Court Asked to Curb Threats Blocking School Integration in Rural Mississippi County
Press Release
September 14, 1964

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Press Releases, Volume 1. Court Asked to Curb Threats Blocking School Integration in Rural Mississippi County, 1964. d944573c-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/f4672bba-e650-41a7-9fab-e4ce5e77d77b/court-asked-to-curb-threats-blocking-school-integration-in-rural-mississippi-county. Accessed April 27, 2025.
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10 Columbus Circle \ New York, N.Y. 10019 ) JUdson 6-8397 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund PRESS RELEASE President hf To) E; Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers —. RELEASE he cal te September 14, 1964 Associate Counsel Constance Baker Motley COURT ASKED TO CURB THREATS BLOCKING SCHOOL INTEGRATION IN RURAL MISSISSIPPI COUNTY JACKSON, Miss.--The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has moved to block intimidation of Negro parents of children slated for integrated schooling in rural Leake County. Announcement was made here today by Legal Defense Fund Assistant Counsel Derrick Bell who filed the motion in federal district court for southern Mississippi. The motion seeks to broaden and make more effective the court's order for first grade desegregation. An early hearing has been requested, In addition, it alleges that “the efforts of those opposed to Negro parents' exercising their rights under this Court's orders have already frustrated the intent of this Court to provide a meaningful start toward the goal of school de- segregation in Leake County during the 1964-65 school year." Acting in behalf of Negro parents in end around Carthage, a small town of 2,500 residents, Mr. Bell charged that threats of physical violence and economic reprisals led eight Negro families to change their minds. Nine families had won the legal right to have their youngsters enter first grade September Ist. All but one family was frightened. The Legal Defense Fund Motion pointed out that Mr. A.D, Lewis, of Carthage, whose daughter Debora was the only Negro to enroll in a white school, was fired fzom his lumber company job the day after his child began attending classes. (more) Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 Court Asked to Curb Threats -2- September 14, 1964 Blocking School Integration In Rural Mississippi County Attorney Bell also said that he had asked the Justice Department to investigate the intimidations of the parents of eight other Negro first-graders, who had announced their in- tentions of enrolling their youngsters in the Carthage school. They were visited by segregationists on August 31, Mr. Bell affirmed, and subsequently changed their minds. "One family in the nearby Olfahoma community wept openly as they explained that they were now afraid to send their child to the white school,' the 33-year old attorney said. Mr. Bell, who has handled the Leake County case since a suit was first filed in March 1963, further pointed out that "members of the Leake County School Board, its attorneys and other persons in the community who have attempted to comply, or advised compliance with the orders of this court have been harassed or threatened." "These persons are opposed to school desegregation, but because they advocated peaceful compliance with Federal court orders, they have been accosted in public, vilified by telephone, and one local leader has been subjected to the harrowing experience of a cross burning in front of his home," Mr. Bell told the court. A date for a hearing on the Defense Fund motion for further relief has not yet been set, but will probably fall within the next ten days, before Judge Sidney R. Mize, who issued the original desegregation order on March 4, and tentatively approved the Board's grade-a-year plan on July 29, a90> =