Arkansas State Press

Civil Rights Groups Support Pending Bill In Senate Says Groups Head

WASHINGTON—The 51 national church, civic, labor, fraternal and minority groups organizations affiliated in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights are standing firm for enactment of the pending civil rights bill without any crippling amendments or deletions, Roy Wilkins, conference chairman and executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said here Friday at a press conference.

The conference followed a two-day session of representatives of the various organizations called here to stimulate support for the civil rights bill now being debated on the floor of the United States Senate. Representatives of the organizations also met with the bi-partisan group of senators who are taking the leadership in the Senate to secure enactment of the measure which has already passed the House.

"We are opposed to any proposal to delete or substantively to change any provision in the bill as passed by the House." Mr. Wilkins said. "We are not opposed to necessary clarification of specific provisions." he added.

The civil rights leader expressed the opinion that enactment of Part III of the bill, deletion of which southern Senators are demanding, is essential. He pointed out that recent legislation passed in southern states made it difficult, if not impossible, for Negro citizens to initiate litigation to secure their rights under the Constitution and in accordance with rulings of the United States Supreme Court.

Wilkins cited as an example a law passed last spring by the Virginia Legislature which prohibits anyone other than the aggrieved person from financing or otherwise assisting law suits designed to secure implementation of the Court's school desegregation ruling. Having denied to Negro citizens effective means of securing their rights, southern senators are now trying to deny them the assistance of the United States attorney general, he charged.

Wilkins denied that Part III had been "sneaked" into the bill.

"It was there from the first draft in 1956," he said. "Its clear intent is and has always been to assist Negro citizens in securing constitutional rights, the right to vote. It was discussed at committee hearings and on the floor of the House of Representatives before it was passed," he asserted.

The NAACP spokesman denied, in response to a reporter's question, that there was any issue of the use of Federal troops. "Neither the NAACP nor any of the other organizations represented in the Leadership conference has ever proposed the use of Federal troops to secure compliance with the Supreme Court ruling," he declared. "Talk of bayonets and guns is inflammatory and not a real issue."

Proposals to provide for jury trials in contempt proceedings in equity cases, Wilkins said, would definitely make the bill ineffective. "Traditionally," he asserted, "such proceedings have been without jury trials. There are on the books many laws which do not provide for jury trials in contempt cases. Courts have long had the right to enforce their decrees in such causes. Some of the senators who are protesting now have voted for such laws."

The bill, he pointed out, has from the beginning been designed not only to protect the right to vote, but also to protect other constitutional rights. "It is a distortion to make believe now that it was ever intended to be confined to voting rights only," he said.