LDF Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Review Interstate Highway Construction in Nashville, Tenn.

    cl - 
7 rton. Fvanelé ERivede 

uN PRESS RELEASE Director Counsel 
egal efense lund Jack Greenberg 

Director, Public Relations NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 FOR RELEASE NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

MONDAY 
January 8, 1968 

LDF ASKS U.S. SUPREME COURT 
TO REVIEW INTERSTATE HIGHWAY 
CONSTRUCTION IN NASHVILLE, TENN. 

First Case To Reach High Court 

NATIONAL NEWS ANGLE: If successful, this case will open racially 
discriminatory aspects of federal highway 
planning and procedures to judicial review. 

WASHINGTON---The U.S. Supreme Court was asked to review construction 
of a portion of Interstate-40, which, if carried out, “would bring 
destruction and irreparable damage to Negro-owned businesses, colleges, 
universities, schools, churches, and residential areas" in Nashville, 
Tennessee. 

Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) asked the Court for an injunction restraining construction of 
a three-mile segment of the highway. 

The lawyers are acting in behalf of the Nashville I-40 Steering 
Committee, a group of Negro and white citizens formed to protect the 
North Nashville section of the city. 

Their complaint names Governor Buford Ellington, Highways Com- 
missioner Charles W. Spright, and Nashville Mayor Beverly Briley. 

LDF attorneys said in their brief that "there are 234 Negro- 
owned businesses in North Nashville, or more than 80 per cent of the 
Negro-owned and operated businesses in the entire county. 

“These businesses have capital assets of about $4,680,000.00 and 
an annual gross volume of business averaging $11,700,000.00. 

"The undisputed evidence," the LDF continued, “was that vir- 
tually all these Negro businesses will either be destroyed or 
seriously damaged by the proposed route...." 

"Relocation," the Court was advised, "will be impossible for 
many of the businesses because there is little other commercially 
zoned property in Negro area and racial discrimination will bar them 
from white areas." 

Three Negro institutions of higher learning, Fisk University, 
Meharry Medical College, and Tennessee A&I State University, will also 
be damaged by the highway plans, the lawyers said. 

The interstate route will separate Tennessee A&I State University 
on the northwest from Fisk and Meharry on the northeast. 

Tennessee A&I will be isolated in a narrow strip between I-40 
ynd the Cumberland River. 

Fisk and Meharry would be isolated between I-40 and the indus- 
trial and downtown sector to the south. 

Major arterial routes planned in connection with the interstate 
highway will further damage the institutions by separating Fisk and 
Meharry and channeling heavy traffic through their campus areas,’ the 
brief added. 

The highway, the brief went on, will limit the effectiveness of 
a new neighborhood health center pianned by Meharry Medical College 

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LDF ASKS U.S, SUPREME COURT 
TO REVIEW INTERSTATE HIGHWAY 
CONSTRUCTION IN NASHVILLE, TENN. 2= January 8, 1968 

in that it would be cut off from the population it is slated to serve. 

In contrast, the lawyers observed, the effects of the highway 
program on white institutions was carefully appraised. 

In short, the LDF told the Court that: 

* the Federal Highway Act requires that state highway departments 
consider adverse economic effects on local communities as a 
determining factor in plotting highway routes. Tennessee, they 
maintain, did not; 

* no adequate public hearing was held to discuss construction 
plans prior to their approval and implementation; 

* the highway was discriminatorily routed through the Negro 
district, denying due process and equal protection of the law 
as required under the 14th Amendment. 

LDF attorney Avon Williams is the local counsel. He is joined 
by LDF Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III, Charles 
H. Jones, Jr., and Michael Davidson, all of New York City, and Charles 
L. Black, Jr., of New Haven. 

=50= 

NOTE: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is a 
separate and distinct organization from the NAACP, serving as the 
legal arm of the entire civil rights movement and representing members 
of all groups as well as unaffiliated individuals.