Hawkins v. Town of Shaw, 437 F.2d 1286 (5th Cir. 1971) was a class-action lawsuit over equal distribution of municipal services and infrastructure which reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The plaintiffs, black citizens of Shaw, alleged that the town spent tax money for services disproportionately in white neighborhoods, resulting in unequal access to street paving, sanitary sewers, stormwater drainage, street lighting, and water pressure. The Appeals Court, overruling the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, found in favor of the plaintiffs, determining that Shaw had violated their right to equal protection under the law, and ordered Shaw to submit a plan for equalizing its services. Background About 2,500 people lived in the town of Shaw, Mississippi, situated in the Mississippi Delta within Bolivar and Sunflower counties. Of the residents, 1,500 were identified as "Negro" and 1,000 as "white". According to the Appeals Court decision: Residential racial segregation is almost total. There are 451 dwelling units occupied by blacks in town, and, of these, 97% (439) are located in neighborhoods in which no whites reside. That the town's policies in administering various municipal services have led to substantially less attention being paid to the black portion of town is clear. Nearly 98% of all homes that front on unpaved streets in Shaw are occupied by blacks. Ninety-seven percent of the homes not served by sanitary sewers are in black neighborhoods. Further, while the town has acquired a significant number of medium and high intensity mercury vapor street lighting fixtures, every one of them has been installed in white neighborhoods. The record further discloses that similar statistical evidence of grave disparities in both the level and kinds of services offered regarding surface water drainage, water mains, fire hydrants, and traffic control apparatus was also brought forth and not disputed. Funding for services and infrastructure came not from specially collected fees but from ad valorem taxes levied generally among the town's residents. Case history Andrew Hawkins, a carpenter, his wife Mary Lou Hawkins, and twenty other black residents of Shaw filed a class-action lawsuit against the mayor and aldermen of Shaw under 42 U.S. Code § 1983 ("Civil action for deprivation of rights"), a statute introduced by the Second Enforcement Act of 1871 which offers legal relief for violation of constitutional rights. They alleged the Shaw had violated their Fourteenth-Amendment rights by denying