Civil Rights Attorneys Ask Protection of Negro Nurses

    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 
JUdson 6-8397 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
Hon Francis E. Rivers 
Director-Counsel 

Jack Greenberg 

FOR RELEASE 
MEMORANDUM Monday, 

March 7, 1966 
TO: VIRGINIA WORKING PRESS 
FROM: Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director Public Information 

CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEYS ASK 
PROTECTION OF NEGRO NURSES 

$585,000.00 For New Construction Pending 

RICHMOND, VA,---Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund will appear in the U. S. Court of Appeals here 
Monday in behalf of three Negro nurses fired two years ago for 
eating in the "white" cafeteria of Dixie Hospital in Hampton, 
Virginia. 

Dixie Hospital is currently awaiting action on its Federal 
application for an additional $585,000.00 for new construction, 

The Court will be asked to decide if Negro nurses are 
protected by the Constitution with regard to racial discrimination 
with hospitals receiving Federal monies under the Hill-Burton Act. 

The attorneys will argue that Dixie Hospital "received Federal 
funds in 1956, seven years before the racial discharge" after 
promising that it would not "discriminate on basis of race, creed 
or color," 

Negro nurses across the South generally work for less money 
than their white counterparts; are given separate facilities; 
assigned the less desirable work; and, are confined to Negro wards, 
for the most part, 

The nurses in this case, Mildred Smith, Agnes L. Stokes and 
Patricia L. Taylor were among Dixie Hospital's Negro employees 
forced to eat in a converted classroom, while white employees used 
a new caféteria. 

"In order to dine in this room (classroom) Negro employees had 
to telephone their orders for food service to the cafeteria and wait 
until the food was delivered.... 

"This procedure resulted in cold food and delays which 
exhausted the 30-minute lunch period." 

Nurse Smith explained that the classroom seated 35 persons, 
but because there are "over 100 Negro personnel who must eat there, 
the room is frequently crowded and persons must wait their turn for 
available chairs, 

"This, combined with the necessity of leaving the main 
cafeteria and walking to the small room, necessitates rushing our 
lunch.... 

"In addition, Nurse Smith asserts, "the humiliation we ex- 
perience when we see white persons, some of them maintenance 
personnel in dirty working clothes, seated in the main cafeteria, 
while we are forced to leave, because of our color, is impossible 
to explain." 

The three nurses involved in the suit decitled to eat in the 
"white cafeteria on August 8th and August 9th, They were fired on 
the 9th. 

However, according to the Department of Health, Education 
and Welfare, as of July 13, 1965, "the hospital is not in 
compliance with Title VI, particularly in the areas of patient 
assignment to rooms and use of separate admission lists for Negro 
and white patients," 

Dixie Hospital received a Federal grant of $1,730,000 in 
1956 for construction purposes, and has received substantial amounts 
since. 

=30= a 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 So