Mississippi Transportation and Louisiana Demonstration Cases Appealed by NAACP Legal Defense Fund

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Student Activists Lead in the Fight for Civil Rights

    "PRESS RELEASE ® 8 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 

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

Ss 

MISSISSIPPI TRANSPORTATION AND 
LOUISIANA DEMONSTRATION CASES 

APPEALED BY NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND April 17, 1963 

NEW YORK -- Two cases were appealed to higher courts this week by 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys. 

The first is an appeal of the conviction of Dion Diamond of the 

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee for "disturbing the peace" 

in Baton Rouge, La. in January 1962, 

The second case asked for effective relief in a Jackson, Miss. 

transportation case which has been pending in the Federal District 

Court of Judge Sidney Mize since March 1962. 

Diamond's appeal asks the United States Supreme Court to hear 

his case. His conviction and sentence of 60 days and $100 fine has 

been upheld in Louisiana courts. 

Diamond was arrested on February 1, 1962, after making speeches 

for three days at Southern University in Baton Rouge encouraging 

students to miss classes as an expression of sympathy with students 

who had demonstrated against segregation in December 1961 and suf- 

fered reprisals from University officials. 

Diamond served almost a month of his sentence, and was finally 

released from jail in March after a demonstration on his behalf by 

other students in the office of Attorney General Robert Kennedy in 

Washington. An original charge of "criminal anarchy" was dropped. 

The brief submitted to the Supreme Court by Legal Defense Fund 

attorney James M, Nabrit, III argues that Diamond was convicted for 

engaging in his constitutionally protected right of free speech under 

a law too vague and indefinite to provide due process of law. 

"It is submitted that petitioner's (Diamond's) advocacy that 

students voluntarily attending a public University refuse to attend 

classes as a form of protest was a form of speech on public issues 

which a state cannot prohibit," the brief states. "There was no evi- 

dence that petitioner was ever ordered not to enter the campus, or 



Appeals - 2 

to leave it, and no evidence that he was ever told that he could not 

make speeches on the campus or that he needed any permission to do 

so." 

In the Jackson transportation case, the U. S. Court of Appeals 

for the Fifth Circuit (which ordered James Meredith's admission to 

the University of Mississipoi last summer) has been asked by Legal 

Defense Fund attorney Derrick Bell, Jr. to grant: (1) an injunction 

against state and private agencies in Mississippi which continue to 

sagregate transportation facilities, and (2) make the relief apply 

to not only the three original plaintiffs but to all Negroes, as was 

requested in the complaint. 

The case was filed in the Federal District Court in Jackson on 

June 9, 1961, asking for an end to all segregated transportation 

facilities, at the time when the Freedom Rides were at their height. 

The case went through several complicated legal maneuvers before 

Judge Sidney Mize ruled on May 3, 1962, that the three litigants had 

a personal right to unsegreqated transportation service, but Negroes 

as a class did not. 

In subsequent proceedings Legal Defense Fund attorneys asked the 

Judge to amend his findings alleging that segregated facilities had 

not ceased in Jackson, and that racial signs had not been removed. 

On August 24, 1962, Judce Mize again held that each of the three 

litigants -- Samuel Bailey, Joseph Broadwater and Burnett L, Jacob -- 

could use the facilities of airline, railway or bus terminals on an 

unsegregated basis, but refused to issue an injunction against the 

defendants, and refused to declare class relief fer other Neyro 

citizens. 

Attorneys for the Legal Defense Fund in the Bailey case are 

R. Jess Brown of Vicksburg, Miss., Constance Baker Motley, Jack 

Greenberg and Derrick A. Bell, Jr. of New York City. Attorneys in 

the Diamond case are Jchnnie A. Jones of Baton Kouge, La., Jack 

Greenberg and James M. Nabrit, III of New York City. 

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