Suit Against Raleigh YMCA Seeks to Halt Segregation

Press Release
October 8, 1965

Suit Against Raleigh YMCA Seeks to Halt Segregation preview

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  • Press Releases, Volume 3. Suit Against Raleigh YMCA Seeks to Halt Segregation, 1965. 6b61084d-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/87574507-4983-41a7-bb79-b28c9fb0a5a1/suit-against-raleigh-ymca-seeks-to-halt-segregation. Accessed April 30, 2025.

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

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
ea FOR RELEASE 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers Friday»setober 8, 1905. 
Director-Counsel 

F eyed Crecubore 

SUIT AGAINST RALEIGH YMCA 
SEEKS TO HALT SEGREGATION 

RALEIGH, N.C.--NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund lawyers 

filed suit in federal district court here today seeking to end racial 

segregation at the Raleigh Branch of the Young Men's Christian 

Association. 

The suit alleges that segregation is a violation of the Public 

Accommodations Section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Defendants in the action are the YMCA of Raleigh Inc. and C. Lynn 

Brown, president of the corporation's executive committee. 

The Negro plaintiff, Samuel E. NeSmith, alleges he was denied 

services and accommodations at the YMCA in August. 

A separate YMCA branch is maintained in Raleigh for Negroes. 

The suit asks the court to permanently enjoin the YMCA from 

maintaining a policy of racial segregation. 

The Legal Defense Fund launched a campaign against segregated 

YMCA's in Frebruary. Suits were filed against YMCA's in Charlotte, 

N. C., and Norfolk, Va., and both branches desegregated before the 

cases came to trial. 

At that time, a survey by the YMCA National Council indicated 

that 180 of the 1,800 branches-in the United States practiced total 

or partial segregation. 

A similar survey last month indicated that over 60.branches 

remain segregated, including nine each in North Carolina, South 

Carolina and Georgia; seven each in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi; 

six in Florida; two each in Virginia, Arkansas and Texas; and one in 

Tennessee. . 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys involved in» the suit are Conrad O. 

Pearson of Durham, Samuel Mitchell and Romallus 0. Murphy of Raleigh, 

J, LeVonne Chambers of Charlotte, Jack Greenberg, Fund director- 

counsel, and Michael Meltsner of the Fund's New York staff. 

--30-- 

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

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