May 22, 1963 | Martin Luther King Press Conference in Birmingham, Alabama

May 22, 1963 - A Federal court tonight ordered education officials in Birmingham, Alabama to reinstate 1,100 Negro students who had been suspended for demonstrating against segregation. Chief Judge Elbert P. Tuttle of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Atlanta, issued a temporary restraining order directing the officials to take the step tomorrow. Judge Tuttle commended that in light of Monday’s Supreme Court decision voiding convictions of Negroes arrested in antisegregation protests, the suspensions could not stand. “It cannot be seriously argued that the arrest of these students can be legally justified,” he said. “Thus, it seems plain that we have here a case of some 1,000 students who were engaging in legally permissible activities illegally arrested for exercising this constitutional right.” The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King addressed the topic at a Birmingham press conference.

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