U.S. Supreme Court Asked to Review Convictions in South Carolina Sit-Ins

Press Release
June 8, 1962

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Press Releases, Loose Pages. U.S. Supreme Court Asked to Review Convictions in South Carolina Sit-Ins, 1962. af1b4c30-bd92-ee11-be37-6045bddb811f. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/8c30ccf2-015c-49f0-a7bb-7a10a67cff4d/us-supreme-court-asked-to-review-convictions-in-south-carolina-sit-ins. Accessed January 07, 2026.

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    PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
1O COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS JACK GREENBERG CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY 
Prasident Director-Counsel Associate Counsel 

Bes 

U. S. SUPREME COURT ASKED TO REVIEW 
CONVICTIONS IN SOUTH CAROLINA SIT-INS 

June 8, 1962 

NEW YORK -- NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys asked the U. S. Supreme 

Court this week to review the convictions of two Negro college students 

who were arrested for lunch counter sit-ins in Columbia, S. C. in 1960. 

The demonstrators, Simon Bouie and Talmadge J. Neal, were 

arrested on March 14, 1960, in Eckerd's Variety Store in Columbia. 

They had requested service at the store's all-white lunch counter. 

Eckerd's sells to Negroes in its other departments, but bars them 

from its lunch counter. 

Both were convicted of trespassing and Bouie, of resisting 

arrest in Recorder's Court when he asked the arresting officer what he 

was being arrested for. 

On appeal, the Supreme Court of South Carolina upheld the tres- 

pass convictions, but reversed the "resisting arrest" charge on 

February 13, 1962. 

In their petition to the high Court, Fund attorneys argue that 

the convictions conflict with prior decisions of the Supreme Court 

condemning the use of state power to enforce racial segregation. 

"The only apparent state interest being subserved by this tres- 

pass prosecution is support of the property owner's discrimination 

in conformity to the state's segregation custom..." the attorneys 

contend, 

The petition also argues that the South Carolina trespass statute 

is unconstitutionally vague and ambiguous. 

The Columbia petition is the thirteenth sit-in case involving 

trespass convictions which the Fund has asked the Supreme Court to 

review this term. On March 14, the Court granted review of a protest 

demonstration case involving convictions of 187 Negro students from 

parading on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds in 1961. The case 

will be heard next fall. 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys for the two Columbia students 
are Matthew J. Perry ard Lincoln C. Jenkins, Jr., of Columbia, and 
Jack Greenberg, Constance Baker Motley, James M. Nabrit, III and 
Michael Meltsner of New York City. 

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U.S. Supreme Court Asked to Review Convictions in South Carolina Sit-Ins

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