Segregated Turnpike Restaurants Attacked by Legal Defense Fund

    PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
TOCOLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS JACK GREENBERG CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY 
President Director-Counsel Associate Counsel 

B25 

SEGREGATED TURNPIKE RESTAURANTS 
ATTACKED BY LEGAL DEFENSE FUND 

March 7, 1962 

NEW YORK = Segregated highway restaurants licensed by a state 

turnpike authority have been attacked in court by the NAACP Legal 

Defense and Educational Fund. 

The Defense Fund action, filed in the federal district court 

for the Southern District of Florida in Miami on March 1, asks 

that the Hot Shoppes restaurants operating on the Florida Turnpike 

be enjoined from serving Negroes in segregated areas and from pro- 

viding segregated rest room facilities. 

A hearing on a Defense Fund motion for preliminary injunction 

is scheduled for Monday, March 12. 

The Fund complaint argues that segregated services in restau- 

rants licensed by a state turnpike authority constitutes a denial 

of the rights of Negro citizens under the equal protection clause 

of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. 

Negro plaintiffs in the action are Leerue McDuffie, John E. 

King, Walter Holmes, Sr., Albert Myers and George Sims. McDuffie, 

King and Holmes are officials of Local 1526, International Long- 

shoremen's Association in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 

The action was brought on behalf of the named plaintiffs and 

all Negro citizens "similarly situated." 

The suit grew out of an incident on January 16, 1962, when 

the five plaintiffs went to the Hot Shoppes concession near Pompano 

Beach on the Florida Turnpike. The men seated themselves and 

requested service, but were told they could not be served in the 

area where they were seated, and must go to a roped off area 

reserved for Negroes. The group refused segregated service and 

left the restaurant. 

Defendants named are the Florida Turnpike Authority, John M. 

Hammer, Raymond E. Barnes, James P. McNeil, Hugh R. Dowling and 

John H. Monahan, members of the Turnpike Authority, and the Hot 

Shoppes Caterers, Inc. 



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NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys for the plaintiffs are 

G, E. Graves, Jr., of Miami, Fla., Thomas J. Reddick, Jr. of 

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., F. Malcolm Cunningham and Holland Smith of 

West Palm Beach, Fla., and Jack Greenberg, Derrick A. Bell, Jr. 

and Michael Meltsner of New York City. 

=eoes Oaeuee 

NORTHERN LAWYERS CONFERENCE 
"SUCCESS" SAYS GREENBERG March 7, 1962 

NEW YORK ~ Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal 

Defense and Educational Fund, termed the Fund's weekend conference 

of northern lawyers on civil rights "an unqualified success" today. 

The working conference was held March 2, 3 and 4 at the 

Columbia University Law School. Approximately seventy-five attor- 

neys and civil rights experts attended from thirty cities. 

"The conference was designed to explore issues involving 

northern segregation patterns rather than form policy," Greenberg 

pointed out. This was the first conference of northern lawyers 

that the Defense Fund has called. 

Lecturers who addressed the group were: William R. Ming, Jr., 

of Chicago, Ill.; Michael A. Bamberger of New York; Will Maslow, 

Exec. Director of the Americm Jewish Congress; Loren Miller of 

Los Angeles, Calif.; Madison S. Jones, of the New York City 

Housing Authority; Emmett E. Dorsey, Dept. of Government, Howard 

University; Roy Wilkins, NAACP Exec. Secy.; Michael A. Sovern of 

Columbia University; Hobart Taylor, Jr., of the President's Com- 

mittee on Equal Employment Opportunity; Clyde Ferguson, Rutgers 

University; A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. of Philadelphia, Pa.; and 

James E. Allen of the N.Y.C. Board of Education. 

The final session Sunday morning was used for discussion of 

issues raised during the conference. 

Special emphasis was placed on analysis of "de facto" school 

segregation, housing, employment and hospital discrimination. 

od