NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.

NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 3, 1982 Decided July 2, 1982
Full case name	National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Claiborne Hardware Co.
Citations	458 U.S. 886 (more) 73 L.Ed.2d 1215, 102 S.Ct. 3409
Prior history	Supreme Court of Mississippi ruled that entire boycott was unlawful
Holding
The nonviolent elements of a boycott are entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell, Jr. · William Rehnquist John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor
Case opinions
Majority	Stevens, joined by Burger, Brennan, White, Blackmun, Powell, O'Connor
Concurrence	Rehnquist
Laws applied
First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U. S. 886 (1982) was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court finding that although States have broad power to regulate economic activities, they could not prohibit peaceful political activity such as that found in the boycott that was the subject of the case.^[1]

Facts

The Claiborne County courthouse where the march took place.

In March 1966, black citizens of Port Gibson, Mississippi, and other areas of Claiborne County presented white elected officials with a list of particularized demands for racial equality and racial integration. After not receiving a satisfactory response, at a local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meeting at the First Baptist Church, several hundred black persons voted to place a boycott on white merchants in the area.^[2]

In February 1967, Port Gibson employed its first black police officer and the boycott was lifted. However, in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, and a young black man, Roosevelt Jackson was shot and killed by two Port Gibson police officers.^[2] On April 19, 1968, the field secretary of the NAACP for Mississippi, Charles Evers, led a march to the Claiborne County courthouse and demanded that the entire Port Jefferson police force be discharged.^[2] When the demand was not met, the boycott on the merchants was reimposed. On April 21, Evers made a speech in which he said, "If we catch any of you going into these racist stores, we're going to break your damn neck."^[2] During the boycott, individuals known as "Black Hats" or "Deacons" stood outside stores to identify blacks who broke the boycott.^[2] The names of those who were identified were published in a black newspaper and the names were read aloud at NAACP meetings.^[2] In at least 10 instances, blacks who violated the boycott experienced instances of violence, including shots fired into their homes, bricks thrown through their windshields, and tires on their cars slashed.^[2][3]

On October 31, 1969, 17 of the merchants sued in the Chancery Court of Hinds County, 146 individuals, the NAACP, and Mississippi Action for Progress (MAP) in state court to recover losses caused by the boycott and to enjoin future boycott activity.

Trial

A trial began in 1973 and in 1976, the chancellor found that the black defendants were jointly and severally liable to the plaintiffs based on three separate theories: (1) for a tort of malicious interference with the plaintiff's business; (2) for violation of a Mississippi statute banning secondary boycotts on the theory that the defendants' primary dispute was with the governing authorities of Port Gibson and Claiborne County, and not with the white merchants at whom the boycott was directed; and (3) the court found a violation of Mississippi's antitrust statute, on the ground that the boycott had diverted black patronage from the white merchants to black merchants and to other merchants located out of Claiborne County, and thus had unreasonably limited competition between black and white merchants that had traditionally existed.^[4] The court rejected the defendants' defense that their actions were protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[5]

The court held that 130 of the defendants were liable for damages to 12 merchants over an 11-year period (1966-1977) in an amount of $1,250,699 plus interest, and put in place a permanent injunction enjoining the defendants from stationing "store watchers" at the merchants' business premises; from "persuading" any person to withhold his patronage from the merchants; from "using demeaning and obscene language to or about any person" because that person continued to patronize the merchants; from "picketing or patroling" the premises of any of the merchants; and from using violence against any person or inflicting damage to any real or personal property.^[6]

Decision by the Supreme Court of Mississippi

In December 1980, the Supreme Court of Mississippi upheld the lower court's decision ruling that the boycott was unlawful.^[7] Although the court held that the secondary boycott statute was inapplicable because it had not been enacted until "the boycott had been in operation for upward of two years," and the court declined to rely on the Mississippi antitrust statute, noting that the "United States Supreme Court has seen fit to hold boycotts to achieve political ends are not a violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 (1970), after which our statute is patterned," the court upheld the imposition of liability, on the basis of the chancellor's common law tort theory.^[8]

Decision by the United States Supreme Court

In a decision by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court reversed the Supreme Court of Mississippi's decision, holding that the nonviolent elements of the petitioners' activities were protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and holding that the petitioners were not liable in damages for the consequences of their nonviolent, protected activity.^[9]

Justice William Rehnquist concurred in the judgment only.^[10]

Justice Thurgood Marshall did not take part consideration or decision of the case.^[11]

Subsequent history

The case was cited by the dissent in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project in which Justice Stevens joined the majority.^[12]

References

1. ^ NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982)
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} The Supreme Court, race, and civil rights, By Abraham L. Davis, Barbara Luck Graham, pg 350
3. ^ 458 U.S. 904-906
4. ^ 458 U.S. 891-892
5. ^ 458 U.S. 892
6. ^ 458 U.S. 893
7. ^ 458 U.S. 894
8. ^ 458 U.S. 894
9. ^ 458 U.S. 934
10. ^ 458 U.S. 934
11. ^ 458 U.S. 934
12. ^ Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Docket No. 08-1498

External links

• Oral Arguments before the US Supreme Court
• Text of the US Supreme Court Decision