Word: pickrick
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Trembling with rage, balding, bespectacled Atlanta Restaurateur Lester Maddox stood in the doorway of his Pickrick fried-chicken spot one day last week and screamed at two Negroes: "You no-good dirty devils! You've just put 66 people out of a job! You dirty Communists!" With that, Segregationist Maddox announced, "We're closed for good." Then, tears streaming down his cheeks, he stepped outside, and by way of explaining how segregation was really the will of God, began reading the Ten Commandments to a crowd of sympathetic whites...
...challenge to the hotly disputed public-accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Just 2 hrs. and 10 min. after President Johnson had signed the bill, Maddox ordered three Negroes away from his place at gunpoint. Then, a three-judge panel in Atlanta ordered him to desegregate the Pickrick, but instead, he and Moreton Rolleston Jr., operator of the Heart of Atlanta Motel, asked Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black (who oversees the South's Fifth Judicial Circuit) to stay the effectiveness of the lower court's ruling. Black refused to do so, explaining that to delay...
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...
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...
Predictably, the Heart of Atlanta Motel and Pickrick will take the cases to the U.S. Supreme Court. Vowed Pickrick's Maddox: "I'm not going to integrate. I've made my pledge. They won't ever get any of that chicken...