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Campuses have had a long history of educating and politically socializing the next generation. Professor Moore and Professor Bell, sociology professors at Texas A&M, assert that “national institutions are meant to be gateways to upward mobility” (Moore and Bell 101). Taking advantage of this were many student civil rights activists during the 50’s and 60’s. Campuses then became the center of civil advancement as student activists raised their voices in protest to make obvious the legal disparity between whites and African Americans.
Not only did they use their voices, but through legal action, boycotts, and petitions, the young activists melted away at institutional racism not only on campus, but beyond as well. This is important because their utilizations of civil liberties found in the First Amendment created tangible changes that were crucial in establishing legal and economic equality at universities as well as public spheres. Civil rights activists on campuses utilized their First Amendment rights by means of speech, peaceful assembly, and petition, to ameliorate legal inequalities.
History of the Civil Rights Movement
It is crucial to understand the history of the Civil Rights Movement to understand the effect that the First Amendment had on the movement. According to Jacquelyn Hall, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s saw African Americans fighting against the daily injustices faced by African Americans, such as the lack of legal equality in voting, prohibition of interracial marriage, and lack of protection by law enforcement (Hall 1236). Citing foundational documents to America’s history such as the Constitution, civil rights activists such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that America had been defaulting on establishing economic equality, evidenced by the fact that African Americans only seemingly moved from one established ghetto, to another (Hall 1238). Unfortunately, much of the movement was often met with resistance, sometimes violence.
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The movement was highly polarizing, and according to Curtis J. Austin, a professor of law at the University of Mississippi, maintains that extremists threatened the safety of black communities by “persisted violence through mass arrests, jail beatings, lynchings, and church bombings” (Austin 11). Even more stomach-turning is the sad reality that many of these atrocities went unpunished. It is admirable that in the face of violence, much of the movement responded with peaceful protest. Sit-ins in segregated establishments such as restaurants and buses were a frequented tool used to dismantle institutionalized racism and discrimination. Drawing inspiration from Dr. King’s preachings of non-violence, protesters also demonstrated in marches, and speeches (Austin 9).
The First Amendment
The First Amendment, as found in the Constitution, states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” (Cornell Law 2). The freedom of speech is an enumerated, or explicitly stated, right that therefore applies to the right to express opinions, dissenting or provocative, in order to protect people from tyranny (Cornell Law 3). This includes not only verbalized speech, but also written and symbolic speech. Written speech includes thoughts and ideas expressed through a medium and symbolic speech refers to a purposely and clearly understood message or statement (Cornell Law 2).
The right to free speech is a cornerstone of American civil liberties and cannot be restricted unless the speech poses a “present and imminent threat” to others (Cornell Law 2). The freedom to peacefully assemble refers to the enumerated right of the people to come together to peacefully air grievances, without fear of legal ramification. This right, however, is not absolute; protesters are subject to time, place, and manner restrictions so long as the restrictions serve narrowly tailored, “compelling state interests” (Cornell Law 5).
An unenumerated, or not specifically stated, right that can be drawn from the Assembly clause is the longstanding American tradition of boycotting, to withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest (Cornell Law 12). The right to petition allows the people to express their concerns or demands to the state. A petition, according to Black’s Law Dictionary, is “a written address, embodying an application or prayer from the person or persons preferring it, to the power, body, or person to whom it is presented, for the exercise of his or their authority in the redress of some wrong, or the grant of some favor, privilege, or license.” (Black’s Law Dictionary 1). Whether the government chooses to listen is entirely dependent upon the recipient.
The Right to Free Speech
The most common enumerated right drawn from the First Amendment is that of free speech, which was a critical tool utilized by civil activists to advance their position. According to Christopher Schmidt, constitutional law professor at Chicago Kent College of Law, the 50’s and 60’s saw segregation in public spaces, including campuses, due to Jim Crow Laws (Schmidt 1177). African American students were often not allowed to sit in the same classrooms as their white counterparts, and thus used their constitutional right to free speech to make obvious the discrepancy.
Powerful speeches rang through campuses and lawsuits were brought forth by campus activists against the universities themselves to advance towards equality. Spoken free speech on campuses during this time allowed civil rights activists to progress their demand of legal equality. According to Michael Drapa, deputy communications director for the University of Chicago Chronicles, Timuel Black, a student studying at the University of Chicago saw that activists at the University of Chicago understood the need for civil change, but did not fully understand the means of doing so (Drapa 20-21). In order to inspire campus activists, he invited the renowned Dr. King, who in 1953 preached from a pulpit in Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago to hundreds of student activists.
Dr. King greatly shaped the Civil Rights Movement when from the pulpit at Rockefeller Chapel he urged the community to “use as [their] weapons, the love which transcends everything and can make you compassionate with those who hate you.” (Drapa 9). Another voice among the many invited to speak is that of civil rights activist, Malcolm X, who delivered a forceful address at Harvard University in 1964, per the invitation of law school student activists (Drapa 12). In a rhetoric that is largely different from that of Dr. King’s, Malcolm speaks not as an “American, or anything [that people] want [him] to be”, but rather as a “victim of democracy” (X 5). He tries to make understood that African Americans have been a political stepping stone utilized by politicians for votes, earned by unfulfilled promises.
Malcolm X urges his community to look at America through the eyes of a victim, in order to develop a “political consciousness” that it is not the American dream, rather the “American nightmare” the community is living in (X 6). Malcolm finds a solution in politically socializing the black population so that they can “control the politics of their own community… then it is possible for [them] to do something towards correcting the evils and the ills that exist there” (X 17). The right to free speech protected civil rights activists like Dr. King and Malcolm X as well as the student activists that invited them to speak from prosecution. As Professor Kennedy, former clerk to the United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, maintains, “in order to more militantly battle Jim Crow segregation, college student activists in the Deep South brought the federal Constitution to campus” (Kennedy 3).
They brought it upon themselves to usurp the existing racial hierarchy by using their voices in protest: their ideas were no doubt inflammatory, however without unrestricted free speech, African Americans, a minority population, would not have been allowed to voice their frustrations. The speeches made obvious the various legal inequalities daily faced by African Americans, and though provocative at the time, black activist speeches on campuses were necessary in order to bring about legal change for the African American community.
They also motivated student activists to act upon their convictions. In the case of Martin Luther King Jr., his speech inspired students to participate in the Freedom Rides, where students would take segregated buses all around the South, to protest segregated busing (Drapa 14). Though the groups were faced with police brutality, their actions brought international attention to the lack of dignity awarded to African Americans, and thus brought an eventual end to segregated bus terminals. Often when thinking of free speech, verbalized speech is thought of exclusively.
However, the right to free speech also includes written speech, and with this, a multitude of college activists found makeshift pulpits from their desks. Lawsuits, a very particular type of legal written speech protected under the First Amendment, were used often to try and propel legislative change. Injustices could find reprieve, and individuals were protected by both the First Amendment and the Due Process clause to come forth. Such is the case of Sweatt, a prospective law student to the University of Texas Law School who was denied admission solely based on his race, as the law prohibited African Americans from attending that law school, and sued the school on the grounds that he was being denied the protection of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
As recorded in the Supreme Court case Sweatt vs Painter, Sweatt was “offered, but he refused, enrollment in a separate law school newly established by the State for Negroes” as he found the separate school inherently unequal (Justicia 1). The University of Texas Law School for whites was a distinguished institution with “16 full-time and three part-time professors, 850 students, a library of 65,000 volumes, a law review, moot court facilities, scholarship funds, an Order of the Coif affiliation, many distinguished alumni, and much tradition and prestige”, whereas the separate school had “five full-time professors, 23 students, a library of 16,500 volumes, a practice court, a legal aid association, and one alumnus admitted to the Texas Bar, but it [excluded] from its student body members of racial groups which number 85% of the population of the State and which [included] most of the lawyers, witnesses, jurors, judges, and other officials with whom petitioner would deal as a member of the Texas Bar” (Justicia 1).
The court ruled in favor of Sweatt and the University of Texas was made to admit Sweatt into their law school, ending segregation in a very tangible way. The protection Sweatt was guaranteed under the First Amendment allowed him to melt away at a longstanding tradition of institutional racism, and was in fact crucial in providing a means for African Americans after Sweatt to bring about legal change. Sweatt was not an outlier in this case. A multitude of lawsuits filed by African Americans followed after Sweatt such as McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents and the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, demonstrating a consistent movement. Their concerns were legitimized before a court as judges ruled with strict scrutiny for the first time, placing the burden on the government to prove a compelling state interest in choosing to segregate, which it could not.
The impact of this is not to be taken lightly; African Americans for the first time were considered as serious plaintiffs. The fact that the court ruled with strict scrutiny placed serious limitations on the government from limiting the individual liberties of African Americans. The government now bore the burden of proof, as opposed to African Americans, moving the government one step closer towards granting full equality to African Americans.The Right to Peaceful AssemblyAnother enumerated right drawn from the First Amendment is the right to peaceful assembly, and was critical for student civil rights activists to propel their movement. The First Amendment, as explained by Andrew M. Winston, legal librarian for the Library of Congress, “prohibits the United States Congress from enacting legislation that would abridge the right of the people to assemble peaceably” (Winston 1).
This was arguably the most memorable form of the First Amendment employed during the Civil Rights Movement; sit in demonstrations in which African Americans would sit in a whites only area, were very common. On universities, peaceful protests found a niche as a regular activity, in the form of boycotts and sit-ins.One student lead organization that arose to organize and lead demonstrations was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC for short. According to Dr. Helen Houston, a professor of humanities who specializes in African American literature, the group had goals to engage students “in the fight for equal rights” (Houston 12).
Utilizing their right to demonstration, the group organized a series of cultural boycotts against organizations that supported segregation. According to esteemed musical historian Theodore Strongin, the committee at Tougaloo University group pressured a widely popular musical group called Hootenanny U.S.A from performing before a segregated audience, and instead redirected the group to perform on their integrated campus (Strongin 7). The group also organized sit-in demonstrations in support of four freshmen at the North Carolina A&T who sat down at a segregated lunch counter at Woolworth’s, a popular campus eatery (Bradley 10). Refusing to leave until they were serviced, the four young men protested the segregation of public operations.
A few months later, Woolworth’s was desegregated due to the brave actions of these men. This was critical for the SNCC because they saw concrete results from the sit-ins and focused their mission around that. The group would organize thousands of students to sit-ins at various segregated counters to force business owners to realize that black people were paying customers and deserve the same amount of respect as their white counterparts (Houston 14). According to Congressman Sol Bloom, “the right to assemble is closely related to the formation and growth of the philanthropic sector because it answers the need to come together, share common beliefs, and act upon those beliefs” (Bloom 81). Coming together allowed student activists to commune with one another, sharing ideas and experiences, further strengthening the movement on campuses. Furthermore, the demonstrations forced the opposition to listen and to respond.
In both cases, the peaceful assembly of activists allowed many to work towards one common goal, and that was desegregation. The right to peacefully assemble proved effective because the group found strength in numbers: it is more difficult to stand up against a substantial group than it is one single person.
The Right to Petition
The right to petition is one that is enumerated independently of the right to free speech, not to be confused with litigation, and was also utilized by student activists. The right to petition according to Julie Spanbauer, professor of law at John Marshall Law School, “was inspired by the same ideals of liberty and democracy that gave us the freedoms to speak, publish, and assemble” (Spanbaeur 17).
Petitioning allows the voices of many to be consolidated and opens a direct line of communication between the people and the government. Realizing this, many student activists found petitions were necessary in making understood their concerns and demands.In one such case, student activists petitioned to the governor in order to end the repression of black activism on campus. In Jim Crow America, it was incredibly rare to find African Americans in roles of leadership, much less as presidents of universities. At the head of Alabama State University sat H. Council Trenholm, an African American man (Kennedy 13). Appointed to quell black activism on campus, he had expectations communicated to him by an all white board of trustees and boards of education (Kennedy 13).
According to Randall Kennedy, a professor of law at Harvard Law School, the expectations “would toe the segregationist line on racial politics and to certainly suppress rebellion on campus” and Trenholm was “trapped by dependency on whites for financing and other essential resources” (Kennedy 14). Trenholm was made to dismiss a professor when the professor’s desgregationist dissent with another professor angered the latter. The governor of Alabama labeled the professor as a “Communist sympathizer and racial agitator and the state board of education ordered Trenholm to dismiss him”, threatening to defund Alabama State University if he refused (Kennedy 14).
Undoubtedly, many civil rights activists were unhappy with Trenholm’s obedience to oppressive politics and heavily criticized him; however, many students recognized that the root of the cause was the governor, not the vulnerable Trenholm, and petitioned to John Patterson, the governor of Alabama, “as a united group of students… [to] request that [he] reconsider [his] order to President Trenholm” (Kennedy 16). Petitioning focused the many experiences and grievances of an entire group into a concise set of concerns and demands. Often times politicians were unable to respond to groups because their demands within the group were varying, and their concerns far too many. Petitioning forced petitioners to consolidate their issues into an agreed upon dogma. That both strengthened the movement, and allowed for an approachable set of terms that politicians could act upon.
Conclusion
In conclusion, student civil rights activists on campuses used their First Amendment protections in three main ways: the right to free speech, the right to peaceful assembly, and the right to petition. The ways in which they used their rights brought about long awaited progress towards legal equality. The Civil Rights Movement on campuses brought victories for not only African Americans, but also for civil liberties. These civil liberties, which protect the people from intruding governmental powers on guaranteed rights, are imperative to establishing legal and economic equality. This is critical in establishing precedence that would pave the way for other oppressed minorities such as women, to understand how to use their First Amendment rights to protest. Even now, full equality has not been achieved; however through the understanding of civil liberties, set by precedence, are people able to hold the government accountable to the promises in the Constitution.
