Supreme Court Hears "Freedom Rider" Case
Press Release
October 1, 1964

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Press Releases, Volume 1. Supreme Court Hears "Freedom Rider" Case, 1964. 9b1b5c54-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/e34c9d13-cc70-45e9-a61d-642bb0b1c7fb/supreme-court-hears-freedom-rider-case. Accessed April 29, 2025.
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10 Columbus Circle New York, N.Y. 10019 JUdson 6-8397 Legal Defense and Educational Fund PRESS RELEASE President Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg ieseesare Const 73 Baker Motley SUPREME COURT HEARS ane “FREEDOM RIDER" C ASE ed WASHINGTON---Reversal of the breach of peace and unlawful assembly % convictions of 1] “Freedom Riders" was asked of the Supreme Court § ° %~. today by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. t H The Legal Defense Fund maintains that the convictions of the seven Negroes and four whites, several of whom are prominent leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, violate ithe dye ~" process clause of the 14th Amendment, There is no evidence of guilt, the Fund's brief asserted. These “Freedom Riders" were arrested on May 25th, 1961, in the Mont tgomery, Ala. bus terminal when they sat at the lunch counter seeking service, Louis H. Pollak, a member of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's Board of Directors, as well as its executive committee, argued in behalf of the Fund. Mr. Pollak, professor of Law at Yale University Law School, has served on the Fund's Board of Directors since 1960. Fund attorneys also assert that the statutes under which the "Freedom Riders" were prosecuted are vague and indefinite and therefore give no fair warning of punishable conduct. Fund attorneys further aggued that the "Freedom Riders" arrest and conviction violated the 14th Amendment quarantee of equal protection of the law, since state agents enforced racial discrimination. In addition, the Fund contended, the "Freedom Riders" were denied freedom of assembly, which is guaranteed by the lst Amendment. Further arguments in the Defense Fund brief pointed out the federal ban on discrimination in interstate travel facilities. The Civil Rights advocates also stressed the fact that a lower federal court -- though refusing to stop the Alabama prosecutions -- specifically noted that such action was designed to enforce racial segregation. The final contention of the Defense Fund brief was that the arrests and convictions violated the constitutional guarantee of due process, since the Alabama Guardsmen permitted the "Freedom Riders" to sit at the lunch counter, and then signalled for their arrest, wThe “Freedom Riders" were thus “entrapped" by state officials, Fund attorneys stated. At the time, they were being escorted by the Alabama National Guard, which had been assigned to protect them from an angry white crowd assembled across the street. (more) Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 So B pee Supreme Court Hears oo Zz “Freedom Rider” Case At their initial trial, it was asserted that the presence of the crowd made it likely that their sitting at the lunch counter would provoke violence. The Guard officials, however; did not Among the parties in the case a. Fred Shuttlesworth, and Rev. Bernard Lee, all of Rev. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Also appealing is Rev. Wyatte@l. Walker, currently on leave from his SCLC post to work as vice president in charge of marketing for the Educational Heritage Foundation, a venture in publishing books on Negro history. Another defendant is Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Chaplain of Yale University. The remaining appellants are all ministers and teachers of theology, with the exception of George B, Smith, who was at that time a student at Yale Law School. Mr. Smith is a former assistant counsel at the Legal Defense Fund's New York City headquarters. Fund Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg and Associate Counsel Constance Baker Motley led a battery of ten lawyers in preparing the "Freedom Rider" appeal. Assisting them and Mr. Pollak were James M. Nabrit, III, of the Fund's staff, Fred D. Gray, a cooperating attorney from ~Montgomery, and Leroy D, Clark, Charles S. Conley, Ronald R. avenport, Frank H. Heffron, and Solomon S. Seay, Jr. = 30 6 4 Louis H. Pollak graduated from Harvatd College and Yale Law School and was law clerk to Justice Rutledge. He later served as Assistant to Ambassador Philip Jessup. He and Mrs. Pollak are the parents of five girls. i”