ADL

ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE
OF B'NAI B'RITH

515 Madison Ave., New York 22, N. Y.
PLaza 1-1800

Press Representatives
N. C. Belth
Morton Puner

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"NEW THREAT TO HUMAN RIGHTS AGENCIES"

By Paul Hartman

(Reprinted from the April 1957 issue of The ADL Bulletin, official organ of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith)

Southern opposition to desegregation has brought with it new legislation in states from Virginia to Texas that offers a serious threat to all voluntary agencies engaged in human relations activities. The new statutes are designed to slow or stop desegregation. But an analysis of these new laws, together with the activities of state investigating committees, reveals that they have the potential effect of cur tailing the rights of citizen and educational groups which for years have worked successfully to improve intergroup relations.

A new Virginia law, called "an Act to promote interracial harmony and tranquil illustrates the process. The law calls for registration of membership and a report contributions and expenditures by all persons and groups engaged in "promoting or opposing in any manner the passage of legislation by the General Assembly affecting any race or color." The law also requires registration of all persons and groups "whose activities tend to cause racial conflicts or violence."

The first target of the act is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which sponsored the litigation which resulted in the Supreme Court decision that segregation in the public schools violated equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Constitution. But in many parts of the South today, any program of education, no matter how modest, which seeks to bring about eventual compliance with the Supreme Court decision, may be construed as "tending" to create racial tension.

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Any voluntary program in behalf of better intergroup relations may come under the strictures of the Virginia law.

Here is a partial listing of other recently instituted legislative, administrative and judicial actions which may hamper the operations of human rights agencies:

Virginia has passed two more laws setting up investigating committees called the "Committee on Law Reform and Racial Activities" and "Committee on Offenses Against the Administration of Justice." Both have started functioning with investigations of the NAACP; the language of the laws is broad enough to be used against almost any human rights group.

Similarly, Florida, South Carolina and Texas have authorized investigations of the NAACP with a view to exposing its membership and financial supporters. Local NAACP units are reluctant to submit their membership lists to investigating committees for obvious reasons; White Citizens Councils would welcome and quickly use such membership lists in their campaign to boycott all supporters of the NAACP.

Legislative committees in Florida and Virginia include the White Citizens Councils as well as the NAACP in the scope of their investigation. The Councils, in turn, show eagerness to cooperate and volunteer information about their affairs. They pose as law-abiding groups in contrast to the NAACP which, because of boycott threats, believes it cannot safely yield its lists. In fact, through their cooperation, the Citizens Councils hope to gain access to material about the NAACP which they can use in their campaign to destroy it.

Like all such entities, human rights agencies are required to incorporate in one state only, even though they operate on a nationwide basis. In Texas and Alabama, old laws dealing with the activities of out-of-state corporations have been invoked for the first time against the NAACP, incorporated in New York. When the Texas state court ruled that the NAACP was subject to registration as an out-of-state organization, it also decided that the NAACP was a profit-making organization, that it indulged in political and lobbying activities contrary to law, that its work resulted

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in racial hatred, that it practiced law contrary to the canons of ethics, and that
it conspired to evade legal taxation. As a result of these conclusions -- instead of
requiring registration -- the court issued an injunction restraining the NAACP from
carrying on any activities at all in the state. In Alabama the state court went so
far as to bar the NAACP from registering as an out-of-state corporation thus putting
it out of action for the future as well as the present. It imposed a fine of
$100,000 against the organization for refusing to produce certain of its records.
In Georgia, the NAACP branch president was jailed in the course of a state tax inves
tigation under a one-year contempt sentence. He was released after a few hours when
he agreed to give the records to the state tax investigator. The organization itself
was fined $25,000.

Among new laws which may be used to harrass many types of voluntary organization
are those of South Carolina and Virginia which strengthen existing legislation against
"barratry." The term, which has a long history in English criminal law, means the
habitual stirring up of <u>groundless</u> suits and quarrels between individuals. The legislators had to extend the meaning of the term far beyond its original scope in order to
apply it to those who sponsored recent desegregation suits -- suits which have almost
always won out in the courts and thus obviously were not groundless.

Some Southern states have passed laws prohibiting school teachers from membership in the NAACP. On March 28, the Texas House approved a bill barring members of NAACP from all public employment in Texas.

All these measures have had their effects on their first target. In Texas,
Alabama and Louisiana the NAACP has been forced to discontinue its activities completely. Everywhere in the South it has become increasingly difficult for the NAACP
to further its leadership in the fight to eliminate segregation and discrimination.
Without legal support from voluntary agencies, individuals are rarely able to assert
their constitutional rights effectively. In this way the fight for implementation
of the Supreme Court decision suffers greatly -- and to the detriment of all minority
groups.

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Recently, seventeen Negro school teachers who had been dismissed under a South
Carolina law forbidding the employment of NAACP members by agencies of the state
and school districts, challenged the validity of the law before a federal court.
Federal Judge John J. Parker commented on this kind of legislation:

"The right to join organizations which seek by lawful means to support and further what their members regard as the public interest or in the interest of a particular part of the public, is protected by the constitutional guarantees of free speech and freedom of assembly; and such right is one of the bulwarks of liberty and social progress. The fact that organizations may render themselves unpopular with the majority in a community is no reason why the majority may use its power to enact legislation denying to their members the fundamental rights of constitutional liberty."

The Altanta Constitution, in even blunter language, commented on the defeat of
a resolution in the Georgia legislature that would have set up a committee to inves-
tigate those organizations which "direct thought or foment strife."

"No Japanese warlord government or Fascist government in Italy, Germany, Spain or elsewhere ever proposed a more rigid thought-control measure than was this. It was unlimited. It allowed the committee to probe what men were thinking and to pass judgment thereon. It violated every provision of constitutional guarantee or freedom of thought and speech. . ."

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5/3/57