New York Education Sought for Alabama Negro Girl, Ward of White Family

    President 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

PRESS RELEASE Director-Counse 
egal efense und Jack Greenberg 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Pies Deven 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

FOR RELEASE 
TUESDAY, 2 p.m, 
January 10, 1967 

NEW YORK EDUCATION SOUGHT 
FOR ALABAMA NEGRO GIRL, 
WARD OF WHITE FAMILY 

ALBANY ,N.Y.---The Commissioner of Education was today asked by the 
Legal Defense Fund to permit an Alabama Negro teenager, now ward of 
a white family in Port Washington, to attend public schools there 
without payment of tuition. 

Mary Elizabeth Moore, the youngest of five children of a 
Birmingham widow now living on social security, was placed in the 
Port Washington home of Richard and Margery Rosen. 

This was done through the Student Transfer Education Program 
(STEP), an affiliate of the Urban League. 

The Rosens, argued attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund, Inc, (LDF), have an affidavit from the girl's 
mother, Mrs. Maxine Moore. In this, they pointed out, Mrs. Moore 
"voluntarily relinquished full parental care" and authorized the 
Rosens to “make all decisions concerning her care, education, and 
maintenance." 

Mr, Rosen, an architect and city planner educated at Carnegie 
Tech and Harvard, is in charge of Community Planning for Levitt and 
Sons, Inc., the largest builder of private homes in the country. 

Jack Greenberg, director-counsel of the LDF, argued that the 
Board of Education of Union Free School District No. 4 (North 
Hempstead) "gave no reason for its refusal to allow Mary to attend 
Schreiber High School without paying tuition except for the fact that 
it intends to treat Mary as it treats nonresidents generally. 

"Certainly," Mr. Greenberg continued, "the Board allows other 
children cared for in family homes located in its district to attend 
its public schools without the payment of tuition. 

“Why should Mary be treated differently?" he asked. 

-30- 

STATEMENT BY JACK GREENBERG 

Due to glaring inadequacies of southern education for Negro 
children, an increasing number of social agencies and private indivi- 
duals of good will have been opening their homes to these disadvan- 

} taged youngsters. 

The American Friends Service Committee has a similar program as 
does the Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church. 
In this case, the national group that placed the child is the Urban 
League. 

Nowadays, educational systems must experiment with new methods 
to cope with the needs of disadvantaged victims of segregated edu- 
cation, We hope that the modest STEP efforts will not be handicapped 
by imposition of intolerable financial burdens, 

AE 25