Remarks of Jack Greenberg on the Role of the LDF

    The caseload and legal staff of the NAACP Legal Defense and 

Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) showed continued growth during 1966-- 

dramatizing the LDF's role as the legal arm of the entire civil rights 

movement, 

However, a major expansion of the LDF's 1 emphasis has taken 
place with regard to legal services for the poor of all races. 

The LDF, during the past year, initiated a major program to bring 
equal protection of the laws to millions of Americans--Negro, white, 
Spanish-speaking, and Indian--whose economic dependence precludes their 
effective participation in society, and who are often victimized by 
policies and practices ostensibly designed to alleviate their difficult 

situations, 

The new program has two basic premises: 

* that the poor should enjoy the same legal rights as anyone else 
* and that the state and local governments should not make racial 

distinctions in providing welfare, housing and other public 

services, 

The LDF in 1966 brought actions in the courts and before adminis- 
trative agencies dealing with rights to counsel and to bail, protection 
from arbitrary evictions and from capricious or discriminatory application 
of welfare regulations, and other fundamental guarantees, 

These issues are legally undeveloped. As with civil rights in the 
1930's, when the LDF was founded, precedent must be made upon sound legal 
foundation. This increases the importance of planning and nationwide — 
coordination of the efforts of the private attorneys, Legal Aid Societies, 
law schools, and government-sponsored neighborhood law offices, 

A one million dollar grant in November--largest single grant in 
civil rights history--was given to the LDF by the Ford Foundation for 
establishment of the National Office for the Rights of the Indigent. 

A gli e of the litigation affecting rights of the poor which was 
underway at the close of the year offers insight as to just how quickly 
the new program got underway: 

* Pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, a suit by a Durham, N.C., 

mother of three who received a fifteen-day eviction notice from 
a low income housing project, without a hearing, the day after 



Py 

ant group; 

rn, N.C., Housing Authority 

attacking excessive rents, mandatory leases, in which tenants 

sign away virtually all legal rights, segregated housing pro- 

jects, and the eviction and denial of admission of women who 

have had illegitimate children (and thus need public assistance 

more); 

* A Georgia suit contesting the constitutionality of the "employable 

mother" welfare rule, under which need for supplemental aid is 

determined by irrational criteria, and payments to Negro mothers 

are stopped when county officials decide that "suitable jobs"' 

--domestic work, pecan and cotton picking--are available (these 

jobs are not deemed "suitable" for white welfare recipients); 

* A complaint to HEW of national importance, seeking to end the 

"man in the house rule," under which Aid to Dependent Children 

is cut off if a recipient has a (vaguely defined) relationship 

with a man, who has no legal responsibility for the children. 

Here the LDF charged that the rule subverts the purposes of the 

Social Security Act, is unconstitutionally vague, and allows 

for unconstitutional invasions of privacy. 

* A suit seeking to establish the right of indigents to counsel in 

cases involving a misdemeanor. 

Other practices to be attacked in future suits include excessive 

credit rates, consumer frauds, arbitrary denial of assistance to 

participants in civil rights action, garnishing of wages without a 

hearing, exploitation of migrant farm laborers, and disregard for 

procedural fairness in governmental dealings with poor people. 



EXPANSION 

Returning to the other areas of the LDF's program, our caseload 

rose from 375 to 420 separate cases (up 11 per cent); our legal 

staff from 17 to 28 full time lawyers (up 39 per cent); and, our 

roster of cooperating attorneys rose from 187 to 250 (up 25 per 

cent). 

Our budget remained at $2,000,000.00. 

We cite these figures in the context of 1966 being "remembered 

as the year when the civil rights bandwagon came to a sudden halt.” 

EDUCATION 

z As in past years, education continued as a major area of 

activity for the civil rights lawyer. To speed the process of 

school integra tion, "LDF at -orneys represented, through 189 school 

suits in 13 states, the interests of two million children still 

confined in jim crow schools." 

Our field program -- the educational facet of our work -- 

"aided thousands of parents io transfer their children to newly 

integrating schools" and worked with the Department of Health, 

Education and Welfare. 

However, we point out that in "absolute numbers (because of 

population growth), more Negro children attend segregated schools 

now than in 1954." 

This is because the "methods of tokenism are many and varied." 

Most desegregation plans -- called "freedom of choice" -- put "the 

entire burden of transfer on the often vulnerable Negro parents." 

JUSTICE 

As knowledgeable Americans realize, justice is often contingent 

upon social and economic standing. The poor in general and Negroes 

in particular "are often subject to discriminatory treatment that 

mocks the norms of American law." 



Included in our legal victories in this. area during 1966, 

were: 

* Alabama Justices of the Peace were prohibited from 

personally collecting fines they levy, thus taking 

the profit out of prosecuting civil rights workers 

* Plorida was ordered to desegregate its jails and 

reform schools 

* A Texas court ruled that juveniles must be given 

fair notice of charges when arrested 

The death penalty, for the crime of rape -- when a life is not 

taken -- seems to be reserved exclusively for Negro men who rape 

white southern women. 

A de€isive step forward occurred during 1966 when the U. S. 

Supreme Court was asked to order lower courts to hear LDF evidence, 

gathered in an extensive survey of 2,600 rape cases in 11 southern 

states at a cost of nearly $100,000.00. 

(The high court subsequently did send cases back for ae 

sideration.) 

Other issues of criminal law -- affecting all citizens —— 

were raised by LDF litigation: 

% the rights of indigents to counsel in misdemeanor 

cases y 

* whether the right to counsel should include investi- 

gative, medical, and other services 

* protection for persons arrested for "status crimes” 

-- like vagrancy -- which often amounts to arbitrary 

preventive detention 

* the right of indigent accused to be released on 

some condition other than bail before trial 

* protection from arbitrary practices in juvenile 

courts 

* the rights of prisoners and ex-convicts in parole 

proceedings 

% the right to rational, objective sentencing 



HEALTH 

Despite the clear provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 

1964, thousands of medical facilities in southern and border 

states segregate or exclude Negro patients, physicians, 

dentists and nurses--or provide them with blatantly inferior 

services. 

The LDF prosecuted, during 1966, fifteen precedent setting 

cases in six states and processed some 400 complaints with the 

Department of Health, Education and Welfare, in an effort to 

halt this discrimination. 

"So long as the government refuses to appropriate funds 

sufficient to implement its own legislation, the LDF will 

continue to increase its involvement in suits to stop 

practices that amount to discriminatory imposition of disease, 

disability, and death on Negro citizens." 

LEGAL TRAINING 

We have always been hampered by the crucial shortage of 

civil rights attorneys in the south. We were able to expand 

our Mississippi legal team from three to six, as a result of 

our legal intern program. In the fall of 1966, we started 

five new interns, two of whom will join our Mississippi staff 

at the end of their one year training period in our New York 

office. Our intern program--only one of its kind--is greatly 

responsible for our increased case load. 

Our Civil Rights Law Institutes--week end law schools 

conducted by some of the nation's top constitutional law 

experts--were held five times during 1964. 

As the year ended, public defenders from across the 

country began to 

outreach of the LDF. 



As knowledge of of securi s spreads, with great 

assistance from rapidly expanding community education field 

staff, nts of job bias are being filled with the 

Equal ployment Opportunity Commission. 

By the end of the year, the LDF was representing plaintiffs 

in thirty suits in nine states. The federal government, as the 

year ended, had filed none. 

Our attorneys fought industrial giants such as U.S. Steel, 

Philip Morris, Sears Roebuck & Company, etc. Also unions such 

as the United Steelworkers of America and the Brotherhood of 

Railway Carmen of America, and the United Mineworkers of America.