Justice Black Denies Stay in Rights Act Enforcement

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
- 137bf373-bd92-ee11-be37-6045bddb811f

Cite this item

Press Releases, Loose Pages. Justice Black Denies Stay in Rights Act Enforcement, 1964. 137bf373-bd92-ee11-be37-6045bddb811f. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/de432040-d5e2-425e-b226-e8bffcd97b0a/justice-black-denies-stay-in-rights-act-enforcement. Accessed November 23, 2025.

Copied!

    10 Columbus Circle 

New York. Y. 10019 

JUdson 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President 

ToD Allin: Kieu tcOhebnscs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Director-Counsel 

jack Greenberg August 15, 1964 
dissociate Counsel 

Constance Baker Motley 

JUSTICE BLACK DENIES STAY 
IN RIGHTS ACT ENFORCEMENT 

Atlantans Must Integrate or Close 

Washington, D.C.--Justice Hugo L, Black this week (August 10) 
refused to issue an injunction that would have delayed enforce- 
ment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. 

Seeking the order were Lester Maddox, owner of Atlanta's 
Pickrick Restaurant, and Moreton Rolleston Jr., owner of the 
Heart of Atlanta motel. NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys 
handled the suit against Mr. Maddox, while the U.S. Department 
of Justice was responsible in the companion case. 

The suit against Mr. Maddox was the nation's first court 
test seeking enforcement of Title Two of the new legislation, 

It was filed by Fund Cooperating Attorney William Alexander 
and argued by Jack Greenberg, director counsel and Constance 
Baker Motley, associate counsel. 

Mr. Rolleston,—who filed suit testing the public accom- 
modations section of the new law the day President Johnson 
signed it, said he would comply with Justice Black's order. 

But, Mr. Maddox, who chased three Negroes from his prem- 
ises at gun point, said his establishment would never inte- 
grate, 

Director-counsel Greenberg said the Legal Defense Fund is 
prepared to respond to Mr. Maddox's appeal when it comes before 
the Supreme Court in the fall. Justice Black urged that the 
cases be expedited so that they be decided soon after the Court 
reconvenes. 

The segregationists had sought to nullify the effect of a 
three-judge court's July 22nd ruling in which the Fund and the 
Justice Department were upheld in their contention that the 
public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act are 
constitutional. 

In another development, the Legal Defense Fund also won its 
second suit testing the new law last week, when a federal court 
in Jacksonville ordered the integration of 17 St. Augustine, Fla. 
motels and restaurants. The court also told the Ku Klux Klan 
and other extremist groups to refrain from interference with the 
peaceful enjoyment of legal rights. 

Currently,several Legal Defense Fund suits are underway and 
in preparation in numerous localities throughout the south. Most 
of them follow the pattern of the St. Augustine case, where 
white racists threatened businessmen who integrated their estab- 
lishments with reprisals. 

=ea6-= 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 SSO

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.

Justice Black Denies Stay in Rights Act Enforcement

Collection

Creator

Taxonomy

Identifier

Cite this item

Copyright notice

Additional info

You may also be interested in