Fund Seeks Supreme Court Ruling on Segregation in Georgia Park

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

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Director-Counsel Friday, 

Jack Greenberg March 5, 1965 
Associate Counsel 

Constance Baker Motley 

FUND SEEKS SUPREME COURT RULING 
ON SEGREGATION IN GEORGIA PARK 

WASHINGTON, D.C.---The NAACP Legal Defense Fund today asked the 

Supreme Court to consider an unusual case in which certain white 

citizens of Macon, Georgia, won lower court contests allowing them 

to renew segregation in a park that had opened to all in 1963. 

Known as Baconsfield, the park is located on land willed to 

the city in 1911 by Senator Augustus Octavius Bacon. In accordance 

with the will, the park had previously been operated on a segregated 

basis by the city and an appointed Board of Managers. 

In asking the high court to review the case, Legal Defense Fund 

attorneys asserted that the lower court decisions and the park 

operation involve state enforcement of racial discrimination 

contrary to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. 

The case renews some of the ussues of the "Girard College Case." 

In 1957, the Supreme Court ruled that as the city of Philadelphia 

participated as a trustee in the college operation, Negroes must be 

admitted, 
However, the court refused to hear a subsequent appeal brought 

when new trustees were appointed to maintain segregation. 
Legal Defense Fund attorneys pointed out in today's action that 

the city of Macon resigned from its trusteeship of the park without 
a court order to do so. Negro plaintiffs intervened in the suit in a 
effort to keep the park integrated. 

The petition noted that a state law had encouraged Sen. Bacon to 
will the land on a racially restricted basis. It showed that state 
courts in Georgia ruled that the discriminatory terms of the private 
will must be enforced even though excluding Negroes from a public 

accommodation. 
A Many instances of Supreme Court rulings against state enforce- 

ment of private discrimination were cited. 
% Legal Defense Fund lawyers concluded by arguing that since 

_ charitable trusts are subject to continual state supervision and 
supported by numerous privileges--such as tax exemption, governmental 
bodies are so involved in the park's operation as to invalidate plans 

to enforce the discrimination in the will. 
Attorneys in the case are Director-Gounsel Jack Greenberg, James 

M, Nabrit, III, Michael Meltsnex, and Frank H. Heffron, all of the 
Legal Defense Fund New Yorkhéadquarters; and Donald 1. Hollwnell, 
William H. Alexander, and Howard Moore, of Atlanta. 

-30- 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Inf ion—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 Peo