Recent Decisions
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CIVIL RIGHTS-STANDING TO SuE-AcTION BY UNITED STATES AGAINST
THE CITY OF JACKSON, FOR INJUNCTION TO ELIMINATE CERTAIN RACIAL
DIscRIviNATIoN-United States v. City of Jackson, 318 F.2d 1 (5th
Cir. 1963), rehearing denied, 320 F.2d 870 (5th Cir. 1963).
Sidewalk signs at the entrances to Jackson bus and rail terminals1 read
Waiting Room for White Only and Waiting Room for Colored Only
-By Order Police Department. Through the use of these signs and
the police arrest power, the City of Jackson, Mississippi, maintained de
facto segregation in transportation terminal facilities, despite the Inter-
state Commerce Commission's orders to interstate carriers prohibiting
it.2 As the original offending signs were removed by the carriers in
compliance with ICC orders, they were replaced by the city with
equivalent notice3 that the basic policy4 of the State of Mississippi requir-
ing segregation was to be maintained.5
1 The three surface transportation terminals are the Greyhound and Trailways bus
terminals and the Illinois Central railroad terminal. These are operated respectively
by the Greyhound Corporation, the Continental Southern Lines, Inc. (a part of
the Trailways System), and the Illinois Central Railroad Company; all were interstate
common carriers.
2 On Jan. 10, 1956, the ICC ordered Illinois Central to cease and desist from the
practice of maintaining and designating separate facilities for the use of white and
Negro passengers. This order supplemented the ICC ruling in NAACP v. St. Louis-
San Francisco Ry., 297 I.C.C. 335 (1955). The motor carrier prohibition was promul-
gated by the ICC on Sept. 22, 1961 (effective Nov. 1, 1961), 49 C.F.R. § 180(a)
(1961), which states in part:
No motor common carrier of passengers . . . shall in the operation of
vehicles in interstate or foreign commerce provide, maintain arrangements for,
utilize, make available, adhere to any understanding for the availability of,
or follow any practice which includes the availability of, any terminal facilities
which are so operated, arranged, or maintained as to involve any separation
of any portion thereof, or in the use thereof on the basis of race, color, creed,
or national origin.
Separation is defined to include the display of any sign indicating that any portion
of the terminal facilities are separated, allocated, restricted, provided, available, used,
or otherwise distinguished on the basis of race, color, creed, or national origin.
Id. at § 10(b).
3 318 F.2d at 6 n.9.
4 318 F.2d at 5:
We again take judicial notice that the State of Mississippi has a steel-hard, in-
flexible, undeviating official policy of segregation. The policy is stated in
its laws. It is rooted in custom. The segregation signs at the terminals in
Jackson carry out that policy. The Jackson police add muscle, bone, and
sinew to the signs.
Cf, Meredith v. Fair, 298 F.2d 696 (5th Cir. 1962).
5 Mississippi Code Ann. § 2351.5, 2351.7, 7784-87, 7787.5 (1956). In addition to
Mississippi, the following twelve states also have travel segregation statutes: Ala.
Code Ann. tit. 48, §§ 186*, 196-98, 464, 301(31(a)-(31)(c)* (1958) (* declared
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