Justice Black Denies Stay in Rights Act Enforcement
Press Release
August 15, 1964

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Press Releases, Volume 1. Justice Black Denies Stay in Rights Act Enforcement, 1964. 2cda4230-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/ada88e72-4971-45e3-91b7-653fc6fb94ee/justice-black-denies-stay-in-rights-act-enforcement. Accessed August 19, 2025.
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10 Columbus Circle New York, N.Y. 10019 JUdson 6-8397 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund PRESS RELEASE i De. Allan Kiught Chabuars FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Director-Counsel ack Greenberg August 15, 1964 Cou Constance Baker Motley JUSTICE BLACK DENIES STAY IN RIGHTS ACT ENFORCEMENT Atlantans Must Integrate or Close Washington, D.C.--Justice Hugo L, Black this week (August 10) refused to issue an injunction that would have delayed enforce- ment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Seeking the order were Lester Maddox, owner of Atlanta's Pickrick Restaurant, and Moreton Rolleston Jr., owner of the Heart of Atlanta motel. NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys © handled the suit against Mr. Maddox, while the U.S. Department of Justice was responsible in the companion case. The suit against Mr. Maddox was the nation's first court test seeking enforcement of Title Two of the new legislation. It was filed by Fund Cooperating Attorney William Alexander and argued by Jack Greenberg, director counsel and Constance Baker Motley, associate counsel. Mr. Rolleston, who filed suit testing the public accom- modations section of the new law the day President Johnson signed it, said he would comply with Justice Black's order. But, Mr. Maddox, who chased three Negroes from his prem- ises at gun point, said his establishment would never inte- grate, Director-counsel Greenberg said the Legal Defense Fund is prepared to respond to Mr. Maddox's appeal when it comes before the Supreme Court in the fall. Justice Black urged that the cases be expedited so that they be decided soon after the Court reconvenes, The segregationists had sought to nullify the effect of a three-judge court's July 22nd ruling in which the Fund and the Justice Department were upheld in their contention that the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act are constitutional. In another development, the Legal Defense Fund also won its second suit testing the new law last week, when a federal court in Jacksonville ordered the integration of 17 St. Augustine, Fla motels and restaurants. The court also told the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups to refrain from interference with the peaceful enjoyment of legal rights. Currently,several Legal Defense Fund suits are underway and in preparation in numerous localities throughout the south. Most of them follow the pattern of the St. A stine case, where white racists threatened businessmen who integrated their estab- lishments,with reprisals, 2308S Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Publie Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487