LDF Requests 3-Judge Court for SCLC President (Abernathy) Riot Charge

Press Release
June 24, 1969

Cite this item

LDF Requests 3-Judge Court for SCLC President (Abernathy) Riot Charge preview

Document text

The following text has been generated automatically during the document scanning process. It may contain errors, omissions, or incorrect formatting. Please refer to the PDF document if this text is not usable.

Download

By downloading, publishing, or reusing the Materials outside of the Website, you hereby confirm and attest that you have read and agree to the LDF Archival Collection Terms of Use linked below. We draw your attention to the following:

For those Materials owned by LDF, your use of the Material outside the Site is solely for one or more of the following (the “Permitted Purposes”):

Non-commercial research and private study;
Teaching, scholarship and instruction (including distance learning);
Non-commercial print and non-commercial online use;
Criticism, comment or news reporting; or
For people with visual disabilities (See Section 121 of the Copyright Act).
For those Materials not owned by LDF you understand that:
- It is your responsibility to determine whether the way you plan to use the materials falls within the copyright exception of Fair Use.
- For any use outside of Fair Use, it is your responsibility to seek and obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders.

LDF hereby grants you the right to use LDF owned Materials for the Permitted Purposes without seeking further permission from LDF.

If you publish or redistribute any Materials (including excerpts and quotes), you must include a credit line and/or proper citation to the source of the Material. However, you may not use the name of LDF in any manner which creates any false association between you and LDF or that incorrectly implies any sponsorship or endorsement of you by LDF.

NOTICE: Uses that do not comply with these Terms or that do not fall under Fair Use (or another exception) may make you liable for copyright infringement.

Read the full LDF Archival Collection Terms of Use Here.

I agree to the terms and conditions for use of this content.

If you would like to use this content in other ways, contact us at .

Collection
- Press Releases
Creator
- LDF
Taxonomy
Identifier
- 15f2fa8e-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

Cite this item

Press Releases, Volume 6. LDF Requests 3-Judge Court for SCLC President (Abernathy) Riot Charge, 1969. 15f2fa8e-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/cf8c5022-6bbe-4c66-ab3e-5dd4ecea235c/ldf-requests-3-judge-court-for-sclc-president-abernathy-riot-charge. Accessed December 04, 2025.

Copied!

    3% 

June 24, 1969 

GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA--The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 
Fund, Inc. asked the U.S. District Court here today for the appoint- 
ment of a three-judge court to rule against the riot charge faced by 
Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, SCLC president and leader of the Charleston 
hospital strike. 

A three-judge court is necessary in Rev. Abernathy's case 
because under South Carolina law rioting is a statutory and common law 
offense. 

LDF also asked today that Rev. Abernathy be released either 
without bail or with nominal bail. 

Attorneys for the Legal Defense Fund, Melvyn Zarr and Fred Moore, 
argued that South Carolina's riot law is unconstitutional and that 
Rev. Abernathy's arrest, prosecution and high bail ($50,000) were 
designed to stifle civil rights advocacy in Charleston. 

High bail, the attorneys said, is being used as a repressive 
device to stop Rev. Abernathy from leading peaceful civil rights de- 
monstrations and to frighten off citizens of Charleston from joining 
the hospital workers' cause. 

=30%

Copyright notice

This collection and the tools to navigate it (the “Collection”) are available to the public for general educational and research purposes, as well as to preserve and contextualize the history of the content and materials it contains (the “Materials”). Like other archival collections, such as those found in libraries, LDF owns the physical source Materials that have been digitized for the Collection; however, LDF does not own the underlying copyright or other rights in all items and there are limits on how you can use the Materials. By accessing and using the Material, you acknowledge your agreement to the Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Materials.

Additional info

To the extent that LDF includes information about the Materials’ origins or ownership or provides summaries or transcripts of original source Materials, LDF does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy of such information, transcripts or summaries, and shall not be responsible for any inaccuracies.

LDF Requests 3-Judge Court for SCLC President (Abernathy) Riot Charge

Collection

Creator

Taxonomy

Identifier

Cite this item

Copyright notice

Additional info

You may also be interested in