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 You Be the Judge > Brown v. Louisiana
Case Facts On Saturday, March 7, 1964 five African-American men entered a segregated library in Clinton, Louisiana. The library was part of the Audubon Regional Library system, which did not allow blacks into any of its library branches. One of these young men, who in court records is only identified by his last name, Brown, asked a librarian for a book. The library assistant promised to request it from the state library and to notify Brown when it arrived. She then asked the men to leave. They sat down and remained. The assistant called the sheriff, who arrested the men for congregating in a public building and failing to leave when ordered to do so. Brown argued that the arrest violated the men’s First Amendment rights to free speech, petition, and assembly. The silent protest was an act of symbolic speech, in an attempt to get the library to allow equal access to the library for blacks. The state of Louisiana responded that the men had been given equal service at the library and had caused a breach of the peace. What happened? In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the men’s right to protest racial discrimination by staging a sit-in at a segregated facility—the public library. In the majority opinion, Justice Abe Fortas wrote: “We are here dealing with an aspect of a basic constitutional right—the right under the First and Fourteenth Amendments guaranteeing freedom of speech and of assembly, and freedom to petition the Government for a redress of grievances….these rights are not confined to verbal expression. They embrace appropriate types of action which certainly include the right in a peaceable and orderly manner to protest by silent and reproachful presence, in a place where the protestant has ever right to be, the unconstitutional segregation of public facilities….the statute cannot constitutionally be applied to punish petitioners’ actions in the circumstances of this case.” Justice Hugo Black wrote this in the minority opinion: “…there simply was no racial discrimination practiced in this case. These petitioners were treated with every courtesy and granted very consideration to which they were entitled….the five petitioners stayed in the library not to use it for learning but as ‘monuments of protest’ to voice their disapproval of what they thought was a policy of the State….it is…implied at several places that the equal treatment given these petitioners was some kind of subterfuge or sham. These aspersions are I think wholly without justification.” How the Supreme Court Justices voted Chief Justice Earl Warren Yes Abe Fortas Yes Byron R. White Yes William Brennan, Jr. Yes William O. Douglas Yes Hugo Black No John Marshall Harlan No Potter Stewart No Tom C. Clark No What does this mean for us today? The Brown case affirmed that we have a right to petition or encourage government action through symbolic speech and peaceful, non-violent protest. Peaceful protest has played a major role in many rights movements in our country’s history and around the world. People still petition the government through sit-ins, including here in Chicago. In September 2010, parents at Whittier Dual Language Elementary School in Chicago held a sit-in to protest the planned demolition of a field house that served as an informal community center in the Pilsen neighborhood. After 43 days of occupying the building, Chicago Public Schools agreed to lease the field house to the committee for $1 year after they had incorporated into a nonprofit and to build a library for Whittier students. Negotiations for the library are ongoing. Back to You Be the Judge |
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