A Victory for Democracy: NAACP v. Alabama and Freedom of Association

In 1956, six months after the start of the Montgomery bus boycott, Alabama Attorney General John Patterson obtained from state circuit court judge Walter B. Jones, an ardent defender of segregation, an order banning the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). On appeal, the case led to the U.S. Supreme Court's declaration of the new constitutional right to freedom of association, the right of individuals to form groups and promote ideas without government interfe...