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Constitutional Law - Protection Of Freedom Of Speech Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Jack L. White

Michigan Law Review

The appellant, a negro member of the Communist Party, was engaged in work as a paid party organizer in Atlanta in 1932. Shortly after leading a hunger march of unemployed he was arrested, and was tried and convicted under a state statute, enacted in the Reconstruction Period, which made criminal "any attempt, by persuasion or otherwise, to induce others to join in any combined resistance to the lawful' authority of the State." At the time of his arrest the appellant had in his possession evidence of his organization activities and also a quantity of party literature, but there was no …