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1775 Alvarado Terrace, SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30310
August 1, 1963
Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr.
City Hall
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
Dear Mayor Allen,
You ought to be ashamed of yourself - going to Washington
trying to curry favor with the administration while your proteges
continue to harass Mr. Leb, one of Atlanta's finest citizens,
a tax payer and businessman who feels that he should be allowed to
determine whom he will serve in his restaurant.
You wouldn't have been proud of these agitators if you
could have seen them last Friday afternoon, as we did from our office
window, as they sat in the middle of the Forsyth-Luckie street inter-
section and blocked traffic for thirty minutes or longer, and then
allowed themselves to be dragged like animals and thrown into the
police wagon.
It was a frightening and explosive situation. Many of those
in the crowd that gathered were very angry, especially the motorists,
and it would not have taken much to have touched off fighting and
bloodshed,
Within less than a block of Leb's Restaurant there are two
other restaurants and a cafeteria that have desegregated, but obnoxious
pickets are still allowed to torment Mr. Leb.
You are asking Congress to pass the civil rights bill so that
you can fulfill your alleged promises to the Negro voters when you were
campaigning, and then dismiss it by saying what you did about school
desegregation. (Copy of article in TIME inclosed.)
Your use of profanity to say what you did in the TIME article
is deplorable. In last Tuesday's Atlanta Journal you were quoted as
using another vulgar word. Ask our Juvenile Court judge if that is a
good example for a mayor to set for the young people in his city.
Yours very truly,
Marie L. De Lay
P. S. Were you proud of the way the Saturday Evening Post advertised
their article on Atlanta - "Atlanta Hell-Bent for Culture"? It sounded
to me as if they were making fun of us, Atlanta is fast losing all her
culture and refinement and I'm depressed over it. I have lived in
Atlanta since 1905. M L. D.
Copy to Senators Thurmond, Russell and Talmadge