Reuben Anderson, 25, Heads LDF Program in Mississippi

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Paul Brest and Iris Brest Oral History

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Director, Public Relations NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jose DeVore-Te. 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

FOR RELEASE 
SATURDAY 
May 25, 1968 

REUBEN ANDERSON, 25, 
HEADS LDF PROGRAM 
IN MISSISSIPPI 

NEW YORK---Appointment of Reuben Anderson, 25, as director of the 
Mississippi legal program of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 
Fund, Inc. (LDF) was announced here this week by Jack Greenberg, 
director-counsel. 

The new assignment was made during an Institute on the Uses of 
Law in Combatting Racism and Poverty, sponsored by the LDF in honor 
of the 14th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on school 
integration--won by LDF attorneys. 

Attorney Anderson, first Negro to graduate from the University 
of Mississippi Law School (1967), succeeds Marian Wright, who is now 
in Washington, D.C. on a Field Foundation Fellowship. 

Attorney Anderson supervises a full-time staff of three addi- 
tional lawyers plus five cooperating attorneys. This team (which 
will acquire two more members next month) is responsible for more 
than 100 pending cases which include 23 school, 30 criminal, 8 em- 
ployment, 3 welfare, and sundry others. 

He and his staff serve as counsel for four anti-poverty programs. 

The LDF also announced that, thanks to the LDF-sponsored Herbert 
Lehman Education Fund, 10 Negro students are now in scholarship at 
the University of Mississippi Law School. An additional three are 
paying their own way. 

In light of student requests for assistance, the LDF estimated 
there will be 25 Negro lawyers functioning in Mississippi within the 
next five years. There were only four as recently as 1965. 

The civil rights movement has long faced an acute shortage of 
attorneys, particularly in the Deep South, Mr. Greenberg said. A 
mere 700 of the nation's 65,000 law students are Negro. In the 
South, these are virtually the only lawyers who will handle civil 
rights cases, he continued. 

Mr. Anderson, like his predecessor, is a product of the LDF's 
legal intern program. 

The intern program, initiated and maintained primarily through 
grants of the Field Foundation, is designed to augment the supply of 
civil rights attorneys in those southern states where the need is 
greatest. 

Promising law graduates work for up to a year under LDF tutelage 
either in New York or in the office of an LDF attorney in the South. 
They assist in research, writing, litigation and overall preparation 
of briefs. They also participate in staff conferences and are 
exposed to the day-to-day routines and disciplines necessary for 
meeting the meticulous demands of these specialized areas of the 
legal profession. 

They are then aided in establishing their practices in southern 
cities where they devote considerable effort to civil rights cases. 
In the first four years of the program, twelve outstanding attorneys 
began practice--five in Mississippi, two in Florida, one each in 
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, and North Carolina. 

(more) 

11 a “5 President 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

egal efense und Jack Greenberg 

Ra
t 



REUBEN ANDERSON, 25, 
HEADS LDF PROGRAM 
IN MISSISSIPPI -2- May 25, 1968 

In the fall of 1967, the LDF started four new interns. They are 
destined for practice, two in Georgia, one each in Mississippi and 

North Carolina. 

The LDF announced the following members of the class of 1967-68: 

Mary Moss - ranked second in last year's graduating class at 
Howard University Law School. She is a native of Fitzgerald, Georgia, 
and works in the office of attorney C. B. King in Albany, Georgia, 
who is the only experienced civil rights lawyer in southwest Georgia. 

James Ferguson, II - native of Asheville, North Carolina, made 
an excellent record at the Columbia University School of Law from 
which he was graduated in June. Mr. Ferguson is practicing in North 

Carolina. 

Peter Rindskopf - a member of this year's graduating class at 
Yale University Law School. Mr. Rindskopf spent the last two summers 
as law clerk to Howard Moore, Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia. He now works 

with Mr. Moore. 

Mr. Anderson is the fourth member of that class. 

Their 12 predecessors have already proven to be unusually able. 
They have all carried a share of the %DF caseload even during their 

training period. 

The LDF started the intern program in 1963 with Julius LeVonne 

Chambers and Miss Wright. 

Mr. Chambers, the first Negro named editor of North Carolina 
University's Law Review, entered private practice in Charlotte in 
September of 1964. The LDF now has 30 school desegregation cases in 
the state, some involving teachers. Most of these cases have been 
initiated by Chambers, and he bears responsibility for all of them. 

He has also handled cases challenging discrimination in health 
facilities and a variety of other suits. Meanwhile, he has found 
time to engage in private practice, has gained an excellent reputa- 
tion across the state, and is the acknowledged leader of the civil 
rights bar in North Carolina, Mr. Greenberg said. (That may be one 
reason that he has been on two occasions the object of bombing 

attacks, he added.) 

During the summer following Miss Wright's entry into the Missis- 
sippi legal scene, she played a crucial role in coordinating the 
defense of hundreds of Negro Mississippians and civil rights workers 
during the Freedom Summer of 1964. 

Miss Wright's accomplishments have been set forth in MADEMOISELLE 
(one of its four Outstanding Women of the Year), EBONY, and 
COSMOPOLITAN magazines, and through the syndicated column of Ralph 
McGill. 

=30= 

NOTE: A complete list of LDF graduate interns is attached. 



Year 
Class of 1963 

0 " ” 

Class of 1964 

Class of 1965 

PARTICIPANTS IN FIRST FOUR CLASSES 

OF THE LEGAL INTERN PROGRAM 

OF THE LEGAL DEFENSE FUND 

Name 

JULIUS LeVONNE CHAMBERS 

MARIAN E. WRIGHT 

EDWARD TUCKER 

JOHN WALKER 

JAMES ABRAM 

ALFRED FEINBERG 

GERALD SMITH 

PAUL BREST 

IRIS BREST 

FRANKIE FIELDS 

ROBERT HILL 

REESE MARSHALL 

Law_School 
U. of N.C. 

Yale 

Howard 

Yale 

New York Univ. 

Howard 

Harvard 

Harvard 

Howard 

Howard 

Howard 

Déestination* 

Nort h Carolina 

Mississippi 

Mississippi 

Arkansas 

Mississippi 

Florida 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Mississippi 

Alabama 

Georgia 

Florida 

* The state in which the intern is to practice, following the first 
year of the training period.