Houston Lawyers' Association v. Attorney General of Texas Reply Brief for Petitioners
Public Court Documents
January 1, 1990

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Press Releases, Volume 1. Three Negroes Integrate Rural Louisiana School, 1964. 8d504e36-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/9149cacc-8f91-42ca-b6e8-5364cf033de0/three-negroes-integrate-rural-louisiana-school. Accessed August 19, 2025.
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10 Columbus Circle New York, N.Y. 10019 JUdson 6-8397 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational F. und PRESS RELEASE President FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers August 21, 1964 DiraGec teaver ssociate Counsel Goi tanes Wakes Motley THREE NEGROES INTEGRATE RURAL LOUISIANA SCHOOL Greensburg, La.--Three Negro youngsters peacefully attended classes at the high school here this week, climaxing 12 years of courtroom battles by NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers. Federal Judge E. Gordon West ordered the integration, acting on instructions from the Sth Circuit Court of Appeals. The high cart had upheld Defense Fund contentions in declaring on July 9th that Judge West should issue the integration decree whether or not St. Helena Parish school board officials submitted a desegre- gation plan. Fund attorneys Norman Amaker of New York and A.P. Tureaud of New Orleans expressed their satisfaction with the beginnings of integration in Greensburg, which is the first rural Louisiana parish to open its schools to Negroes. The suit to desegregate had first been filed in 1952, two years before the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Previously, the Defense Fund had won rulings desegregating the school systems of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Currently pending are Fund actions to speed up urban integration, and suits to de- segregate three other rural areas in the state. The three youths--Georgia Lea Gordon, 17, David Howard, 18, and Charles Hall, Jr., 17--started school Monday, August 17th without incident, as state police sent by Gov. John J. McKeithen kept townspeople, newsmen and photographers out of the school area. The Louisiana governor also issued an appeal to the residents of the rural parish to accept the integration regardless of their beliefs. School begins in August in this Delta area so that stu- dents are finished early enough to help with the spring strawberry harvest. pate ste Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 Ss