A Victory for Democracy

Americans have a constitutional right to form groups to share and promote their ideas without government interference because of their freedom of association, but the right did not exist before the U.S. Supreme Court declared it in NAACP v. Alabama (1958). The case resulted from Alabama’s attempt in 1956 to ban the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the state. From the case’s origins in an Alabama circuit court through four trips—the last in 1964—to the Supreme Court, A Victory for Democracy explains the landmark First Amendment case in easily accessible language. In addition to the history of the Alabama NAACP and descriptions of many memorable characters, the full story describes the obstruction by Alabama white segregationist lawyers, the persistence of NAACP lawyers, the attorneys’ oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the Justices’ private deliberations and negotiations, and the case’s constitutional ramifications.