STUDENTS’ RIGHTS VIOLATED – LAWYER

Excerpt:

Civil rights attorney J. LeVonne Chambers said that Negro students' constitutional rights were violated at last night's televised School Board meeting and that he plans to take "appropriate steps" to insure that these students’ rights are maintained.

Chambers told The News today that 10 to 15 Negro students have been charged with criminal offenses arising out of recent school disruptions and now they’ve been tried already.

"It's like a man charged with murder and the cops go on television and describe what happened before he goes to trial."

Chambers said he represents "eight or ten" of these students who have been charged and several others who have been suspended and are threatened with possible expulsion. . . .

Chambers said watching last night's televised meeting "appalled" him because Negro students had been "tried on television" without any "opposing views" given.

Chambers said that the law requires a hearing before the School Board before a student is expelled.

FIRE GUTS OFFICE OF RIGHTS LAWYER

Excerpt:

A blaze which firemen said was intentionally set gutted the office of civil rights lawyer Julius L. Chambers Thursday and destroyed piles of legal files.

Asst. Fire Chief Otis W. Dowdy ruled the early morning fire was intentional after his men found an unidentified chemical at the rear of the two-story building. He declined to identify the chemical but said it was "incendiary."

Chambers, a young black lawyer whose firm had led the fight against racial segregation in North Carolina schools, was out of town when flames erupted in the empty building.

His offices were in a converted two-story home a few blocks from the center of Charlotte. The rambling wooden frame was left standing but floors of the interior were damaged.

Adam Stein, a lawyer who works with Chambers on many civil rights cases and is a partner in the four-man firm, said files on the hotly disputed Charlotte desegregation school case were saved but that many others had been damaged or scattered.

Stein said it would take "thousands of man hours" to reconstruct many of the case files. Chambers firm has taken on hundreds of civil rights cases in the state, many in collaboration with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

The automobile repair shop of Chambers' father in nearby Mt. Gilead has been hit twice by fire in recent months.

BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME

During the summer of 1970, James Ferguson was appointed as a "private prosecutor" to assist in the murder trial against Robert and Larry Teel, who killed Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black veteran in Oxford, North Carolina. In the wake of the killing of Marrow, Oxford was engulfed in a conflagration of violence and unrest. Despite the remarkable efforts by the young Mr. Ferguson, whose legal prowess was captured in the highly acclaimed book about the incident, Blood Done Sign My Name, by Timothy Tyson, the all-white jury acquitted the Teels.
 

Excerpts from the book, which was published in 2004:

At the prosecution's table, William Burgwyn was flanked by Charles White, an attorney from his office, and James E. Ferguson, a black attorney from Charlotte and one of the leading civil rights lawyers in the state. Burgwyn, through clearly an "establishment" figure in North Carolina, was regarded as extremely able and completely honest. And Ferguson was a very gifted attorney with a strong track record. "Ferguson had already played a pivotal role in the civil right movement in North Carolina," historian David Cecelski writes. "He had led or been involved in most of the civil rights lawsuits arising in eastern North Carolina; he had been successful enough to have the Ku Klux Klan target him for assassination." His new partner, Julius Chambers, narrowly escaped death in 1965 when his car was bombed in New Bern.

. . . . 

James Ferguson gave a striking and memorable summation for the prosecution that Friday afternoon. . . . "And now, after the state has proven beyond any doubt that this killing was by no stretch of the imagination an act of self-defense," continued James Ferguson, "they have come up with this story of an 'accidental shooting.' It was an accident, they tell you now."  He looked up and down the jury once more, and then delivered the hook. "I guess we might say this is what you'd call accidental self-defense. I don't know about y'all, but I have never heard of 'accidental self-defense,' myself.  This may be the first instance of 'accidental self-defense' in recorded history." . . . "If you turn these men loose," Ferguson told the jury, "you may as well hang a wreath on the courthouse door on your way out, because justice is dead in Granville County."

CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYERS WILL TEST BUSING LAW

Excerpt:

Charlotte civil rights attorneys plan to take the newly passed state law forbidding involuntary busing to court to try to have it declared unconstitutional.

The law, sponsored by Mecklenburg Rep. James H. Carson, Jr., prohibits busing of children to school to promote segregation or desegregation and requires the assignment of a child to the school nearest his home.

J. LeVonne Chambers, the attorney who brought the desegregation suit against the School Board, told the News today that his office will test the law in the court.

Chambers said he has "no idea" when the case might come up.

The case, he said, will be heard before a panel of three federal judges, not necessarily from North Carolina, appointed by the chief judge of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court.

That court is in recess until September, the attorney said, adding that he doesn’t know if the three-judge panel could be appointed before September. . . .

Chambers told The News that a number of similar state laws were struck down by the courts during the 1950s and 1960s because they obstructed the desegregation of schools.

CITY RALLIES TO HELP VICTIMS OF BOMBINGS

Excerpt:

Concern, contributions and cleaning up marked Charlotte's responses today to the bombings which damaged the homes of four Negro leaders early yesterday and to the glare of national publicity which resulted.

Mayor Stan R. Brookshire, City Manager William J. Veeder, County commissioner chairman Sam T. Atkinson, Jr. and County Manager J. Harry Weatherly paid a courtesy call this morning to the home of Negro city councilman Fred D. Alexander, one of the victims. . . .

The other homes bombed were those of local Negro attorney J. LeVonne Chambers and Dr. Reginald A Hawkins, a dentist and militant integration leader.

Mr. Chambers and his wife spent the night in their damaged home at 3208 Dawnshire Ave. Someone contributed as piece of plywood to cover a smashed window.

NEGRO LAWYER CHAMBERS BECOMES US COMMISSIONER

Excerpt:

Julius Levonne Chambers, the Negro lawyer who came from a country schoolhouse to lead his class at the University of North Carolina Law School, today was sworn in as a U.S. Commissioner at U.S. Western District Court.

After the short ceremony witnessed by several dozen well-wishers of both races, Judge J. Braxton Craven, who appointed Mr. Chambers, said that he was "superbly qualified" for the job.

Mr. Chambers, at age 29, may be the youngest U.S. Commissioner, as well as the first one of his race. . . .

Mr. Chambers, who is usually reluctant to talk about himself, admitted he was "quite pleased" with the appointment.

Letter from Robert F. Kennedy

Dear Mr. Chambers:

You have my sincere congratulations on your appointment as Editor-in-Chief of the North Carolina Law Review.

I am sure that under your leadership the Law Review may look forward to a most successful year.

Since 1954, we have maintained a program of employment for Honor Law Graduates and I invite you to apply for employment as attorney with the Department of Justice under this program at the appropriate time during the next school year.

With every good wish for your continued sucess.

Sincerely,
Robert F. Kennedy
Attorney General