Legal Defense Fund Sues 55 Louisiana Parishes to End School Bias
Press Release
February 20, 1965
Cite this item
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Press Releases, Volume 2. Legal Defense Fund Sues 55 Louisiana Parishes to End School Bias, 1965. c73f1faf-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/a1614e0a-4969-4783-8433-79cc45bbd41e/legal-defense-fund-sues-55-louisiana-parishes-to-end-school-bias. Accessed November 23, 2025.
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NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund
PRESS RELEASE
President
Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers
Director-Counsel
Jack Greenberg
Associate Counsel
Constance Baker Motley FOR RELEASE
Saturday,
February 20, 1965
LEGAL DEFENSE FUND SUES
55 LOUISIANA PARISHES
TO END SCHOOL BIAS
BATON ROUGE, La.---Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, in an
unprecedented move, filed suit against segregation in Louisiana's
entire public school system here this week.
All of Louisiana's 55 parishes (counties) are cited.
The U.S. District Court received a request for a "preliminary
and permanent injunction restraining" the State Board of Education
of Louisiana from continuing a “racially-segregated school system."
: This pioneering suit, which eventually seeks to speed up the
lagging pace of school integration across the south, marks the first
time the Legal Defense Fund has sued an entire state school system.
The Legal Defense Fund told the court that the “enjoining of
the use of funds to perpetuate racially-segregated school systems is
the approach and purpose of this action.
Legal Defense Fund attorneys are assisting the NAACP State
Conference of branches.
A. M, Trudeau, A. P. Tureaud, Ernest N. Morial, Jesse N. Stone,
Lionel R. Collins and Marion O. White---all Louisiana attorneys,
were joined by Legal Defense Fund Director-Counsel, Jack Greenberg
and Norman C. Amaker of New York City in this suit.
The attorneys, acting in behalf of 21 Negro children and eight
Negro parents, asked the District Court to convene a three-judge
court,
Also, that the case be advanced on the docket, a speedy hearing
held and finally, that the Court issue an order stopping the State
Board of Education of Louisiana from maintaining jim crow schools.
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Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Night Number 212 ide 9-8487 Ss