Memorandum

    PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
1OCOLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

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

October 9, 1963, 

MEMORANDUM. 

TO: NEWS EDITORS AND WRITERS 

FROM: Jesse DeVore, Director of Public Information 
New York: Days JUdson 6-8397 

Evenings - RI 9-8487 

Washington, D.C. -(October 14 and 15) 
Statler-Hylton Hotel, 
Phone: (Area Code 202) EXecutive 3-1000, 

SUBJECT: Supreme Court begins New Term with five sit-in cases, 
during which attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense 
Fund will present argument, which, if successful, will 
vindicate thousands of sit-in demonstrators and cast 
a new light on the issue of public aeccemmodations, 

BACKGROUND _ 

Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund will argue three 
sit-in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court beginning this Monday 
morning October 14; they are of counsel in a fourth case; and are 
working cooperatively with lawyers in a fifth. 

All five will be heard successively with six and a half hours 
of argument expected to conclude Tuesday, according to Jack Green- 
berg, director-counsel of the Fund, 

The cases involve Negro student demonstrators who protested 
against discriminatory public accommodations in South Carolina and 
Maryland (two cases from each) and Florida. 

Although presented in a single brief, the three NAACP Legal 
Defense Fund cases will be argued by three noted civil rights 
attorneys: 

Charles F, Rarr, et al, v. City of Columbia, South Carolina, 
will be argued by Matthew J. Perry of Columbia; Simon Bouie and 
Talmadge J. Neal v, City of Columbia, South Carolina, will be argued 
by Constance Baker Motley, associate-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense 
Fund; and, Robert Mack Bell, et al., v. Maryland, will be argued 
by Mr. Greenberg. aes 

- _(See biographical notes attached) 

This is the third year that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 
a separate corporation from the NAACP, has defended sit-in demon- 
strators before the High Court, 

The Fund, which serves as the legal arm of the entire civil 
rights movement, is currently defending 7,500 persons involved in 
124 separate civil rights actions involving all the major civil 
rights groups, 

more, 



Sit-in cases before Supreme Court 

NEWS ANGLE 

There are three unique factors in this collective brief, 
which was prepared by a battery of 18 lawyers: 

(1) The pin pointing of state responsibility in the maze of 
arguments on private property rights, etc, 

(2) Assistance of four noted legal scholars in preparing the 
brief, including Richard R. Powell, leading authority on 
property, 

(3) Citing of the laws of 14 other nations, 

But, perhaps the point of hardest news will be the argument 
which urges that southern states should take affirmative steps to 
protect Negroes seeking equality in public accommodations, 

The brief points out the improbability of punishment for 
sit-in type conduct in any of the Western European democracies or 
in England or any of the British Commonwealth nations. 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys further point out that the 
states have affirmative responsibility to protect equal rights of 
citizens and argue that the southern states have not met this 
responsibility when they allow lunch counter segregation. 

The brief also urges that while constitutional prohibitions 
against racial discrimination must be applied to the public life of 
the community they need not govern the private and personal lives of 
citizens, 

Three patterns, by which southern states (South Cazolina and 
Maryland in this instance) deny Negroes equal justice, are summarized 
in the brief filed Tuesday, August 27, 1963, 

* State courts and public officials “are employed to enforce 
a scheme of racial discrimination originating in a nominally ‘private’ 
choice," 

* "Where a nominally "private' act or scheme of racial dis- 
crimination is performed,..because of the influence of custom, and 
where such custom has been in turn, in significant part, created or 
maintained by formal law.” 

* Where laws are maintained that place "a higher value on a 
narrow property claim" than on the claim of Negroes "to move about 
free from inconvenience and humiliation of racial discrimination," 

The Legal Defense Fund is urging that sourthern states have im- 
properly decided to back store owners who cite local custom and state 
laws calling for jim crow treatment of Negroes. 

The attorneys said "maintaining a 'narrow' property right, 
which consists of nothing but the exclusion of Negroes" should not 
be allowed "to justify a state in knowing support of public dis- 
crimination," 

The brief further stated that "it is scandalous that states 
impose the burdens of state citizenship on Negroes, and benefiting 
from the imposition on them of the duties of federal citizenship, 
not only should fail to protect them in their right to be treated 
equally in fully public places, but should instead place the weight 
of law behind their humiliation," 

It was stressed in the brief that "the records in these cases 
affirmatively establish that no private or personal associational 
interest is at stake," 

more. 



Sit-in cases before Supreme Court 

"This is obvious on the face of it: the relation involved 
is that of a restaurant-keeper to a casual customer," 

The attorneys continued saying that "the events and the 
issues in these cases are in the fully public rather than in 
private life, 

"A restaurant is a public place, contrasting totally with 
the home and other traditional citadels of privacy," 

Moving to the charge that the sit-ins students provoked 
breach of the peace, the brief said "there was no showing of any 
act of violence and there was no showing of any act ‘likely to 
produce violence," 

The Legal Defense Fund lawyers took exception to the theory 
that the "possibility that the mere presence of Negroes in a place 
customarily frequented only by white persons is punishable as a 
threat to peace," 

They quickly added that such could not be so, due to the 
equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. 

Joining the NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys in prepara- 
tion of the brief were four internationally noted legal scholars: 
Professor-Emeritus Richard R, Powell, Columbia University Law 
School, and author of the widely acclaimed and used treatise "Real 
Property", 

He was also reporter on property for the American Law 
Institute's "Restatement of Property", Long recognized as a 
leading expert in this legal speciality, Dr. Powell now teaches at 
Hasting College of Law, San Francisco, California. 

Also assisting on the brief was Professor Hans Smit of 
Columbia University, a Member of the Bar, Supreme Court of the 
Netherlands; Professor Charles L. Black, the Henry R. Luce Professor 
of Jurisprudence, Yale University; and Louis L. Pollak, Professor 
of Law, Yale University. 

NAACP Legal Defense lawyers on the brief included Jack 
Greenberg, Constance Baker Motley, James M. Nabrit, III, Derrick A, 
Bell, Leroy D, Clark, Michael Meltsner and Inez V. Smith, all of 
New York, 

Also Juanita Jackson Mitchell, and Tucker R. Dearing, 
Maryland; Joseph L, Rauh and John Silard, Washington, D.C.; 
William T. Coleman, Jr,, Pennsylvania; Matthew J, Perry and 
Lincoln C, Jenkins, South Carolina, 

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