The Heart of Atlanta motel was one of the finest hotels in 1956 between New York and Miami. It was also a part of one of the most Civil Rights cases of its time. The owner, Atlanta attorney Moreton Rolleston Jr. a committed segregationist, refused to rent rooms to black customers. Upon 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., which went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.  Rolleston lost when the Supreme Court ruled that Congress was well within its powers to regulate interstate commerce in such a manner.