The First Amendment is an important reminder of the rights we enjoy and the rights we must protect. The First Amendment connects all Americans together, regardless of race or social status. The ability to practice a faith or not, speak freely, publish ideas, gather in support, or protest, and petition the government for change is far more important than most people realize. To protect these fundamental rights, we all need to understand them not just for ourselves or others. Those 45 words of the First Amendment is far more than guaranteed free expression is calls for people to speak and be heard and to listen to others.
The Eight Values of Free Expression contains a Marketplace of Ideas stemming from American democracy. The First Amendment guarantees us freedoms to speak on any truth, injustice, and promote a change. By exercising our First Amendment freedoms we can make sure that democracy is to its fullest potential for everyone.
The six freedoms: religion, of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. Throughout the course of this class, we learned about events that shaped the world as we know it today and just showed us that the first amendment is vital to Americans.
The first amendment was seen as crucial tool for the Civil Rights Movement. Ministers preached, protestors marched, litigation from organizations, petitions, and press on racial discrimination paved the way for a greater sense of equality in America today.
Freedom of Speech:
- Bates v. Little Rock (1960)- reinforced the principle that freedom of association for the purpose of advocating ideas and airing grievances finds protection within the First Amendment’s free speech and assembly clauses.
- Brandenburg v Ohio (1969)- Supreme Court said that the first amendment protected speech advocating violence at the KKK rally because speech did not all for “imminent lawless action.”
- The ability for anyone to speak freely about the movement at the time is a n example of freedom of speech both good and bad. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B Du Bois are examples.
First Amendment paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
The expressive actions of protesting and activism led to growth of the First Amendment that we know today. Harry Kalven Jr. was best known for his advocacy of and thoughtful writings about freedom of speech and free expression. Due to the civil rights movement expanding free expression principles of the First Amendment led scholars like Kalven to write in 1965, “we may come to see the Negro as winning back for us the freedoms the Communists seemed to have lost for us.” Kalven was confident the civil rights and liberties were making a positive strive forward.
Freedom of Association:
- NAACP v Alabama (1958)- ruled that Alabama could not force the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to disclose its membership list.
- NAACP v. Button (1963)- further established the right of an organization to litigate, signaling the birth of the public interest law firm. The Court ruled that NAACP had the right to refer individuals who wanted to sue in public school desegregation cases to lawyers and to pay their litigation expenses.
The NAACP’s actions were modes of expression and association protected by the First Amendment.
Freedom of Press:
- New York Times Co. v Sullivan (1964)- The Court said the right to publish all statements is protected under the First Amendment.
Freedom of Assembly and Petition:
- Garner v. Louisiana (1961)- overturned the disturbing-the-peace convictions of five African-Americans who had engaged in sit-ins at an all-white restaurant counter in Baton Rouge.
- Edwards v. South Carolina (1963)- the arrest of the 187 African Americans students for the breach of the peace for peacefully assembling at the South Carolina State Government was ruled as violating the students’ freedom of assembly and petition rights, noting that the students’ expressive actions “reflect an exercise of these basic constitutional rights in their most pristine and classic form.”
- Brown v. Louisiana (1966)- relied similarly on the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and petition to invalidate the convictions of several protesters who had engaged in a sit-in at a public library.
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