Threats and Intimidation Won't Keep Negroes out of Federal Courts -- Thurgood Marshall

    PRESS RELEASE @ @ 

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

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS oa THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President Director-Counsel 

FOR RELEASE AFTER 8:00 P.M., JAN. 25 

THREATS AND INTIMIDATION WON'T KEEP 
NEGROES OUT OF FEDERAL COURTS -= THURGOOD MARSHALL 

NEW YORK, Jan. 25.--Thurgood Marshall warned pro-segregationists 

today thet threats and intimidation will not prevent Negroes and other 

"good Americans" from resorting to the federal courts in their efforts 

to obtain their constitutional rights. 

Questions could very easily be raised as to the course of action 

which Negroes should have followed immediately after the Supreme 

Court rendered its decisions in 1954 and 1955 in the school segrega- 

tion cases, Mr. Marshall said. The campaign of massive resistance in 

Virginia, the unyielding opposition in states such as Georgia and the 

unprecedented physical opposition by the Governor of Arkansas, however, 

now leave no doubt as to the course of action which must be followed at 

this time. 

Mr, Marshall, who is director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense 

and Educational Fund, spoke at the annual »anquet of the Georgia State 

Conference of NAACP Branches in Atlanta. 

He told the gathering thet there were those who predicted that 

integration could not come about. "To them we say that in 3% years, 

we have seen peaceful integration in areas as far South as Texas and 

throughout the middle west, as well as in the border states." 

To those who say that the South will not tolerate integration, he 

added, "We point to the action of Governor Faubus resulting in the 

inevitable calling out of the federal troops when every effort to 

mediate failed." 

No law-abiding American is proud of the sordid developments in the 

Little Rock integration fight, he explained. Negro Americans are just 

as ashamed of the action of Gov. Faubus as other Americans, and have 

tried to explain to the world the contrast between the action of Gov. 

Faubus and that of the federal government in sending troops to enforce 

the court orders. 

"While we see this as our duty, we can see no reason for self-pity 

or self condemnation for what has been done to bring about lawful 



pepe 

compliance with the law of the land in contrast to unlawful defiance 

of the law of the land," Mr. Marshall asserted. 

He pointed out that some of those who call themselves "moderate" 

urge Negroes to take no legal action whatsoever to "secure our rights.” 

Yet, he said, Negroes are offered nothing but "continued unlawful 

racial segregation," 

"We have been patient," Marshall declared. "We shall continue to 

be patient, but we refuse to surrender completely our United States 

Constitution to be subservient to the will of the minority of the 

states." 

He noted that stories have been circulated predicting as impossi- 

ble discussions of desegregation problems between Negroes and whites 

in the South. 

If it is so, Marshall added, it is solely the fault of persons 

other than Negroes. "Responsible Negro leadership in the South is 

still willing and anxious to discuss this matter with anyone willing 

to discuss it on an equal basis," he said. 

Referring to the court case recently filed against the Atlanta 

School Board on behalf of several Negro children, he cited an Atlanta 

daily which stated that "responsible white and Negro leaders in 

Atlanta have worked in an atmosphere of harmony and good-will for the 

benefit of all -- without integration. They will continue to do so if 

rabble-rousing politicians and the NAACP will leave them alone." 

"Here again," Marshall declared, "we have the same term, unre- 

lenting and determined defiance of the law of the land." 

He said the parents of the Negro children in the Atlmta case 

sought the legal assistance of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 

Fund, and in the tradition of our American government will leave the 

decision of their grievance up to the federal courts. 

"Neither threats from daily newspapers, politicians or others 

will ever intimidate good Americans in resorting to the federal courts 

for determination of their rights," Mr. Marshall declared. 

Decisions of the federal courts, including the latest one in 

Virginia, continue to reassure Americans that the United States Consti- 

tution is the supreme law of the land, with state cmstitutions and 

statutes to the contrary, Marshall concluded, 

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