. C. institute. 

Attorneys from Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and 

Oklahoma will attend the Institute in Dallas, Texas.