Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 7 P19 pdf

This stipulation meant that all slaves and their
descendants had to pass a rigorous literacy test
based on knowledge of the state constitution
and other highly technical documents. Few,
if any, African Americans passed the test.
The NAACP appointed its first African
American executive director,
JAMES WELDON
JOHNSON
(1871–1931), in 1920. Under Johnson
and his successor, Walter White, who led the
organization from 1931 to 1955, the NAACP
worked for the passage of a federal anti-
lynching law. Although unsucc essful in its
efforts to pass a federal law, the NAACP
brought public attention to the brutality of
LYNCHING and helped to significantly reduce its
occurrence. As a result, lynching (the infliction
of punishment, usually by hanging, by a mob
without trial) is now illegal in every state.
In 1941 the NAACP established its
Washington, D.C., bureau as the legislative
advocacy and lobbying arm of the organization.
The bureau does the strategic planning and
coordination of NAACP political action and
legislation program. It acts as the liaison
between NAACP units and government agen-
cies, and it coordinates the work of other
organizations that support NAACP programs
and proposals.
The bureau sponsors the annua l Legislative

Mobilization, which informs participants of the
NAACP legislative agenda, monitors and advo-
cates for NAACP civil rights and related
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
1905 W. E. B. Du Bois and others founded the Niagara Movement
1908 Race riots erupted in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln’s hometown
1909 On 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday, more than sixty citizens issued a “call” for a national conference to renew the struggle for civil and political
liberty; the group and conference formed the foundation of the NAACP
1910 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chosen as group’s name at second annual conference; William Walling chosen as
executive director; W. E. B. Du Bois chosen as director of publicity and research and editor of the Crisis
1911 NAACP incorporated
1915 In Guinn v. United States, the Supreme Court struck down grandfather clauses in state constitutions as unconstitutional barriers to voting rights granted
under the Fifteenth Amendment
1917 Supreme Court barred municipal ordinances requiring racial segregation in housing in Buchanan v. Warley
1920 NAACP appointed its first African American executive director, James Weldon Johnson
1923 Supreme Court ruled in Moore v. Dempsey that exclusion of African Americans from a jury was inconsistent with the right to a fair trial
1931 Walter White appointed to succeed Johnson as director of NAACP
1934 Charles Hamilton Houston hired as NAACP’s first full-time attorney
1936 Thurgood Marshall joined NAACP as special counsel
1940 NAACP created separate legal arm, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and appointed Marshall as its director-counsel
1941 Secretary of Army authorized first segregated airman unit, the 99th Squadron, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen
1948 Marshall’s team argued Shelley v. Kraemer, which struck down racially restrictive (land) covenants; President Truman abolished racial segregation in armed
services by executive order
1950 In Sweatt v. Painter, Supreme Court ruled racially segregated professional schools inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional; first integrated
combat units saw action in Korea
1954 Marshall’s team argued Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional
1955 Roy Wilkins appointed to succeed White as NAACP’s executive director
1961 Marshall appointed to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; Jack Greenberg succeeded Marshall as director of LDF
1964 NAACP lobbying led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
1965 NAACP lobbying led to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

1967 Thurgood Marshall became first African American associate justice of the Supreme Court
1968 NAACP lobbying led to passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968
1972 U.S. Supreme Court declared existing capital punishment laws unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia
1974 NAACP experienced a setback when Supreme Court overturned efforts to integrate largely white suburban school districts with largely black urban
districts in Milliken v. Bradley
1976 Georgia, Florida, and Texas drafted new death penalty laws; Supreme Court upheld these new laws
1977 Benjamin Hooks succeeded Wilkins as NAACP’s executive director
1978 Supreme Court placed limits on affirmative action programs in Regents of University of California v. Bakke
1993 Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. appointed to succeed Hooks as NAACP’s executive director
1994 NAACP board of directors voted to oust Chavis after sexual harassment suit was filed against him
1995 Myrlie Evers-Williams replaced William F. Gibson as chair of the NAACP board of directors
1996 NAACP board appointed Kweisi Mfume, a U.S. representative from Maryland, as president and chief financial officer; Mfume cut national staff by third as
first step in returning NAACP to financial health
1997 NAACP launched the Economic Reciprocity Program
2000 TV diversity agreements; retirement of the debt and first six years of a budget surplus; largest African American voter turnout in 20 years
2001 Cincinnati riots; development of five year strategic plan
2009 NAACP celebrated its 100th anniversary
SOURCE: NAACP Web pa
g
e, available online at
g
; Simple Justice b
y
Richard Klu
g
er (1975).
ILLUSTRATION BY GGS
CREATIVE RESOURCES.
REPRODUCED BY
PERMISSION OF GALE,

A PART OF CENGAGE
LEARNING.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
168 NAACP
legislation, and prepares an annual Report Card,
showing how each member of Congress voted
on key civil rights issues.
For its early
LITIGATION efforts, t he NA ACP
relied on lawy ers w ho volunt eered their services.
In 1934 the group hired
CHARLES HAMILTON
HOUSTON
, an African American and the dean of
Howard Law School, as its first full-time attorney.
The following year Houston started a legal
campaign to end school segregation. Houston
was assisted by
THURGOOD MARSHALL,ayoung
lawyer who would go on to argue many cases
before the Supreme Court and in 1967 become
the first African American appointed to the
Court. In 19 40, t he NAACP a pp ointed M arshall
director-counsel of its new legal branch, the
NAACP
LEGAL DEFENS E AND EDUCATIONAL FUND
(LDF).
In 1948 Marshall, along with fellow attorneys,
won a critical victory in Shelley v. Kraemer (334

U.S. 1, 68 S. Ct. 836, 92 L. Ed. 1161 [1948]),
putting an end to the enforcement of racially
restrictive
REAL ESTATE covenants that prevented
blacks from purchasing homes in white neighbor-
hoods. In 1957, the LDF became a separate entity.
After succeeding in Supreme Court cases
concerning unequal salary scales for black
teachers and segregation in graduate and
professional schools, the NAACP achieved its
most celebrated triumph before the Court in
Brown, a decision that declared racial segrega-
tion in public schools to be unconstitutional.
The Brown decision sparked another civil
rights initiative, the Montgomery, Alabama, bus
boycott of 1955. The boycott catapulted
MARTIN
LUTHER KING JR
. to national recognition and
spurred the creation of the
SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN
LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
(SCLC). By the early
1960s, the SCLC, the STUDENT NONVIOLENT
COORDINATING COMMITTEE
(SNCC), the Congress
of Racial Equality (CORE), and the
NATIONAL
URBAN LEAGUE
all promoted civil rights for

African Americans. These groups adopted a
direct-action approach to promoting African
American interests by conducting highly publi-
cized sit-ins and demonstrations.
The NAACP, meanwhile, drew criticism for
its devotion to traditional legal and political
means for seeking social change.
ROY WILKINS,
executive director of the NAACP from 1955 to
1975, voiced his preference for traditional tactics
over “the kind that picks a fight with the sheriff
and gets somebody’s head beaten” (Spear 1984,
7:402). Although many viewed it as overly
conservative in its civil rights approach, the
NAACP helped pass important civil rights
legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964
(42 U.S.C.A. § 2000a et seq.), the
VOTING RIGHTS
ACT OF
1965 (42 U.S.C.A. § 1973 et seq.), and
the
FAIR HOUSING ACT OF 1968 (42 U.S.C.A. § 3601
et seq.). The NAACP remained an interracial
group and spurned the call for black nationalism
and separatism voiced by SNCC, the Black
Panthers, and other groups that turned to
blacks-only membership later in the 1960s.
Unlike many of the more radical civil rights
groups, the NAACP outlasted the turbulent
1960s. However, it experienced setbacks during

the 1970s in Supreme Court cases such as
Bradley v. Millikin (418 U.S. 717, 94 S. Ct. 3112,
41 L. Ed. 2d 1069 [1974]), which overturned
efforts to integrate largely white suburban public
school districts and largely black urban districts,
and Regents of University of California v. Bakke
(438 U.S. 265, 98 S. Ct. 2733, 57 L. Ed. 2d 750
[1978]), which placed limits on
AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION
programs.
BENJAMIN L. HOOKS succeeded Wilkins as
NAACP director in 1977. Hooks held that
office until 1993, when he was replaced by
Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. Leadership and funding
problems plagued the NAACP dur ing the mid-
1990s. After a
SEXUAL HARASSMENT suit was filed
against Chavis in 1994, the NAACP board of
directors voted to oust him as executive
director. The following year, it dismissed board
chairman William F. Gibson and replaced him
with
MYRLIE EVERS-WILLIAMS, the widow of civil
rights activist
MEDGAR EVERS. Seeking to put aside
its troubles, on February 20, 1996, the NAACP
board appo inted Kweisi Mf ume, a U.S. repre-
sentative from Maryland and head of the
Congressional Black Caucus, as the organiza-

tion’s new president and chief executive officer.
To restore the organization’s financial stability,
Mfume reduced the national staff by one-third.
Mfume stepped down in 2004.
Among its many tasks, the NAACP works on
the local level to handle cases of racial discrimi-
nation; offers referral services, tutorials, and day
care; sponsors the NAACP National Housing
Corporation to help develop low- and moderate-
income housing for families; offers programs to
youths and prison inmates; and maintains a law
library. It also lobbies Congress regarding the
appointment of Supreme Court justices.
The NAACP accepts people of all races and
religions as members. In the early 2000s, it had a
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NAACP 169
membership of more than 500,000, with 2,200
units (including more than 600 youth councils
and college chapters) in the United States and
around the world. The organization continues to
struggle with the need to increase membership
and retain relevancy while advocating for various
civil rights issues. In 2000 the board instituted
mandatory training for NAACP local leadership.
More than 10,000 branch officers and executive
committee members attended the training, and
the organization removed 800 officers and
committee members who did not attend.
The NAACP has also taken steps to build

coalitions with black youth. Former NAACP
president Kweisi Mfume sat on the board of
Summit Action Network, a coalition of hip hop
music stars as well as record company execu-
tives and community organizations that seek to
educate and mobilize fans of rap music to
register and vote in local and national elections.
In addition, the NAACP has sought to over-
come political differences and gain the support
of the country’s major Latino civil right
organizations, including the
LEAGUE OF UNITED
LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS
(LULAC) and the
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA. In January 2003,
the NAACP announced that the
UNITED NATIONS
had designated it as a non-governmental
organization (NGO). The NGO designation
meant that the NAACP could advise and
consult with foreign governments and with
the U.N. secretariat on issues relating to
HUMAN
RIGHTS
.
In May 2008 the NAACP selected Benjamin
T. Jealous, an activist and former news execu-
tive, to serve as president and CEO of the
organization. At 35, Jealous was the youngest
leader in the organization’s history. In February

2009, the NAACP celebrated its 100th anniver-
sary, amidst ongoing debate over whether the
organization remained necessary in the modern
world. Although some argued that the organi-
zation had become irrelevant, citing the election
of
BARACK OBAMA as the first African American U.
S. president, Jealous urged otherwise. The
NAACP centennial convention turned its focus
to addressing the modern issues of predatory
lending and AIDS, and Jealous promised to
focus on ongoing human rights issues during
his term.
FURTHER READINGS
NAACP. Available online at www.naacp.org (accessed
September 16, 2009).
Rhym, Darren. 2002. The NAACP. Philadelphia: Chelsea
House.
Schneider, Mark R. 2002. We Return Fighting: The Civil
Rights Movement in the Jazz Age. Boston: Northeastern
Univ. Press.
Sullivan, Patricia. 2009. Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and
the Making of the Civil Rights Movement. New York:
New Press.
CROSS REFERENCE
Discrimination.
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE
AND EDUCATIONAL FUND
In 1940, the organization formerly known as
the National Association for the Advancement

of Colored People and now called the
NAACP
launched the Legal Defense and Educational
Fund (LDF). Since its founding, the LDF has
been involved in more cases before the U.S.
Supreme Court than any other nongovernmen-
tal organization.
The National Association for the Advance-
ment of Colored People (NAACP), which had
been founded in 1909 to support civil rights,
soon found itself needing direction and aid as it
sought to help people find their way through
the criminal justice system. Under the leader-
ship of future Supreme Court Justice
THURGOOD
MARSHALL
, the Legal Defense and Educational
Fund (LDF) was created to provide information
about the criminal justice system and legal
assistance to indigent African Americans.
In 1957, three years after the Supreme
Court’s landmark decision in
BROWN V. BOARD
OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA
, KANSAS (347 U.S. 483, 47
S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873), which held that
SEGREGATION in public schools was unconstitu-
tional, the LDF was established as an entirely
separate organization from the NAACP. The
LDF is headquartered in New York City and has

regional offices in Washington, D.C., and Los
Angeles. The LDF has close to two dozen
attorneys on staff whose work is supplemented
by assistance from hundreds of attorneys
around the United States.
The LDF primarily works with issues
involving education,
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION,fair
employment and economic access, issues re-
lated to voting and other forms of civic and
political participation, and criminal justice
issues, including the death penalty and prison
reform. With more than 100 active cases, the
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
170 NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND
LDF has one of the largest legal caseloads of any
public service organization in the country.
In 2007 John Payton, an attorney well
known for his successful record in important
CIVIL RIGHTS LITIGATION, was named director-
counsel and president of the LDF. In May
2008 Payton was named one of the “Most
Influential Minority Lawyers in America” by the
National Law Journal. At the time of his
appointment, his accomplishments were said
to make him well suited to follow in the
footsteps of
THURGOOD MARSHALL, also a former
director-counsel of the LDF.
While the primary focus of the LDF is on

court cases, the fund also monitors legislation,
provides advocacy, education research, and
builds coalitions with related organizations. The
scope of LDF activity has also widened to include
advocacy for other minorities in this country as
well as for global
HUMAN RIGHTS. To this end, the
LDF has aided in the establishment of similar
organizations that advocate for other minority
groups in the United States. Additionally, the
fund has used its experience and legal expertise
to help form public-interest legal organizations
in Brazil, Canada, and South Africa.
In addition to the Brown case, which
resulted in a flood of legal cases around the
country relating to
SCHOOL DESEGREGATION, the
LDF won a number of significant cases in
the 1950s that concerned housing
DISCRIMINA-
TION
, voting access, jury selection, the use of
forced confessions, and access to counsel by
indigent persons.
In the 1960s the LDF provided counsel for
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. and other civil rights
activists. The LDF also began its drive to abolish
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. LDF provided counsel in
numerous death penalty cases and was able to
stop executions in the United States between

1966 and 1978. Since 1965 the LDF has
published Death Row USA, a list of death-row
inmates. In 2008 the LDF continued its fight
against capital punishment, winning a life
sentence for a mentally retarded man who had
been on Pennsylvania’s Death Row for 26 years.
Over time, LDF has also fought for the
rights of indigent defendants to obtain adequate
LEGAL REPRESENTATION.InRichmond v. District
Court of Maryland, a 2008 action that chal-
lenged the practice of the city of Baltimore in
not providing indigent defendants with legal
counsel upon their first appearance in court.
LDF filed a
FRIEND OF THE COURT brief. In its brief,
LDF argued that the relevant law obligates the
appointment of counsel at the initial appearance
stage of the proceedings.
In the 1980s and 1990s the LDF undertook
hundreds of
CLASS ACTION suits against employ-
ers, unions, and governmental units that have
helped secure and safeguard the employment
rights of thousands of workers.
The LD F also continued to support major
voting rights legislation and to be involved in
numerous cases aimed at securing voting rights
for minorities. In the early 2000s the LDF
continued to be involved in cases stemming
from the redistricting of congressional districts

after the 2000 census. After the 2000 presiden-
tial election, the LDF and five other civil rights
organizations filed a class action lawsuit against
Florida’s
SECRETARY OF STATE and other elected
officials, alleging that a significant number of
minority citizens were unable to vote or faced
severe obstacles in trying to register and vote.
Prior to the 2008 presidential election, the
LDF unveiled a campaign called Prepared to
Vote, which was designed to augment tradi-
tional voter participation efforts by providing
critical election information to minority
communities. The program components include
community–based workshops, the distribution
of community-friendly materials, meetings with
election officials, and an educational Website.
The LDF created the Prepare to Vote campaign
to ensure that the voting process is administered
uniformly and fairly in minority communities.
The LDF has likewise fought in support of
equal education and affirmative action. In
February 2003, the LDF filed briefs in two
major suits that challenged the use of race-
conscious criteria in the admissions programs
of the University of Michigan law school and
its undergraduate School of Literature, Science,
and the Arts. The Supreme Court ultimately
decided in favor of the University of Michigan
race-conscious criteria for admissions (Grutter v.

Bollinger, ____ U.S., ____, 123 S. Ct. 2235, ___
L. Ed. 2d ____ [U.S., Jun 23, 2003]). As of 2010
the LDF cont in ued its fight i n support of affi-
rmative action, battling against a nti-affirmative
action ballot initiatives in five states.
FURTHER READINGS
Greenberg, Jack. 1994. Crusaders in the Courts: How a
Dedicated Band of Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights
Revolution. New York: BasicBooks.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 171
Kluger, Richard. 2004. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v.
Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for
Equality. Rev. ed. New York: Knopf.
Orfield, Gary, Susan E. Eaton, and Elaine R. Jones. 1997.
Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown
v. Board of Education. New York: New Press.
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Available
online at www.naacpldf.org (accessed September 16,
2009).
Schwartz, Bernard. 1986. Swann’s Way: The School Busing Case
and the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
CROSS REFERENCES
Civil Rights Acts; Equal Protection; NAACP.
v
NADER, RALPH
Considered the father of the CONSUMER PROTEC-
TION
movement, Ralph Nader has had a great
effect on U.S. law and

PUBLIC POLICY of the late
twentieth century. Nader’s advocacy on behalf
of consumers and workers hastened into reality
many features of the contemporary political
landscape. The work of this lawyer and
irrepressible gadfly of the powers that be, which
began in the mid-1960s, has led to the passage
of numerous consumer-protection laws in such
areas as automobiles, mining, insurance, gas
pipelines, and meatpacking, as well as the
creation of government agencies such as the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administra-
tion, the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration, the
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
, and the CONSU MER PRODUCT SAFETY
COMMISSION
. Nader himself has founded many
well-known consumer advocacy groups, includ-
ing the
PUBLIC INTEREST Research Group, the
Clean Water Action Project, the Center for Auto
Safety, and the Project on Corporate Responsi-
bility. His goal in these efforts, he has said, is
“nothing less than the qualitative reform of the
industrial revolution.”
Nader was born February 27, 1934, in
Winsted, Connecticut, to Nadra Nader and Rose
Bouziane Nader, Lebanese immigrants who

owned and operated a restaurant and bakery.
He is the youngest of five children. He attended
the Gilbert School and Princeton University on
scholarships. At Princeton he entered the
WOODROW WILSON School of Public and Interna-
tional Affairs, and he graduated magna cum
laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1955. During an
era of conformity, his challenges to school
authorities and procedures at Princeton made
him stand out. At one point, he protested the use
of the poisonous insecticide dichlorodipehnyl-
trichloroethane (DDT) on campus trees.
After Princeton, Nader attended Harvard
Law School, where he edited the Harvard Law
Record, and graduated with distinction in 1958.
It was at Harvard that he first became interested
in auto safety. After studying auto-injury cases,
in 1958 he published his first article on the
subject, “American Cars: Designed for Death,” in
the Harvard Law Record. It contained a thesis
that he would bring to national attention in the
mid-1960s: Auto fatalities result not just from
driver error, as the auto industry had main-
tained, but also from poor vehicle design. Nader
followed his law degree with six months of
service in the Army and then a period of
personal travel through Latin America, Europe,
and Africa. Upon his return, he established a
Ralph Nader 1934–
▼▼

▼▼
2000
1975
1950
❖
◆
1939–45
World War II
1934 Born,
Winsted, Conn.
1950–53
Korean War
1961–73
Vietnam War
◆
◆◆
◆
◆
1958 Published first article on auto injury cases, in the
Harvard Law Record; earned LL.B. from Harvard Law School
1964–65 Served as consultant at Labor Department
◆
1965 Unsafe at Any Speed published
◆
◆
◆
◆◆
1966 Highway Safety
Act and National Traffic
and Motor Vehicle Safety

Act passed by Congress
1967 Initiated publicity campaign that helped pass the Wholesome Meat Act
1971 Founded
Public Citizen
Foundation
◆
1969 Founded the
Center for the Study
of Responsive Law
1972 Congress created
Consumer Product
Safety Commission
1970 Occupational Safety and Health
Administration and Environmental Protection
Agency created by acts of Congress
1988 Helped win
California referendum
mandating auto insurance
rate rollbacks; helped
block proposed
congressional pay raise
1992
Ran for
president as
independent
2002 Crashing the
Party published
2000 Cutting Corporate Welfare published; ran for president on the Green Party platform
◆
1996 Ran for president on the Green Party platform; No Contest published

2004 Ran for
president as
independent
◆
2007 The Seventeen
Traditions published
◆
2008 Ran for
president
as independent
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
172 NADER, RALPH
PRIVATE LAW practice in Hartford, Connecticut
created an informal legal aid society, and lectured
from 1961 to 1963 at the University of Hartford.
Having worked at the local level for auto-
safety regulations in the years subsequent to his
graduation from Harvard, Nader decided to go
to Washington, D.C ., in 1964, where he hoped
to have more influence. Through his friendship
with Daniel P. Moynih an, who then was serving
as assistant secretary of labor, Nader worked as
a consultant at the
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR and
wrote a study that called for federal responsibil-
ity over auto safety.
Nader left the Department of Labor in May
1965 and devoted himself to completing what
would become his most celebrated book, Unsafe
at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the

American Automobile. The book was published
later that year and quickly became a best-seller.
In it, Nader painted a grim picture of motor
vehicle injuries and fatalities, noting that 47,700
people were killed in auto accidents in 1964. He
made an eloquent appeal for federal car-safety
standards that would both prevent accidents
from occurring and better protect passengers in
the event of an accident. The book also
communicated a philosophy regarding public
regulation of technology that would cause him
to do battle on many other issu es. “A great
problem of contemp orary life,” he wrote,
“is how to control the power of economic
interests which ignore the harmful effects of
their applied science and technology.” Nader
has devoted his life to solving this problem.
Taking some of his inspiration from the
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, Nader stood up to the
most powerful companies in the world. His
book targeted the safety problems of the
Chevrolet Corvair, a product of the world’s
largest company, General Motors (GM). He
convincingly marshaled evidence that the driver
could lose control of the Corvair even when it
was moving slowly, thus makin g it “unsafe at
any speed.” The Goliath GM did not take kindly
to the stones thrown by this David, and the
company began a campaign of harassment and
intimidation that was intended to abort Nader’s

efforts. Subsequent congressional committee
hearings in 1966 revealed that GM’s campaign
against Nader had involved harassing phone
calls and attempts to lure Nader into
compromising situations with women. The
company formally apologized before Congress
for these tactics.
Many politicians in Washington, D.C., and
many Americans were receptive to Nader’s
ideas. In 1966, in his State of the Union address,
President
LYNDON B. JOHNSON called for a national
highway safety act. Later that year, Congress
passed the Highway Safety Act (80 Stat. 731
[23 U.S.C.A. § 401 note]) and the National
Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (80 Stat.
718 [15 U.S.C.A. § 1381 note]). The latter
created a new government body, later named
the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminis-
tration, that oversaw the creation of federal safety
standards for automobiles and was also empow-
ered to authorize recalls of unsafe vehicles. In
subsequent years, these laws and others for
which Nader had advocated helped to bring
about a marked decrease in traffic fatalities per
vehicle mile. As the Washington Post exclaimed,
on August 30, 1966, “[A] one-man lobby for the
public prevailed over the nation’s most power-
ful industry.”
Nader’s first work in the area of auto safety

remains his most famous consumer advocacy.
However, he has remained a tireless propon ent
of consumers’ and workers’ rights on many
different fronts. Shortly after his triumph with
auto regulation, Nader initiated a publicity
campaign that helped to pass the Wholesome
Ralph Nader.
AP IMAGES
THE MOST
IMPORTANT OFFICE
IN
AMERICA FOR
ANYONE TO ACHIEVE
IS FULL
-TIME CITIZEN.
—RALPH NADER
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NADER, RALPH 173
Meat Act, 81 Stat. 584, 19 U.S.C.A. 1306 (1967),
which established stricter federal guidelines for
meatpacking plants. By the late 1960s he began
to mobilize college students who joined him in
his investigations of public policy and the
effectiveness of governme nt regulations. These
young forces came to be called “Nader’s
Raiders,” and many of them eventually rose to
positions of influence in the government and in
public policy organizations. By the mid-1970s,
the various groups that Nader had created,
including Public Interest Research Groups in

many states, were doing research and financing
legal action in relation to myriad public policy
issues, including tax reform, consumer-product
safety, and corporate responsibility.
During Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the
1980s, Nader’s influence in Washington, D.C.,
declined, particularly as the Reagan administra-
tion dismantled much of the government
regulation that Nader had helped to establish.
He did not give up his cause, however. In the
late 1980s, he was again in the media spotlight,
this time through his attempts to lower car-
insurance rates in California and to block a
proposed congressional pay increase. During the
1980s and 1990s, he also addressed the savings-
and-loan bailout problem, well before it became
high on the nation’s agenda; opposed the use of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which damage the
ozone layer; and worked to prevent limitations
on damages that consumers may receive from
corporations through civil lawsuits.
Nader has run for president in every
presidential election from 1992 to 2008. In
1992, he entered the race as a write-in candidate.
Four years later, he was nominated as a candidate
by the
GREEN PARTY,whichhasitsstrongest
support in California. With political activist
Winona LaDuke as his running mate, he ran a
no-frills campaign, accepting no taxpayer money,

eschewing advertising, and often traveling alone.
He earned 684,902 votes that year, including two
percent of the votes in California.
Nader ran again in the 2000 election. He
raised more than $8 million for the campaign,
some $30 million less than
REFORM PARTY candi-
date PAT BUCHANAN. Running again wi th LaDuke,
Nader finished third in the election, with
2,882,955 votes, while Buchanan finished with
448,895. Several supporters urged Nader to run
again in the 2004 election, which he did. That
time, the support that had carried him through
the previous election was non-existent as many
called for him to rem ove himself from the
running. Nader ran for president again in 2008 as
an independent and received 0.6% of the votes.
Nader has written and edited dozens of
books during his career, including Crashing the
Party, which details his run during the 2000
presidential election. Other books include The
Consumer and Corporate Accountability (1973),
Corporate Power in America (1973), Working on
the System: A Comprehensive Manual for Citizen
Access to Federal Agencies (1974), Government
Regulation: What Kind of Reform? (1976), The
Big Boys: Power and Position in American
Business (1986), and Collision Course: The Truth
about Airline Safety (1994).
FURTHER READINGS

Herrnson, Paul S., and John C. Green, eds. 1998. Multiparty
Politics in America. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Martin, Justin. 2002.Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon. Cambridge,
Mass.: Perseus.
Nader, Ralph. 2007. The Seventeen Traditions. New York:
HarperCollins.
———. 2002. Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate
Government in an Age of Surrender. New York: Thomas
Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press.
———. 2000. The Ralph Nader Reader. New York: Seven
Stories Press.
———. 1972. Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers
of the American Automobile. Rev. ed. New York:
Grossman.
Nader, Ralph, and Wesley J. Smith. 1996. No Contest:
Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in
America. New York: Random House.
CROSS REFERENCE
Green Party.
NAFTA
See NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT.
NAKED CONTRACT
From the Latin term nudum pactum, or “bare
agreement.” An agreement between two parties
that is without any legal effect because no
consideration has been exchanged between the
parties. A naked contract, also known as a “nude
contract,” is unenforceable in a court of law.
In
ROMAN LAW, a nudum pactum was an

informal agreement that was not legally en-
forceable, because it did not fall within the
specific classes of agreements that could support
a legal action. A pactum could, however, create
an exception to or modification of an existing
obligation.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
174 NAFTA
NAME
The designation of an individual person or of a
firm or corporation. A word or combination of
words used to distinguish a person, thing, or class
from others.
An individual’s name comprises a name
given at birth, known as the given name or first
name, selected by the parents, and the surname
or last name, which identifies the family to
which he or she belongs. Ordinarily an
individual is not properly identified unless he
or she is called or described by this given name
in addition to the surname. This rule has
significance, among other times, when students
are designated in school records and when
parties are called or referred to in
LEGAL
PROCEEDINGS
, in cluding CHILD CUSTODY actions.
The general rule is that when identity is certain,
a small variance in name, such as that caused by
typographical errors, is unimportant.

The method by which an individual can
change his or her name is usually prescribed
by state statutes and involves filing a certificate
in, or making an application to, a court.
Whether or not a name change will be granted
is ordinarily a matter of judicial di scretion.
In more recent times, more states have moved
away from this and allowed name changes
reg ardless of reason.
In recent years, married women have begun
to depart from the traditional practice of taking
their husband’s surname upon marriage. In-
stead they retain their birth names, the
surnames possessed before marriage. All 50
states now allow a wife to keep her birth nam e
or use her husband’s surname. In addition,
several states now recognize the rights of
women in choosing names for their children.
Interestingly, the majority of states do not give
statutory authority for a husband to adopt his
wife’s surname.
FURTHER READING
Frandina, Michael Mahoney. 2009. “AMan’s Right to
Choose His Surname in Marriage: A Proposal.” Duke
Journal of Gender Law & Policy (January), 155.
NAPOLEONIC CODE
The first modern organized body of law governing
France, also known as the Code Napoleon or Code
Civil, enacted by Napoléon I in 1804.
In 1800 Napoléon I appointed a commis-

sion of four persons to undertake the task of
compiling the Napoleonic Code. Their efforts,
along with those of J. J. Cambacérès, were
instrumental in the preparation of the final
draft. The Napoleonic Code assimilated the
private law of France, which was the law
governing transactions and relationships be-
tween individuals. The Code, which is regarded
by some commentators as the first modern
counterpart to
ROMAN LAW, is currently in effect
in France in an amended form.
The Napoleonic Code is a revised version of
the Roman law or
CIVIL LAW, which predomi-
nated in Europe, with numerous French
modifications, some of which were based on
the Germanic law that had been in effect in
northern France. The code draws upon the
Institutes of the Roman
CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS for
its categories of the civil law: property rights,
such as licenses; the acquisition of property,
such as trusts; and personal status, such as
legitimacy of birth.
Napoléon applied the code to the territories
he governed—namely, some of the German
states, the low countries, and northern Italy. It
was extremely influential in Spain and, eventu-
ally, in Latin America as well as in all other

European nations except England, where the
COMMON LAW, also known as judge-made law,
prevailed. It was the harbinger, in France and
abroad, of codifications of other areas of law,
such as
CRIMINAL LAW, CIVIL PROCEDURE , and
COMMERCIAL LAW. The Napoleonic Code served
as the prototype for subsequent co des during
the nineteenth century in 24 countries; the
province of Québec and the state of Louisiana
have derived a substantial portion of their laws
from it. (The other 49 states in America follow
the common law tradition.) Napoléon also
promulgated four other codes: the Code of
Civil Procedure (1807), the Commercial Code
(1808), the Code of Criminal Procedure (1811),
and the Penal Code (1811).
NARAL PRO-CHOICE AMERICA
NARAL Pro-Choice America, founded in 1969
as the National
ABORTION and Reproductive
Rights Action League, is a nonprofit organiza-
tion that was formed primarily to maintain a
woman’s
LEGAL RIGHT to have an abortion. The
mission of NARAL, however, has broadened to
include supporting policies that enable women
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NARAL PRO-CHOICE AMERICA 175
and me n to make responsible decisions about

sexuality, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth,
and abortion. NARAL is comprised of a
network of 35 state affiliates and has 500,000
members. It has proven to be an effective
organization, promoting pro-choice candidates
for state and federal offices and
LOBBYING for
pro-choice legislation.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized
abortion in
ROE V. WADE, 410 U.S. 113, 93
S. Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 (1973), opponents
of abortion have sought to overturn or limit this
decision. NARAL has vigo rously defended Roe
but has also encouraged better sex education
and the use of birth control to make abortion
necessary less often. Through NARAL Pro-
Choice America PAC, its political action
committee, NARAL has been a driving force
behind the election of many pro-choice candi-
dates. NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC
mounts campaigns to elect pro-choice candi-
dates and defeat candidates opposed to legalized
abortion, using paid advertising and get-out-
the-vote efforts. It also persuaded the Wal-Mart
and Kroger Corporations to cease blocking
women’s access to emergency contraception.
The NARAL Pro-Choice America Founda-
tion, a charitable organization founded in 1977,
supports research and legal work, publishes

substantive policy reports, mounts public edu-
cation campaigns and other communications
projects, and provides leadership training for
grassroots activists. The NARAL Foundation
and NARAL employ a computerized state-by-
state database, NARAL*STAR (State Tracking of
Abortion Rights), which provides up-to-the-
minute information for NARAL staff, affiliates,
policy makers, media, and coalition partners on
state laws related to reproductive rights, pend-
ing legislation, state constitutions, and state
executive branches. Since 2005 the organization
has helped defeat seven anti-choice ballot
measures in four states.
NARAL and the NARAL Foundation regu-
larly publish Who Decides? A State-by-State
Review of Abortion Rights, a compilation of
abortion-related information in each state,
including the position on choice of elect ed
officials, summaries of selected statutes and
regulations, and recent legislative activity.
NARAL worked with the Clinton adminis-
tration to reverse policies of the Reagan and
GEORGE H.W. BUSH administrations dealing with
abortion. It helped remove bans on the testing
of RU-486 (a nonsurgical abortion method), the
use of fetal tissue in scientific research, and the
provision of abortion services at military
hospitals. NARAL also played a major role in
the passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic

Entrances Act, which places certain restrictions
on protestors’ ability to obstruct or hinder
persons seeking access to abortion services.
Since 1996, when Congress enacted a bill
banning the practice of partial-birth abortions,
NARAL has been on the defensive. Though
President
BILL CLINTON vetoed the bill, many
states have since passed laws banning the
procedure, and Congress continues to debate
the issue.
The election of
GEORGE W. BUSH as presi dent
in 2000, and the gain of Republ ican seats in
both the House an d Senate in 2002, strength-
ened the position of a bortion opponents and
gave increased urgency to the NARAL pro-
choice mission. NARAL helped block the
appointment of Bush’s anti-choice nominee
Richard Honaker to the federal bench. The
organization continues to fight for increased
access to federal funding of abortions for poor
women, federal employees, and women in the
military. It has mounted vigorous campaigns
opposing President Bush’s judicial no minees
whoareopposedtoabortion.Theorganiza-
tion also launched “Generation Pro-Choice,”
a Web site aimed at educating college students
and younger women about their reproductive
rights and encouraging them to become pro-

choice advocates. Since 2006 it has been
instrum ental in electing 44 new pro-ch oice
members of the House and nine pro-choice
senators, and supported Barack Obama’sbid
for the presidency.
FURTHER READING
NARAL. 2009. “How We Win.” Available online at http://
www.prochoiceamerica.org/about-us/how -we-win/;
website home page: />(accessed August 5, 2009).
CROSS REFERENCES
Abortion; Fetal Rights; Women’s Rights.
NARCOTICS ACTS
Control over, and prevention of, the distribution
and usage of narcotic drugs has been a maj or
priority of the federal government and the various
state governments since the early part of the
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
176 NARCOTICS ACTS
twentieth century. Notwithstanding these efforts,
statistics on the use of narcotics in the United
States remain startling. They encompass not only
the trafficking and arrests associated with illegal
substances, but also the vast numbers associated
with illegal trafficking of legal prescription
medications. In the new millennium, the exposure
of rampant use of anabolic steroids has put new
burdens on enforcement activities because these
substances are often found in non-prescription
dietary supplements formerly not subject to control
or inspection.

Background
In any given year, the number of arrests and
convictions associated with the trafficking of
drugs remains startling. The Justice Department’s
DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION (DEA), tasked
with oversight, announced that in 2008 alone,
it had made 26,425 domestic arrests involving a
cumulative figure of over nine million halluci-
nogenic dosage units in drug seizu res. (This
figure actually represented a decrease in arrests
from the 29,097 reported for 2007.) The four
major drug classifications involved in the 2008
statistics were cocaine (49,823 kilograms seized);
heroin (598.6 kilograms seized); marijuana
(660,969 kilograms seized); and methamphet-
amine (1,540 kilograms seized).
According to the National Household Drug
Survey on Drug Abuse, conducted by the
SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
ADMINISTRATION
, 55.6 percent of respondents
between the ages of 18 and 25 said that they
had used illicit drugs. This compares to 53.3
percent of respondents between the ages of 26
and 34, and 28.4 percent of respondents between
the ages of 12 and 17. The National Institute on
Drug Abuse’s 2002 Monitoring the Future Study
found that 53 percent of high-school seniors
claimed to have used narcotics, including 41
percent who said that they had used drugs in the

past year, and 25.4 percent who said that they
had used drugs in the past month.
The efforts of law enforcement officers
have had some effect on the use and transfer
of narcotics in the past, although these
efforts have been costly. In 2001 federal
agents seized approximately 1,215 metric tons
of marijuana, 106 metric tons of cocaine,
3.6 metric tons of methamphetamine, and
2.5 metric tons of heroin. The costs to society
of enforcing narcotics laws have continued to
increase. In 1992 the total estimated costs to
society of narcotics use was $102 billion. By
2000 this number had grown to $160 billion,
including almost $15 billion in health care costs.
Development of Federal Narcotics Laws
During the Civil War, forms of opiates were
considered “miracle” drugs that could be used
as anesthetics when a doctor performed surgery.
Without opiates, surgeries during that period,
which often consisted of amputations, involved
a group of men holding down a patient while
a doctor sawed off the limb of a patient. By the
1870s, opiates, cocaine, and other drugs were
used in a variety of medical concoctions, leading
to increases in addictions.
The use of opium, cocaine, and other drugs
continued through most of the nineteenth
century. The type of addiction during that time
that caused the most concern was alcoholism,

and because the causes of addiction and the
dangers of narcotics were both unknown,
doctors recommended morphine and heroin
as remedies for addiction to alcohol. Cocaine
was also used in tonics, such as the first form of
the mixture that became known as Coca-Cola.
Moreover, patients, including those of Sigmund
Freud, were treated for depression with cocaine.
Congress enacted the
PURE FOOD AND DRUG
ACT OF 1906
, ch. 3915, 34 Stat. 768, which formed
the
FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA) and
gave it the power to regulate food and drugs.
Drug addiction began to drop as a result of early
FDA regulations. Eight years later, Congress
enacted the Harrison Tax Act, ch. 1, 38 Stat.
789, which prohibited the dispensation and
distribution of narcotic drugs. In 1922, Con-
gress enacted the Narcotics Drug Import and
Export Act, ch. 202, 42 Stat. 596, which
prohibited importation and use of opium and
other narcotics except for medical purposes.
Between 1922 and 1970 Congress enacted
several additional laws that were designed to
curb narcotics importation, trade, and use.
Drugs such as marijuana and heroin were
prohibited, as was the cultivation of opium
poppies. The Narcotic Control Act of 1956,

ch. 629, 70 Stat. 567, criminalized the transport
of narcotics, including marijuana. Some legisla-
tion began to focus upon rehabilitation of
narcotics addicts. For example, the Narcotic
Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966, Pub. L. No.
89-793, 80 Stat. 1438, provided for treatment of
addicts as an alternative to
INCARCERATION.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NARCOTICS ACTS 177