LDF Wins Supreme Court Order for Feb. 1 School Integration
Press Release
January 17, 1970

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Press Releases, Volume 6. LDF Wins Supreme Court Order for Feb. 1 School Integration, 1970. 59e169f1-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/c602bf15-646e-410b-afa5-e83e1643acc5/ldf-wins-supreme-court-order-for-feb-1-school-integration. Accessed June 17, 2025.
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ar President Hon. Francis E. Rivers PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel egal fefense und Jack Greenberg NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. pir Sl ct 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 » JUdson 6-8397 oe ele FOR RELEASE SATURDAY January 17, 1970 LDF WINS SUPREME COURT ORDER FOR FEB.1 SCHOOL INTEGRATION WASHINGTON, D.C.---"No waiting until next September" was the reaction of LDF attorneys to this week's Supreme Court ruling ordering public school desegregation in five hard core southern states. Responding to a petition by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educa- tional Fund, Inc. (LDF) involving 11 school districts, the High Court reversed a decision by the U.S, Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and ordered pupil integration by February 1, 1970 instead of the following September. Directly affected are 14 school districts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. LDF Associate Counsel James M. Nabrit III, who supervised the staff work, said: “We understand today's Supreme Court opinion to mean that it is no longer proper to wait until next September to carry out desegre- gation, and school districts must act during this school year to effect integration. "The LDF will take prompt action in the lower courts to insure that the Supreme Court's mandate is carried out in our eleven school @istricts involved in today's order and will take similar action in a@ large number of our 217 school cases in the South." *The latest Supreme Court action, a follow-up to its October 29 speed-up ruling in another LDF action, came from a petition filed on December 19, 1969 involving 10 school cases from Jackson, Marshall County and Holly Springs, Mississippi. In addition were cases from Jefferson County, Bessemer, and Mobile County, Alabama; Burke, Bibb County, and Houston County, Georgia, Bay County and Alachua County in Florida were also among the school districts named. A team of 25 attorneys pulled the case together in one week's time under Mr. Nabrit's direction. Members of the winning legal team are: LDF Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, Associate Counsel James M. Nabrit III, First Assistant Counsel Norman C. Amaker, Assistant Counsels Melvyn Zarr, Michael Davidson, William Robinson, Jonathan Shapiro, Norman J. Chachkin, and Drew Days--all of the LDF New York headquarters. Other attorneys involved are LDF cooperating lawyers Oscar W. Adams, Jr. and U.W. Clemon of Birmingham, Ala.; David H. Hood, Jr. of Bessemer, Ala; Vernon Z. Crawford and Frankie Fields of Mobile, Ala; Reuben V. Anderson, Fred L. Banks, Jr., Melvyn Leventhal of Jackson, Miss.; Louis R. Lucas of Memphis, Tenn.; John H. Ruffin, Jr. of Augusta, Ga.; Thomas M. Jackson of Macon, Ga.; Theodore R. Bowers of Panama City, Fla.; Earl M. Johnson and Reese Marshall of Jacksonville. Fla. John L. Maxey II and Stanley L. Taylor of the North Mississippi Rural Legal Services Program in Holly Springs, Mississippi, also joined the legal team. =30-