?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(CIVIL RIGHTS.) Legal notice to the owner of a segregated Maryland restaurant. Typescript carbon letter from arbitrator Lane Kolker Berk to Mr. Gibbons. 2 pages, 11 x 8½ inches, on Maryland Commission on Interracial Problems and Relations letterhead; mailing folds, staple, minimal wear. With stamped and postmarked certified mail envelope addressed to the complainant. Baltimore, MD, 27 April 1964
A demonstration of the newly established anti-segregation laws in action. A Black woman named Salome Howard visited the Willie Gibbons Village Inn in Hughesville, Maryland and found "that Negroes are not being served in the establishment." She filed a complaint with the Maryland Commission on Interracial Problems and Relations, which sent an arbitrator to meet with the restaurant owner. According to the "written findings" attached here, "the meeting failed to effectuate agreement on service to the entire public. Therefore, we are given probable cause for believing a discriminatory act has been or is being committed." The Commission then wrote Gibbons this letter ordering him to complete three "resolution forms" or "appear for adjudication at a public hearing." This official carbon copy was sent to the complainant Mrs. Howard to let her know the problem had been addressed.
This letter predates by several weeks the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The complaint was filed with a state agency under a new commission which predated the national legislation. The written findings were for "complaint no. 113," suggesting both that segregation remained widespread, and that the public was working actively with the commission to get it fixed.
