History UnderfootAtlanta
  • Sit-ins & commerce
  • Segregation
  • suit July 1964; decided Dec. 14, 1964
  • City of Atlanta

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964)

The owner of this 216-room downtown motel sued to keep refusing Black guests under the new Civil Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law's public-accommodations section on December 14, 1964.

See it on the map All Segregation records

The record

Attorney Moreton Rolleston Jr.'s motel stood on Courtland Street two blocks from Peachtree, 'readily accessible to interstate highways 75 and 85'. It advertised on more than 50 billboards and drew about 75 percent of its guests from out of state (opinion). It had refused to rent to Black guests, and it sued to keep doing so after the Civil Rights Act became law on July 2, 1964. The Court held that Congress could bar discrimination by such businesses under the Commerce Clause, because in the aggregate it burdened interstate travel (NGE). The case was argued on October 5, 1964.

Today: The motel (opened 1956) was replaced in 1976 by the Hilton Atlanta on the same address (Clio).