Background on Suit for Injunction to Permit Peaceful Picketing at Worlds Fair

    10 Columbus Circle ) 
New York, N.Y. 10019 
JUdson 6-8397 — 

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President 

De Alan Knight Chalmers = 
Director-Counzel June 5, 196lf 

Jack Greenberg & 
Associate Counsel 

be Constance Baker Motley 

x 
“THE FOLLOWING IS PREPARED BY THE 

AACP LEGAL NSE AND EDUCATIONAL 
‘FUND AS A PUBLIC SERVICE 

BACKGROUND FACTS ON SUIT FOR INJUNCTION 
TO ORDER WORLD'S FAIR TO PERMIT PEACEFU. 
AND ORDERLY PICKETING IN PUBLIC ARSAS INSIDE GROUNDS 

DECISION EXPECTED ANY DATE AFTER TUESDAY, JUNE 9 

Civil rights leaders sought this injunction in order 

to conduct peaceful and orderly picketing and the distribution 

of handbills in the streets and other public areas at the 646- 

acre World's Fair. They argued that their constitutional 

rights to free speech and assembly under the First and Fourteenth 

Amendments are being denied by the Fair's policy prohibiting such 

activities and threatening arrest. , 

the City, State, and Federal governments subject it to the 

restraints of the Constitution against) interfering with free- eae 

dom of speech, even thougn it is a private corporation. Such. 

connections include’ the following: (the Fair has leased its 

property from the City; the City will®receive net revenue from 

the Fair for park improvements and other educational purposes;_ 

the City appropriated $2 million for work on the Fair site; = % 

City, State and.Federal funds totalling $12) million were used xt 

to accelerate road construction around the Fair; the Fair is : 

exempt from City and State taxes; all buildings and improve- 

ments will become City property when the Fair ends; and Fair 

policemen have the status of peace officers. 

Plaintiffs in the action were James Farmer, Executive 

Director of the Congress on Racial Equality; Eugene T. Reed, 

President of the New York State Conference of the N.A.A.C.P.35 

Rev. Gardner Taylor, Pastor of Concord Baptist Church in rocks 

lyn; and Rev. Robert J. Stone, Assistant Director of the Pres— 

byterian Council on Religion and Race. They brought the suit 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Inf. ion—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 > 
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BACKGROUND FACTS ON -2- June 5, 1964 
SUIT FOR INJUNCTION TO 
ORDER WORLD'S FAIR TO PERMIT 
PEACEFUL AND ORDERLY PICKETING IN PUBLIC 
AREAS INSIDE. GROUNDS 

2 % 

an behalf of’ ethers similarly situated as well as themselves. 

They wore represented by Carl Rachlin, General Counsel 

of C.0.R.E.; by “Jack Greenberg, Constance Baker Motley, and 

Michael Meltsner of the N.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational 

Fund; and by Howard Squadron of New York. 

“the attorneys argued that the Fair's policy prohibiting 

pickets is unconstitutional on two grounds. First, the Fair's 

YTegulation sets no standards or guides for withholding permis- 

sion to exercise free speech, they said. Second, the policy 

has been applied three times in violation of fundamental liber- 

rf 
ies. Cited were the arrest of four Florida girls who were : 

engaged in orderly picketing of that state's Pavilion on April 

28; ‘the arrest of twelve national officers of the American 

Jewish Congress who attempted peacefully to picket the Jordanian 

Pavilion on May 25; and the failure of the Fair to answer a 

May 20 telegram requesting permission for a reasonable number a 

of pickets to protest racial discrimination in front of the 

Florida and Louisiana Pavilions. 

Attorneys for the Fair contended in operation that the 

Fair grounds were not suitable for picketing in view of the 

large number of visitors, many of whom come liong distances, 

who pay admission and other fees to be amused and educated, 

Were picketing allowed, it was argued, “it will be a field day i 

for anarchy. Incidents, disturbances, disorders, bloodshed, — bs ta 

diminution of Fair attendance--these will, in all likelihood, 

be the result." i 

the Southern District of New York, suggested that Fair security 

guards might have been given the status of peace officers in 

order to protect orderly pickets as well as other persons who 
ee A 

might be in the area. Decision w 

CHRONOLOGY 
* 

May 20--Telegram to Fair President Robert Moses signed by C.0.R.E. 

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-3- June 5, 1964 

_ BACKGROUND FACTS ON SUIT FOR 
INJUNCTION TO ORDER WORLD'S FAIR 
TO PERMIT PEACEFUL AND ORDERLY 
PICKETING IN PUBLIC AREAS INSIDE GROUNDS 

General Counsel Carl Rachlin and NAACP Legal” 
Fund Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg request 
for a reasonable 
be granted entry 
and to picket in 

number of admission-paying). ersons to 
in order to disseminate in formation 
a peaceful and orderly manner in front 

of the Louisiana and Florida Pavilions. 

telegram as yet reced 

udge John M. Cash- 
Should not allow 

yler, Jr. Decision reserved, 

fAal day for filing documents with the Court. Decision 
0 be handed down at an unspecified date thereafter.