The Courts: The Pickrick Capers

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The most vociferously disputed part of the new federal Civil Rights Act concerns the public accommodations title. It is based on the Constitution's commerce clause and says, in effect, that any public place of business that relates in any way to interstate commerce may not discriminate against Negroes. Last week the public accommodations title got its first major test in a federal court, and it passed handsomely.

The argument was heard before a three-judge panel in Atlanta, where Government attorneys sought injunctions against two local establishments, the Heart of Atlanta Motel, and the Pickrick restaurant, a fried-chicken emporium. It was at the Pickrick, on the day after President Johnson signed the civil rights bill into law, that Owner Lester Maddox ordered three Negro ministerial students away from the place at gunpoint.

The two cases were tried at the same time, but it was the Pickrick caper that drew the greatest interest.

Surprise. Maddox's lawyers argued that it is unconstitutional to anchor the public accommodations title to the commerce clause. Furthermore, they reasoned, while Pickrick does discriminate against Negroes, the restaurant's policy legally does not have anything to do with interstate commerce, as specified in the bill. Even Pickrick's food, though it "once moved" in interstate commerce, is purchased nowadays from local wholesale brokers, the lawyers insisted, and thus is no longer an interstate transaction.

Moreover, Pickrick does not solicit business from interstate travelers, does not advertise in out-of-state publications, is not recommended by any motor associations or national groups (such as Duncan Hines). Said Pickrick Attorney William McRae: "The power of the Congress under the commerce clause has been almost as broad as the plan of Salvation. If you can compel a restaurant owner to sell to whoever calls on him, you can compel him to buy 10% of his food from a company owned by Negroes." Added McRae, in what surely must be one of the most surprising statements ever offered before a federal court: "A fellow eats some food at the Pickrick and then evacuates it, and it'll go into the Chattahoochee River [separating Georgia and Alabama] as waste, and there's no more commerce in that than there is in the food coming to the Pickrick in the first place."

Justice Department Lawyers Burke Marshall and St. John Barrett brought in 27 witnesses to testify that Pickrick is indeed involved in business on an interstate scale. Half a dozen surveys of Pickrick's parking lot showed that 2% or 3% of the cars parked there carried out-of-state plates. The Government also showed that Pickrick perforce depends on foods that flow through interstate commerce. Maddox's fish comes from Virginia's and Florida's coasts, his braunschweiger and beef ribs from Iowa, his catchup from California, his green beans from Oregon, his Tabasco sauce from Louisiana, his lettuce from Texas, his hams and bologna from Tennessee.