LDF Charges Philip Morris with Job Bias Practices
Press Release
May 5, 1967
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Press Releases, Volume 4. LDF Charges Philip Morris with Job Bias Practices, 1967. 894e54ca-b792-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/8ef2c3f7-e83d-4b14-82d8-405ef1b5b123/ldf-charges-philip-morris-with-job-bias-practices. Accessed November 23, 2025.
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President
Hon. Francis E. Rivers
PRESS RELEASE Director Counsel
egal efense lund : oe ae
irector, Public Relation: NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jous Dever oe, 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 nur wuncaen 212-749-0487
FOR RELEASE
FRIDAY
May 5, 1967
LDF CHARGES PHILIP MORRIS
WITH JOB BIAS PRACTICES
First Labor Case Tried Under Civil Rights Act of 1966
RICHMOND, VA.---Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational
Fund, Inc. (LDF) this week asked the Federal District Court here for
an injunction against alleged racial discrimination on the part of the
Philip Morris Tobacco Company.
The case was argued in behalf of two Negro employees--Douglas H.
Quarles and Ephriam Briggs.
It is the first case to go to trial as a result of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 which, under Title VII, created the Equal Employment Oppor-+ tunity Commission (EEOC),
LDF attorneys charged in their complaint that Mr. Quarles, a
laborer in the Pre-Fabrication Department in the B&L plant in Richmond,
in a class action, seeks to have Philip Morris Company and those actira
in concert enjoined from continuing to maintain a policy of limiting
its Negro employees to the lower paying jobs in the Pre-Fabrication
Department,
He also charged Philip Morris with denying Negroes n opportunity to
have an effective transfer to the Fabrication and Warehouse, Shipping
and Receiving Departments where higher wage rates are generally paid,
Mr. Briggs, through his LDF attorneys, charged that Philip Morris
and Local 203 of the Tobacco Workers International Union discriminate
against Negroes, in violation of Title VII, by paying Negroes lower
wage rates for jobs which are on the same level as jobs that have
generally been reserved for white persons,
The EEOC found probable cause in both instances, thus setting the
stage for this: week's litigation,
The LDF has now filed 37 suits in behalf of Negroes alleging job
discrimination under Title VII.
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