’A Mortal Blow from Which They Shall Never Recover’ The Attack on the NAACP, 1955-1961

Abstract

Abstract On June 1, 1956, Alabama’s attorney general John Patterson appeared before state judge Walter Jones in Montgomery. Saying that the NAACP violated state law by ’doing business’ in the state without registering, Patterson asked for an order stopping the NAACP’s activities. The business, Patterson said, included support-ing Autherine Lucy’s attempt to enter the University of Alabama and financing the Montgomery bus boycott, which was then more than six months old. Without giving the NAACP a chance to reply, Judge Jones, an ardent segregationist who said in a subsequent election campaign, ’I intend to deal the NAACP . . . a mortal blow from which they shall never recover,’ immediately issued an order-called a temporary restraining order-barring the NAACP from soliciting mem-berships or contributions or collecting dues. The NAACP was willing to register; a year later in North Carolina it paid a $500 fine for failing to register and then filed registration papers. Judge Jones, though, said that the NAACP could not even try to register. He and attorney general Patterson wanted something else-NAACP membership lists.1 On July 2, the NAACP asked Judge Jones to dissolve his order; he scheduled a hearing for July 17. But on July 5, the state asked the judge to direct the NAACP to produce its records, including membership lists. Four days later, Judge Jones told the NAACP to turn over its membership lists, correspondence files, and financial records. He delayed the already scheduled hearing for a week and then, when the NAACP indicated its willingness to turn over everything but the membership lists and correspondence, held it in contempt of court, fined it $10,000--later increased to $100,000--and refused to dissolve the injunction. This was the opening phase of litigation that kept the NAACP from operating in Alabama from 1956 to 1964. And, notably, Alabama shut down the NAACP despite repeated legal defeats.2 Attorneys general in Arkansas and Louisiana, as well as Alabama, claimed that the NAACP was operating a business and tried to force it to register as a business corporation and to pay taxes. They used registration and tax collection suits to try to extract lists of NAACP members. More directly, states relied on statutes aimed