- Person
- Jack Greenberg
- Lived
- 1924–2016
- Field
- Civil rights law
- From
- American
The story
By the early 1960s the civil rights movement was filling the streets of the South with marches, sit-ins and freedom rides, and many protesters ended up in court. Jack Greenberg, who became Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in 1961, made the Fund their legal shield.
In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. called on Greenberg and the Fund to handle all demonstration cases in which the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was involved. That year the Fund's lawyers defended King against contempt charges for demonstrating without a permit in Birmingham, Alabama, the campaign that produced his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
Two years later Greenberg represented King and the other voting rights marchers in Selma. In Williams v. Wallace, in 1965, the Fund won a court order allowing the march in Alabama, which state police had stopped twice. The same year Hamm v. City of Rock Hill overturned the convictions of sit-in demonstrators, and the Fund won reversals of state convictions against Freedom Riders in Alabama and Mississippi. In 1969, in Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, the Court ruled that parade permits could not be used to suppress free speech.
Greenberg fought hard and effectively in courts around the country. He oversaw cases ranging from the removal of racial restrictions on public parks, as in Watson v. City of Memphis in 1963, to discrimination in hospitals that received federal construction money. In 1969 he established the Fund's Washington, D.C., office to expand its work on federal policy.
Raised in a family committed to fairness, Greenberg became part of the Black world of the movement, sleeping in segregated hotels and eating in segregated restaurants alongside fellow advocates. He saw a strong resemblance between antisemitism and the oppression of Black Americans. The Fund's work behind the marches helped ensure that the courage of demonstrators was matched by lasting legal victories.
Why it matters
The Fund's legal work stood behind the movement's campaigns and helped turn protest into lasting legal gains.
About Jack Greenberg
Youngest lawyer on the Brown v. Board of Education team, Thurgood Marshall’s successor at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and advocate in forty Supreme Court cases.
More about Jack Greenberg
- Jack Greenberg won the order to desegregate schools at onceIn Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education (1969), Jack Greenberg won a Supreme Court order that segregated school systems must end at once.
- Jack Greenberg argued 40 civil rights cases in top courtAt 27, Jack Greenberg was the youngest lawyer on the team that won Brown v. Board of Education; he went on to argue 40 civil rights cases before the Supreme Court.
- Jack Greenberg chronicled the civil rights legal revolutionJack Greenberg's book Crusaders in the Courts tells how a dedicated band of lawyers fought the civil rights revolution, and is regarded as the definitive history of the Legal Defense Fund.
- Jack Greenberg won Furman v. Georgia in 1972Jack Greenberg argued Furman v. Georgia (1972), in which the Supreme Court held that the death penalty as then applied was cruel and unusual punishment.
- Jack Greenberg won Griggs v. Duke Power on fair hiringIn Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), Jack Greenberg's Legal Defense Fund won a ruling barring employers from relying on tests with a discriminatory impact.
- Jack Greenberg's case opened Ole Miss to James MeredithJack Greenberg argued Meredith v. Fair, the case that led to James Meredith's admission to the University of Mississippi, a first step in integrating the university.
- Navy officer Jack Greenberg stood up for a Black sailorServing in the US Navy in World War II, Jack Greenberg risked a court-martial by shouting at a superior officer in defense of a Black crewman he felt was mistreated.
- Jack Greenberg took civil rights law to the worldJack Greenberg helped shape new legal defense funds for Asian American and Puerto Rican communities and joined human rights missions from South Africa to the Soviet Union.
Sources
- LDF Remembers Civil Rights Icon Jack Greenberg NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
- NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Wikipedia
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