Alabama's Racism Gave Birth to Supreme Court Protections for Freedom of Speech and the Right to Peacefully Protest

By: Donald V. Watkins

Copyrighted and Published on September 18, 2025

The landmark New York Times v. Sullivan case led to new protections against publishers who, in their criticism of government, are sued by government officials for libel. The New York Times was sued by the Montgomery, Alabama, city commissioner for errors in a civil rights advertisement. The U.S. Supreme Court established that public officials must meet a higher standard for libel judgments and show that the publisher acted with knowledge that something was false. In this photo, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., accompanied by Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, center, is booked by city police Lt. D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, 1956. (Photo courtesy of AP and Gene Herrick)

An Editorial Opinion

In the aftermath of Turning Point USA founder and podcaster Charlie Kirk’s September 10, 2025, assassination, MAGA-aligned political activists have pressured media companies, Wall Street corporations, legacy newspapers, universities, and public school systems to fire employes who made unflattering comments about Kirk. The list of immediate Kirk-related firings is long and distinguished.

First Amendment freedom of expression, as we have known it in the past, is gone.  MAGA political warfare against progressive media organizations and anti-Donald Trump social media influencers is rampant and surging. 

Where Did Protections for Our Freedom of Speech Rights Come From? 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama (1958), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The state of Alabama sought to prevent the NAACP from organizing its civil rights protests and conducting further business in the state.

After a circuit court in Montgomery, Alabama issued a restraining order against the NAACP, the state issued a subpoena for various business records, including the NAACP's membership lists. The NAACP challenged this subpoena request. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's demand for the lists violated the right of due process guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The landmark case of New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) arose from a concerted efforts by white Alabama elected officials and state court judges to use state libel laws to quash local, state, and national support for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his 1960s civil rights movement. Montgomery, Alabama city commissioner L.B. Sullivan, a staunch segregationist, sued The New York Times for defamation over a 1960 advertisement that criticized the police department's actions during Dr. King's civil rights movement.

Not only did state officials indict Dr. King on two felony counts of perjury in connection with his state tax returns for 1956 and 1958, but they also acted in concert with L.B. Sullivan in naming Dr. King and four other prominent black ministers -- Reverends Ralph Abernathy, Solomon S. Seay, Fred L. Shuttlesworth, and Joseph Lowery -- as additional defendants in the New York Times case.

The state court trial judge "homecooked" the defendants throughout the legal proceedings. An all-white jury ruled against all defendants, who were ordered to pay a $500,000 court judgment.

The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the jury verdict and judgment against the New York Times, Dr. King, and the other four black ministers. The defendants thereafter appealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On March 9, 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling because the plaintiffs in the case, who were public officials, failed to prove that the defendants acted with "actual malice" in publishing the statements at issue or that the statements were published with a "reckless disregard of whether [they were] true or false."

In subsequent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court imposed this same high burden of proof on so-called "public figures" when they sued members of the press and public for defamation. Charlie Kirk would have been considered a "public figure."

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court is a rubberstamp for President Donald Trump.  The six MAGA members of the Court decide cases on the basis of political ideology and not the applicable law. Their judicial decisions align with MAGA's political agenda. These Justices are expected to roll back the freedom of speech and peaceful protest protections that have been recognized by the Supreme Court since 1958 in NAACP v. Alabama.

What is more, Trump’s Department of Justice is preparing to use "Lawfare" to prosecute individuals and entities whose freedom of speech expressions offend Trump's warped and one-sided notion of acceptable speech.

Those who say Alabama no longer practices old-fashion "cradle to the grave" racial discrimination against its black citizens must read the 139-page, September 16, 2025, federal court ruling in Cara McClure v. Jefferson County Commission that was written by a Barack Obama-appointed judge (Madeline Hughes Haikala), and the 274-page, August 22, 2025, federal court ruling in NAACP v. Allen that was written by a Donald Trump-appointed judge (Anna M. Manasco), and the 571-page, May 8, 2025, three-judge federal court panel ruling in Bobbie Singleton v. Wes Allen that was written by Reagan-appointed judge (Stanley Marcus) and Trump-appointed judges (Anna M. Manasco and Terry Moorer). Collectively, these three court rulings describe, in extensive detail, Alabama's long, ugly, robust, ongoing, purposeful, racial discrimination against its black citizens, particularly in the area of voting rights.

Since its founding in 1819, Alabama has NEVER been "Woke." Today, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a MAGA Republican with a documented history of spewing racist statements in an unabashed fashion, is the frontrunner in the race for Alabama governor in 2026. Tuberville, a Trump sycophant, is leading the charge to fire public employees who have made statements and social media posts that were unflattering to Charlie Kirk after his death.