Hello!
I know I intended to get this post out before Thanksgiving break was over... but Holiday travel had other plans in mind for me, so we're doing this now. The next post will still be out for sure by Wednesday though so stay tuned!
A Preface...
Last post, I talked about Justice Hugo Black and I brought up my aunt's saying of "Alabama is a great place to be from" and why I liked the saying at times. But this isn't always the case.
This week, I did a quick Google search of "Supreme Court cases to come from Alabama" (because I had never heard anything) and found the case NAACP vs Alabama. This post will be a raw reaction of the case and I will give my two cents on it being from the state.
Before I get into the reaction, I want to say that as much as I am prideful of my home state, I am well aware of its dark history when it comes to minorities. I can't ignore it, but I also do not feel as though I am the best voice to speak on it because I am white. My aforementioned "two cents" cannot speak to the struggles minorities had to deal with in Alabama. Because of this, I only intend to speak on how this case impacted the movement as a whole.
Before reading up on the case...
My initial thoughts are that this case is going to focus on some aspect of the first amendment, most likely freedom of the press or the freedom of assembly. Alabama was notorious for censorship of issues of minorities and putting down protests in a very violent way, so my guess is that the NAACP is suing the state in some way for it's policy on handling such protests since they did so in a very unethical and racist way. The case is from 1958, and if I had to guess, the NAACP won.
I am going to be reading the Oyez profile of the case now (The site will be linked at the bottom of this post). This will not make me an expert on the case by any means but it will provoke a reaction out of me and give me the quick details.
After Reading up on the case...
The very first paragraph describing the details of the case already alarms me. Alabama tried to rid the NAACP from doing any business in the state? Where was this in History class? I knew that what the state did was bad, but I had no idea the state would go to these lengths. I don't fully understand how this ended up in the courts though. It mentions something about a subpoena, but I still don't understand what provoked the original case.
Oyez then mentions that the question at hand was whether or not Alabama was violating the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, which I had to read up on to help me understand the verdict.
I love that the court ruled unanimously in favor of the NAACP. Not just because it allows the organization to do work in Alabama, but also because it provides legal justification to join and work with ANY organization. They ruled in favor of the NAACP because the justices felt that the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment was violated in some capacity. More specifically, they felt that depriving a person from working with the NAACP was depriving someone of liberty, which is stated in the clause, which I would agree with.
The reason I like this decision so much is that it goes further than just dealing with civil rights. This case argues about basic American values that we have wanted since the revolution. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is one of the most famous quotes from the Declaration of Independence and even though this was questioned for minorities in Alabama, it applies to everyone. This decision states that everyone has the right to do business and support whatever organization they want (with a few exceptions of course) and it furthermore implies that people are not truly free if they aren't able to. Though this blog focuses on the advancement of civil rights and this case does just that, the case also applies outside of that to everyone.
Alabama was on the wrong side of history here, provoking a huge question to be asked in the courts. This case contributed to the courts answering a very important question in the courts. The state led by bad example here, and I am ashamed that my state did this to people. But without the opposition to this, who knows what might have happened? This is why things need to go to the courts sometimes, because beforehand there was no loophole, but now it has been closed.
Here's the link to the Oyez cite if you'd like to read it:
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1957/91
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