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The Heart of Atlanta motel at
255 Courtland Street (now the site of the Hilton), is seen on
this postcard from the early 1960s. The Heart of Atlanta motel was the
subject of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1964.
The motel was owned by Atlanta attorney Moreton Rolleston Jr.,
a committed segregationist who refused to rent rooms at his
hotel to black customers. Upon passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, Rolleston immediately filed suit in
federal court to assert that the law was the result of an
overly broad interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's
commerce clause. Rolleston represented himself in the
case, HEART OF ATLANTA MOTEL, INC. v. UNITED STATES ET AL and
lost when the Supreme Court ruled that Congress was well
within its powers to regulate interstate commerce in such a
manner. Rolleston passed away in 2013 at the age
of 95.
As recently as December 2006, the disputatious Rolleston was once again in the news in a story concerning his 11-year battle to avoid paying a $5.2 million judgment from a 1995 malpractice case brought by the estate of a former client. Strange but true: the fallout from the judgment against him led to a legal lawsuit Rolleston filed against actor-writer-producer Tyler Perry.
Click here
for an aerial photo of this property and the surrounding
blocks. Google
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