Greenberg Remarks in San Francisco

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

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President Remarks of Jack Greenberg 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal 
Director-Counsel Defense Fund, Inc., Diablo Room 

Jack Greenberg San Francisco Hilton Hotel, (Calif) 
Asvocieds Count Thutsday, February 4, 1965 

Constance Baker Motley 

Backaround of the Fund 

I would like first to explain something of the background of 

the Fund. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., was 

established by several distinguished NAACP Board Members in 1939 

as an independent, tax deductible, legal agency. 

Accordingly, we have conformed to tax regulations and thereby 

maintain our own staff, offices, budget, and Board of Directors. 

We are independent of all other civil rights organizations 

Aithough proud of our close and historic association with the NAACP. 

Today, twenty-six years later, we are often called the legal 

arm of the civil rights movement. Ns 

Our lawyers------17 based in New York City and 120 cooperating 

attorneys in the field--are representing the NAACP, Rev. King ‘and 

the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress Py Racial 

Equality, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, as well as 

large numbers of persons without organizational affiliation who have 

bona fide civil rights claims. 

The cost of underwriting such a massive legal operation is 

staggering. During 1964, the Legal Defense Fund raised and spent 

$1.5 million dollars. In 1963, we raised $1.1 million. The 

increase reflects a much heavier caseload and expanded staff. 

Conaressional_ Reapportionment 

Although many of our cases are in the South, one should be of 

particular interest to Californians, the case before the U.S. 

BIE Dourt in Sashing ton D.C., in which an estimated 21 

coutneee congeessmen’ may be unseated under Section 2 of the ]4th 

Amendment. 

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



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(Section 2 provides that when a state denies its inhabitants 

over 21 the right to vo sy that etate's congressional Sepresentation 
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tion). Ses oe Re should be reduced ry 

The congressional Beste, if we are successful, would be 

shifted to Northern and Western states, California's congressional 

representation would rise from 38 to 41. 
Se a 

Selma, Alabama & other Demonstration cases d E 
. bE x * 

The Legal Defense Fund is now faced with the most massive © 

legal defense operation in American history. “And, there seems to 

be an ever present corollary: the greater an area's need for 

' civil rights counsel, the fewer are the Negro attorneys available. 

Selma, for example,” has no Negro lawyers and the white coutniee 

Etceney willing to accept a civil rights case is extremely rare. 

In Selma, our attorneys, fulfilling our ak Piel 

represent Rev, Martin Luther King and his S ut 

Leadership Conference in all legal matters, — efending all 

persons arrested for peaceful demonstrations ng the current 
Si od 

voter-registration drive in Selma, Alabama. We have filed suit to 

liberalize and speed up the sapeeieat ian process. 

Rev. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference announced 

yesterday that the Selma campaign will continue until “five links" 

in the chain that denies voter rights to Selma Negroes and 

elsewhere in Alabama, are broken. These are the links: - 
2 4 

1. "Intimidation and harassment by Sheriff James Clark and 

the sheriff's posse," 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys filed a suit (January 22nd) in 

U.S. District Co t asking that Sheriff Clark be enjoined from ; 

interfering w: jlegroes attempting to register to vote, The court 

Ane 
granted our request two days later, 

2. “The anti parade ordinance." 

We filed suit Wednesday morning, (February 3rd) which, in part, 

LS seeks to enjoin Wilson Baker, La gttoe? of public safety, from in- 



-3< 

~ a NG ne ii Mo a 
2 . % 

Sesion: with peaceful demonstrations. 

laieensetatton procedures", 

In Wednesday ariusty "King v. Baker", we are asking the court to 

instruct Dallas Count fete. fficials to hire a minimum of 10 additional 

registrars and process atjleast 100 persons a day. 

4. "Limited a. : days available for registration." 

; In "King v. Baker" we have asked that Selma's voter-registration 

offices stay open six days a week, eight hours a day, every week. 

‘8, "The state literdéy test." 

Again in "King v. Baker" we are asking the court to enjoin 

rebietrears from refusing to allow Negroes to take the old test by 

which registered whites qualified in the past. 

Selma is typical of scores of Southern communities which we 

will engage, along with other civil rights groups in 1965. 

The Legal Defense Fund is now responsible for the cases of 

more than’ 14,000 individual civil rights demonstrators, many dating, 

back tol the original sit-ins and freedom riders of '60 and ‘6l, 
ah, 

in addition to 100 school segregation cases and scores of other 

suits covering the gamut of civil rights activity. 



ile 

NEW CAMPAIGN AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 

The Legal Defense Fund today is announcing a‘new campaign directed 

at capital punishment, We are starting out by giving attention to the 

most outrageous of the situations in which the state takes life, 

capital punishment for rape. This penalty exists only in the eleven 

states of the Old Confedercy, the District of Columbia and six border 

states, and it should surprise no one that it is meted out almost exe, 

clusively to Negroes. From 1930 to 1963, 402 Negroes were executed for 

rape, while only 45 whites met the same fate according to Justice De- ss 

partment statistics. Furthermore, all available evidence indicates that © 
$ 

only when the offense is sgainst white females are Negroes given the 

death sentence. Strikingly, there is no such disparity between the 

races in the number of convictions for rape; an exhaustive study in 

the State of Florida, where we are filing motions on the capital pun- 

ishment issue today, shows that 46% of those convicted for rape in the 

last 25 years were whites, while since 1930 only one white but 35 

Negroes have been executed for this crime. on 

At every point in the judicial process--from the arrestingherticer 

to those who might commute the death sentence--Negroes are more likely 

to receive harsh treatment. Competent counsel is often unavailable, 

juries are often all-white. At every juncture where justice is se- 

cured, or tempered with mercy, the Negro defendant is at a disadvan- 

tage. 

This new Defense Fund campaign has two bases in the Constitutior. 

First of all, we are now arguing--in Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Florid 

and Louisiana--that capital punishment in cases where a life has not 

been taken is a cruel and unusual punishment. There are good grounds, 

a asserting that in some cases the death penalty for rape is 

a modern substitute for the lynch mob. Second, we are contending, in 

eae sta eS y that given the overwhelming statistics I mentioned earlier. 

receive the death sentence are being denied equal protect~ 

ian 
‘dad of oe laws. 

pes caves 
It. Pa ould be added that this Legal Defense Fund campaign against 

capital punishment is an outgrowth of our long-stand nash sere to 
ts 

secure equal treatment of criminal defendants. We have,in soe past, 

ee
 



“5+ 

NEW CAMPAIGN AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 

gained Supreme Court rulings against systematic exclusion of Negroes 

from juries, against evidence resulting from coerced confessions, and 

other forms of unequal justice. We hope this new effort will prove 

fruitful. 

een