Almost exactly 60 years ago, on Aug. 2, 1965, comedian and political activist Dick Gregory led protesters on a five-mile march from Chicago City Hall toward 3536 S. Lowe, the home of mayor Richard J. Daley.
They chanted "Ben Willis must go, snake Daley also" — Willis was the superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools, notorious for jamming Black students into "Willis wagons," classrooms held in trailers, a solution to overcrowding not found in white schools.
They were met by a mob of several hundred Bridgeport residents, who poured out of their homes, shouting racist slurs, hurling rocks and eggs. The police ordered the marchers to disperse and, when they didn't obey, arrested 65 peaceful marchers, charging them with disorderly conduct.
If I had arrested the crowd, I would have had a riot on my hands," explained Capt. Howard Pierson, commander of the Deering police station.
The Illinois Supreme Court upheld their disorderly conduct convictions. But the U.S. Supreme Court overturned them, ruling, in Gregory v. City of Chicago, that our constitutional rights cannot be shouted down in what a University of Chicago law professor had called "a heckler's veto."
If our First Amendment rights were voided whenever someone else violently objected — or could be constrained by the spot decision of a cop on the beat — then none of us would have free speech.
The heckler's veto is back, as a loophole in an executive order, "Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag," signed Monday by President Donald Trump. It acknowledges that the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that flag burning is protected speech, then tries to skip around it this way:
"Burning this representation of America may incite violence and riot," the order notes. Perhaps that's only acceptable when mobs are being let loose on the Capitol.
Burning a flag is clearly free speech. Perhaps this is best illustrated by citing another legal passage: the United States Flag Code, adopted by the National Flag Conference in Washington DC in 1923, and amended by Congress.
Specifically Section 8, "Respect for the Flag." Line K: "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning."
Not only is burning the flag permitted, it's preferred, as the most desirable, respectful way to dispose of old flags.
Underline respectful. It isn't the burning that's the problem. The FBI isn't going to burst into American Legion halls — the group collects old flags for disposal — and arrest vets in their watch caps.
To continue reading, click here.
Democrats need to introduce legislation banning cross burning. What's the over/under on Trump-inspired racists leaping to defend it?
ReplyDeleteThe idea of the man who provoked a violent riot against our capital using the possibility of a riot to gut the 1st Amendment makes me ill. Soon he will say that articles like the one you wrote this morning provoke riots and make your work illegal. He is a monster.
ReplyDeleteThat's the direction we're headed. The free press is being corraled. Freedom of speech is the number one enemy of totalitarian regimes.
Delete"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," said Trump.
DeleteAn awful lot of what he does makes me ill.
Radio and TV have caved. The Big Three...the legacy networks---CNN and Faux don't count--.have toned down their criticism since January. Both on radio and TV. Now it's all Trump, all the time. Every goddamn day.
DeleteEvery newscast seems to start with the words "President Trump"--and highlights what he's accomplishing. Yeah, even my favorite, the one I thought was most liberal. And that would be CBS.
Don't even want to watch or hear them anymore. The hatchet job on Stephen Colbert was the green icing on the poisoned cake. When even CBS begins to suck, then we're in deep, deep shit.
In 1984 in Texas versus Johnson 491 the supreme Court found that flag burning as a symbolic form of expression is protected by the first amendment of the Constitution
ReplyDeleteThe majority of the Court, according to Justice William Brennan, agreed with Johnson and held that flag burning constitutes a form of "symbolic speech" that is protected by the First Amendment
The supreme Court in roe v Wade also found that abortion was a constitutionally protected right.
As we all now know supreme Court rulings can be overturned and this is what the current administration is attempting to do with flag burning.
In my opinion roe v Wade was overturned because Congress did not make a law to back the findings of the Court
This is also the case with flag burning.
There is no federal law that makes it legal.
This issue will once again wind its way through the courts and there's no telling but I might guess that the current configuration of the Court could very well overturn the findings of the of the previous ruling.
Many of the things that to us seem like established law sadly actually aren't.
The Orange monster feels that ruling by decree is the end of the conversation
Fighting the battle for our rights over and over again has become de regure.
Flying the flag is sometimes considered support of our government I'm not sure that I feel comfortable flying it today more likely I'm going to burn it and face the consequences and become part of the battle. I looked to my right and there is a flag sitting on the shelf look for me on the news at dirksen Federal plaza later in the day
I believe it is time for general strikes. There is no other way to elicit the necessary change to remove our society from the authoritarian stranglehold the right has placed on us than affecting economic fortunes of the oligarchs.
ReplyDeleteAOC is right, the last people we should be talking about patriotism and flags are the ones who waved confederate flags in the halls of congress after storming the gates.
There is to be a strike in France on September 14
DeleteI was not able in some searching just now to find a photo of a Willis wagon, but back in the 1970s, our ultra-white New Trier East High School in Winnetka had numerous temporary classrooms in use, presumably to accommodate the last offspring of the Baby Boom era (and even with New Trier West in operation as well). I took my Drivers' Ed class in one. More recently, in the 2010s, our kids had some experience in mobile classrooms used in the McHenry School District, and I well remember the squishy floors underfoot on Parents' Night; my New Trier memories all came back at that moment. I would certainly agree, though, that Willis wagons were probably not as good as what we experienced up north.
ReplyDeleteAs for flag burning, that continued process of "respectfully retiring" old flags by burning them is probably the single best argument to blow a great big hole in the claims of "protecting" the flag, as if it needed doing so in the first place. If they "respectfully" buried old flags instead, I suppose with a 21-gun salute and all that, at least they wouldn't have to keep coming up with stammering justifications for why this way is Good and that way is Bad.
Try again to find one; I entered Willis Wagon Chicago into a Google image search and found numerous results.
DeleteThanks for including the link to the White House wording of this edict. It was very helpful to read the Terms and Conditions of unacceptable protest. As you noted, the contract lawyers sidestepped "heckler's veto" and instead invoked "fighting words".
ReplyDeleteYour reference to the Dick Gregory march is excellent - an example of an action that did not incite the protesters into a mob but instead the supporters of the target of the protest became a mob. Who maintains this list of what will offend some groups that make claims to patriotism? The Nazi march in Skokie would seem to be the ultimate case upholding that speech cannot be suppressed by concerns over whom it may trigger, upset, provoke, infuriate or disgust.
In the wake of the federal occupation of Los Angeles this past June, Guy Richard Smit penned this New Yorker cartoon: "The protesters seem to be doing some sort of joyful synchronized dance. Is it time to call in the Marines?"
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/tuesday-june-10th-call-in-the-marines
The Nazis did not march in Skokie. The ACLU defended their right to do so. But they ended up marching in Marquette Park
DeleteThey marched in Marquette Park both before and after Skokie. They were never allowed to march in Skokie. They marched in the Loop in June of '78, and there was a nice little riot. I was there. Assisted a female reporter from L.A. whose head got in the way of a rock.
DeleteBurning a flag will get me arrested, but if I obliterate it with rounds from an AK-47, that's probably just fine.
ReplyDeleteHe and his demented acolytes that support this are disgusting.
Thanks for an intelligent article and the very cogent coments today.
ReplyDeleteThe Executive Order is more show boating with real cosnsequences.
“…a solution to overcrowding not found in white schools”? That’s news to me and the thousands of other kids that attended overwhelmingly white St. Anne’s Catholic grade school in Hazel Crest in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Mobile classrooms were used there for grades 3 through 5, and were preferred by just about everyone since, unlike the classrooms in the main building, they were carpeted and had air conditioning.
ReplyDeleteThe topic was Chicago Public Schools, not all schools everywhere.
Delete