Appeals Court Hears Defense Fund Attack Teacher Segregation
Press Release
November 5, 1964
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Press Releases, Volume 1. Appeals Court Hears Defense Fund Attack Teacher Segregation, 1964. b4e68266-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/b79996e9-3906-45a1-91fd-1ee4cf22a7fa/appeals-court-hears-defense-fund-attack-teacher-segregation. Accessed December 04, 2025.
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NAACP.
Legal Defense and Educational Fund
PRESS RELEASE Paes
President FOR RELEASE Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers Thireda
Director-Counsel ~ Tack Cocouihexy November 5, 1964
Associate Counsel nis
Constance Baker Motley $
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APPEALS COURT HEARS
“DEFENSE FUND ATTACK
HER SEGREGATION é
challenging the legality of continued
h Carolina public schools were argued
s for the Fourth Circuit here today by
‘attorneys.
BALTIMORE, Md.--Two ca
teacher segregation in
before the Court of Ajpp
NAACP Legal Defense Fun
Both appeals grew out of attempts by North Carolina Negroes..to
speed the desegregation process in Statesville and Buncombe County.
Legal Defense Fund lawyers James M, Nabrit III and Derrick A. Bell,
Jr. presented the arguments today.
The Legal Defense Fund attorneys have-both specialized in
school desegregation cases for many years, in addition to their
efforts to defend peaceful demonstrators, to end segregation in
hospitals, public facilities, and urban renewal projects and to
secure the enforcement of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Teacher assignment on the basis of race has been repeatedly
declared unconstitutional by other Federal Courts. Last spring
the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this view when it refused to consider
a similar case from Florida, thus supporting the Legal Defense
Fund's contention teacher segregation has ill effects on both the
pupils and their mentors,
The Statesville and Buncombe County cases are among 93 school
suits currently on the Legal Defense Fund docket. In each of the
cases argued today, issues other than teacher segregation were
considered as well,
In the Statesville action, Legal Defense Fund lawyers
challenged a lower court ruling that allowed the school board to
continue its policy of requiring Negroes to request transfers and
delaying action on numerous pending requests. This policy includes
the maintenance of dual school zones, a practice declared un-
constitutional five times by the Fourth Circuit in the last five
years,
In Buncombe County, where token integration is underway as in
Statesville, the Legal Defense Fund asked the Appeals Court to upset
a lower court order postponing high school desegregation. Buncombe
County has no high school for Negroes, who comprise but 24 per cent
of the school population.
Negroes of high school age have for years been forced to
attend a segregated school in Asheville. Legal Defense Fund
lawyers told the Court that in many instances this assignment :
involves trips of over 30 miles per day. ; i
Joining attorneys Nabrit and Bell for the Legal Defense Fund
were Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, and Melvyn Zarx of New York;
and J. LeVonne Chambers, Conrad O, Pearson, €alvin L. Brown,
Ruben J. Dailey, and Robert L. Harrell, all of North Carolina,
=30-
he
Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 Ss