LDF Report Vol. III, No. 2

This item is featured in:

National Guard Deployed: Safeguarding Democracy or Serving Autocracy?

    EPO T THE N.A.A.C.P. LEGAL DEFENSE 

AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
VOL. Il, No. 2 JUNE, 1965 

Selma, Ala., March 7: State troopers turn back first attempt of civil 

rights demonstrators to march to Montgomery, Selma’s “bloody Sunday.” 

THE N.A.A.C.P. LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. 

10 Corumsus Circie, New Yorn 19, N.Y. 



A 
Note on NAACP Legal Defense Fund Program 

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund was 
founded a quarter of a century ago by distinguished board 
members of the NAACP. It is a separate corporation, but 
it shares the same goals as the NAACP and we have, through 
the days of Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall, and today, 
always worked intimately together. 

Through its experience and expertise, the Legal 
Defense Fund, with a staff of 17 full-time lawyers, 120 
cooperating lawyers, and a budget of $1.5 million per year, 
has become the legal arm of the civil rights movement. 

On the many occasions that Martin Luther King, 
James Farmer, James Foreman, and other civil rights leaders 
have been in jail,we have represented them and secured their 
release, The same is true of thousands of persons with no 
organizational affiliation at all. But the NAACP always 
has been, and will remain, the dominant civil rights force 
in America. 

Overall legal consultation between the Fund and 
the national NAACP is effected through a joint liaison 
committee consisting of lawyers who are members of the 
boards of the Association and the Fund, and a number of 
legal scholars. The committee is chaired by William R. 
Ming of Chicago and Dr. James M. Nabrit, Jr., President 
of Howard University. 

Any legal work in support of civil rights must 
and -will be conducted in close coordination with the Asso- 
ciation. 

The following pages briefly describe a few of 
the instances in which NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers 
have Worked in support of NAACP branch and national pro- 
grams: 

Jack Greenberg 
Director-Counsel 

Summer 1965 



NAACP BRANCHES ARE LEADERS IN 
SOUTHERN SCHOOL DESEGREGATION 

NEW YORK CITY--Although none of the civil rights organiza- 
tions are satisfied with the snail's pace of Southern school 
desegregation, the fact remains that NAACP branches, repre- 
sented by Legal Defense Fund lawyers, have produced almost 
all of the progress that has occurred to date. 

Of the 130 Fund cases now pending in the courts, 
close to 90% are actions initiated, fought, and followed- 
up by local branches. 

According to Legal Defense Fund Attorney, Derrick 
Bell, Jr., local leaders are involved in a series of indis- 
pensable activities, without which it would be impossible 
to bring a desegregation suit to a successful conclusion. 

Mr. Bell said these activities include: 

* Initiating the original complaint with 
the Board of Education; 

* Obtaining the facts relative to the 
school system and its patterns of deli- 
berate and de facto school segregation; 

* Obtaining witnesses within the local 
community; 

* Finding people, who are willing to under- 
go the threats and intimidations that 
often occur, to sign the complaint; 

* Reporting to the attorneys any signi- 
ficant changes in the local situation 
that could effect the nature of the lit- 
igation or strategy used; 

vincing Negro parents to send their chil- 
dren to previously all-white schools after 
the court victory is won. 

# * And, assuming the responsibility of con- 



In Leake’County, Mississippi, a typical example, 
it took nearly two years to accomplish the many steps in 
the school desegregation procedure. This might seem like 
a long time. However, with the harrassments, intimidations, 
and evasive tactics used in most Southern communities, it is 
quite an accomplishment. 

To hasten the desegregation procedure, the NAACP 
Legal Defense Fund is now bringing boards of education of 
the various states into court. 

POLICE RAIDS BEING FOUGHT 
BY ATTORNEYS IN BALTIMORE 

BALTIMORE, Maryland--NAACP Conference President, Juanita 
Jackson Mitchell and Tucker R. Dearing have been joined by 
Legal Defense Fund Attorney, James iM. Nabrit, III and are 
currently appealing an action to gain an injunction against 
alleged "abusive" actions of the Baltimore police. 

Earlier this year, more ane 300 searches of 
Negro homes, churches, and public places were triggered 
by holdup of Luxie's Liquor Store, resulting i n the shoot- 
ing of Lt. Joseph Maskell and the slaying of Sat. Jack 
Cooper. Both were white police officers. The Baltimore 
police conducted a wild search for Samuel and Earl Veney, 
who were accused of conducting the holdup and shooting. 
The two Negroes were apprehended in New York, later. 

Baltimore NAACP and NAACP Legal Defense Fund 
Attorneys, representing several Negro citizens, protested 
searches that "were arbitrary and unreasonable." They 
complained that the Beltimore police: 

* Did not obtain warrants for any of 
the 300 searches 

* Beat upon the front door of the 
homes of the plaintiffs with loud 
banging noises in‘the early morn- 
ing hours 

* Focused the beams of strong search 
lights upon Negro homes. 



With drawn guns, the police gained entrance and; 

* Aroused the plaintiffs from their 
sleep, caused them to rise from 
their beds, and placed them and 
their children in great fear. 

* They searched all rooms and clo- 
sets of the houses, including the 
basements and left without any 
word of explanation for their 
actSe.ee 

* Failed to charge the plaintiffs 
with any crime or offense. 

: Many Negroes believe that this type conduct, 
during a search, is only sanctioned“when it is within a 
Negro area. 

Commenting on the statement by Commissioner of 
Police, Bernard C. Schmidt, defendant in the action, when he 

said the Negroes, who had been searched, showed “excellent 
cooperation," a. local newspaper editorial said: 

"It is the same kind of ‘excellent cooperation’ 
the Jews gave to Hitler's storm troopers when they came with 
pistols, shotguns, and machine guns and violated their rights." 

AKRON BRANCH AND LEGAL DEFENSE FUND 
IN NEW DRIVE AGAINST HOUSING BIAS 

CLEVELAND, Ohio--Discriminatory practices of the 1,800 mem- 
ber Akron Area Board of Realtors were attacked in Federal 
District Court here by attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense 
Fund at request of the Akron Branch, NAACP. 

The attorneys assert that the realtors "have en- 
gaged in an unlawful combination and conspiracy in restraint 
of interstate trade and commerce." 

Therefore, in the first suit of its kind, Legal 
Defense and Branch lawyers asked the Federal District Court 
that the Board be "permanently enjoined and restrained" 
because its members are operating in violation 6f Section I 
of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. 

4 



To this:end, the Realtors are charged with, among 
other charges: 

* Falsely informing Negroes that whites 
would not sell to them; 

* Refusing their services to Negroes 
desirous of living in areas'the 
Realtors have delineated as “white” 
neighborhoods; 

* Refusing to show property to Negroes 
after purporting to accept it on an 

“open" basis; 

* Excluding Negro real estate brokers 
from the advantages and opportunities 
associated with membership in the Akron 
Area Board of Realtors; 

* Discouraging out-of-state Negroes from 
moving to the Akron area because they 
have been unable to buy or rent. 

Filed along with the complaint was a motion asking 
that the court order the Board and the real estate firms to 
submit all papers and records pertinent to Negro attempts to 
purchase or rent homes, all documents referring to the 1964 
Ordinance and referendum, and many other records. 

Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel of the NAACP 
Legal Defense Fund, led a group of lawyers including James 
M. ‘Nabrit, III, Leroy D. Clark, and Sheila Rush of the 
Fund staff; Henry M. Aronson of Jackson, Mississippi; Jay 
Topkis of New York; Jack Day of Cleveland; Norman Purneil, 
and Bernard R. Roetzel of Akron. 

MANY NAACP BRANCHES PROTEST 
SOUTHERN HOSPITAL JIM CROW 

More than half the 98 complaints of racial discrim- 
ination, in federally assisted medical facilities across the 
South, filed with the Department of Health Education and Wel- 
fare have come from NAACP branches. : 



ere 

J, Francis Pohlhaus, counsel of the NAACP's 
“Washington Bureau and Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel of 
the Legal Defense Fund, have joint letters to HEW officials, 
outlining the problem since February. 

The attorneys are asking HEW Secretary, Anthony G, 
Celebrezze to hold up further payment (of government monies 
ending investigation of these complaints and compliance of 

itle 6. 

(See Cover) 

SELMA: The Aftermath 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys continue to 
defend 1500 of the more than 3400 citizens arrested in Selma; 
dismissal of the others has been secured. They are pressing 
for a Federal Court ruling that would speed registration pro- 
cedures and seeking a contempt of court conviction of Dallas 
County Sheriff James Clark. In all, ten Federal court cases 
continue to be litigated: Selma requires the services of 
four staff lawyers. 

Fic ci4 From the beginnings of a voter registration drive 
in 1963 to the march on lucatgomery in March of this year, 
he NAACP Legal Defense Fund provided the courtroom skill 
hat kept the Selma Freedom fighters out of jail and assured 

opr tection and permission for their heroic--and constitu- 

tional--activity. 

* At the height of the Selma crisis, Fund Director- 
counsel, Jack Greenberg led a battery of nine lawyers who 

Ygained from Federal Judge Frank M, Johnson the order that 
allowed the dramatic march to the state capitol, But this 
“Was oniy the most visible part of the complex litigation 
“that the Fund has undertaken in Selma. And while it showed 
vividly how the Fund serves as legal arm of the entire civil 
rights movement, this suit could not have taken place if 
two years of Fund action defending civil rights workers and 
local citizens, beginning in September 1963, had not helped 
prepare the community--and the nation--fcr the events of 
March, 1965. 

6 



r
m
 \ 

zs LAWSUIT SEEKS TO UNSEAT 
21 SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN 

WASHINGTON--A letter from the late Daisy E. Lampkin, NAACP 
Board member to Luther Hodges, Secretary, Department of 
Commerce, protesting voting discrimination, touched off a 
suit that could remove an estimated 21 southern congress- 
men. 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys asked the U. S. 
District Court here to enforce Section 2 of the 14th amend- 
ment of. the U. S. Constitution. 

Section 2 provides that: 

"When the right to vote...is denied to any of the 
male inhabitants of such state, being 21 years of age...the 
basis for representation (in Congress) therein shall be 
reduced in proportion which the number of such male citi- 
zens shall bear to the whole number of mal.e citizens of 21 
years of age in such state." 

Current interpretation included women citizens. 

The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868 and an 1872 
act of Congress calls for its implementation. The Bureau of 
Census attempted to comply by collecting statistics of denial 
and abridgment of the right to vote during the Census of 1870. 

But, the Constitutional clause has been ignored ever 
since. 

The Legal Defense Fund ultimately "seeks a declara- 
tion of the Department of commerce's duty to comply with Sec- 
tion 2 when they compile, compute, prepare and transmit the 
decenial apportionment of Representatives in Congress." 

Plaintiffs from NAACP 

The twenty-two plaintiffs are both Negro and white. 
Many are from NAACP branches in six northern states: Pennsyl- 
vania, Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and California; 
and three southern states: Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisi- 
ana. 



Each of the 15 Northern plaintiffs is a registered 
voter in his or her state. Each seeks relief from "debase- 
ment and dilution of his or her vote arising from defendants’ 
failure to enforce" Section 2 of the [4th Amendment. 

They add that failure of the defendants to "admin- 
ister the apportionment process in a constitutional manner 
results in their Congressmen representing more persons than 
do Congressmen from states which deny or abridge the right to 
vote as specified" in Section 2. 

Each of the ten southern plaintiffs is a Negro who 
has had his or her “right to vote denied or abridged by their 
state inamanner giving rise to a reduction in the population 
basis for apportionment of the state as provided by Section 2. 

"Each alleges that ihis or her state would lose at 
least one representative in Congress on the basis of an appor-~ 
tionment executed by defendants in accordance with Section 2° 

Joining Legal Defense Fund staff attorneys on the 
case are NAACP branch lawyers, national board members, and 
state officials, William B. Bryant of Washington; Richard L. 
Banks, Boston, Theodore M. Berry, Cincinnati: Loren Miller, 
Los Angeles, W. Robert Ming, Chicago; S. W. Tucker, Richmond; 
A. P. Tuxtesut, New Orleans; A. W. Willis, Jr., Memphis; and 
Margaret Bush Wilson, st, Louis.