Greenberg Statement on Anti-Integration Efforts, National Conference on School Integration Announcement

    Jack Greenberg 

23 
President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 
PRESS RELEASE Director Counsel 

egal efense und = February 27, 1970 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Director, Pape Relations 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 chess i ere 

Statement Jy Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel. 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 

The administration, senators, journalists and others recently 

have been speaking and acting against school integration. 

Various anti-racial balance, anti-bussing and parity of North- 

South treatmagt proposals are being advanced. Proposals are being 

~ advanced by Mississippians to treat the North and South alike - 

and one need not be very sophisticated to see that the nature and 

effect is to stop integration in the South, not promote it in the 

North. 

Without attempting to characterize motives behind this upsurge 

in anti-integration sentiment, the Legal Defense Fund wants to’ make 

clear that its commitment to, and programs for, school integration 

continue and will be intensified. 

The choice between so-called just plain good schools - which 

are segregated - and integrated schools is spurious. Spreading 

sparse resources all over the country instead of focusing on the 

South where government creates and maintains segregation, means 

nothing will be changed anywhere. 

Few people paid any attention to the quality of Negro education 

so long as black children were hidden away in segregated schools. 

And few will pay any attention to their education so long as they 

remain swept under the rug, out of the mainstream of general American 

education. 

But, quite apart from the considerable evidence showing 

integrated education produces better learning and the only equal 

sharing in the tangible aspects of schooling, such as books, 

buildings and dollars, there remains the moral question. Is this 

nation going to accept as its ideal the creation of separate racial 

enclaves, as in South Africa, or is it dedicated to working for 

the goal of one nation? 

Recognizing.that some have turned to separatism out of 

despair that a unitary society can ever be achieved, others have 

embraced it as a tactic to encourage progress toward integration, 

and some view it as an end in itself, we assert that a unitary 

school system does work, in many places is working, and that it 

can and must be achieved. 

On March 13 and 14 we are holding a national conference on 

school integration in Washington, D. C. at which several hundred 

cooperating lawyers, scholars and educators will develop techniques 

to deal with current developments. 

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NOTE: Please bear in mind that the LDF is a completely separate and 

distinct organization even though we were established by the NAACP 

and those initials are retained in our name. Our correct designation 

is NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., frequently shortened 

to LDF.