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FREEDOM FOR THE THOUGHT THAT WE HATE
A Biography of the First Amendment
Anthony Lewis
KIRKUS REVIEWS - A superb history of the First Amendment and the body of
law that has followed it. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and longtime
Supreme Court observer Lewis (Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the
First Amendment, 1991, etc.), now retired from the New York Times,
explains in the clearest of language how freedom of expression evolved
in this country. Surprisingly, it was only in 1919 that a Supreme Court
justice (Oliver Wendell Holmes) wrote that the First Amendment protected
speech and publication, and that was in a dissent-not until 1931 did a
majority on the Court begin enforcing the constitutional guarantee of
freedom of speech. Drawing examples from many cases, Lewis demonstrates
that interpretations of the First Amendment shifted over time as the
Supreme Court, and the public, began to recognize that freedom of
expression was one of America's basic values. He considers the ways in
which freedom can conflict with such other values as the right to
privacy, protection from hate speech, the safeguarding of national
security and the right to a fair trial (i.e., one uncompromised by
prejudicial press coverage).
ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0465039170/progressiverevieA/
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SUNDOWN TOWNS
James W. Loewen
EXCERPT: A sundown town is any organized jurisdiction that for decades
kept African Americans or other groups from living in it and was thus
"all-white" on purpose. There is a reason for the quotation marks around
"all-white": requiring towns to be literally all-white in the census-no
African Americans at all-is inappropriate, because many towns clearly
and explicitly defined themselves as sundown towns but allowed one black
household as an exception. Thus an all-white town may include non-black
minorities and even a tiny number of African Americans. . .
Independent sundown towns range from tiny hamlets such as De Land,
Illinois (population 500), to substantial cities such as Appleton,
Wisconsin (57,000 in 1970). Sometimes entire counties went sundown,
usually when their county seat did. Independent sundown towns were soon
joined by "sundown suburbs," which could be even larger: Levittown, on
Long Island, had 82,000 residents in 1970, while Livonia, Michigan, and
Parma, Ohio, had more than 100,000. Warren, a suburb of Detroit, had a
population of 180,000 including just 28 minority families, most of whom
lived on a U.S. . .
Most Americans have no idea such towns or counties exist, or they think
such things happened mainly in the Deep South. Ironically, the
traditional South has almost no sundown towns. Mississippi, for
instance, has no more than 6, mostly mere hamlets, while Illinois has no
fewer than 456. . .
Sundown towns are no minor matter. To this day, African Americans who
know about sundown towns concoct various rules to predict and avoid
them.
In Florida, for instance, any town or city with "Palm" in its name was
thought to be especially likely to keep out African Americans. In
Indiana, it was any jurisdiction with a color in its name, such as
Brownsburg, Brownstown, Brown County, Greenfield, Greenwood, or
Vermillion County-and indeed, all were sundown locales. . .
The sundown town movement in the United States did not begin to slow
until 1968, however, even cresting in about 1970, and we cannot yet
consign sundown towns to the past. . .
ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0743294483/progressiverevieA/
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FREEDOM FOR THE THOUGHT THAT WE HATE
A Biography of the First Amendment
Anthony Lewis
KIRKUS REVIEWS - A superb history of the First Amendment and the body of
law that has followed it. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and longtime
Supreme Court observer Lewis (Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the
First Amendment, 1991, etc.), now retired from the New York Times,
explains in the clearest of language how freedom of expression evolved
in this country. Surprisingly, it was only in 1919 that a Supreme Court
justice (Oliver Wendell Holmes) wrote that the First Amendment protected
speech and publication, and that was in a dissent-not until 1931 did a
majority on the Court begin enforcing the constitutional guarantee of
freedom of speech. Drawing examples from many cases, Lewis demonstrates
that interpretations of the First Amendment shifted over time as the
Supreme Court, and the public, began to recognize that freedom of
expression was one of America's basic values. He considers the ways in
which freedom can conflict with such other values as the right to
privacy, protection from hate speech, the safeguarding of national
security and the right to a fair trial (i.e., one uncompromised by
prejudicial press coverage).
ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0465039170/progressiverevieA/
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SUNDOWN TOWNS
James W. Loewen
EXCERPT: A sundown town is any organized jurisdiction that for decades
kept African Americans or other groups from living in it and was thus
"all-white" on purpose. There is a reason for the quotation marks around
"all-white": requiring towns to be literally all-white in the census-no
African Americans at all-is inappropriate, because many towns clearly
and explicitly defined themselves as sundown towns but allowed one black
household as an exception. Thus an all-white town may include non-black
minorities and even a tiny number of African Americans. . .
Independent sundown towns range from tiny hamlets such as De Land,
Illinois (population 500), to substantial cities such as Appleton,
Wisconsin (57,000 in 1970). Sometimes entire counties went sundown,
usually when their county seat did. Independent sundown towns were soon
joined by "sundown suburbs," which could be even larger: Levittown, on
Long Island, had 82,000 residents in 1970, while Livonia, Michigan, and
Parma, Ohio, had more than 100,000. Warren, a suburb of Detroit, had a
population of 180,000 including just 28 minority families, most of whom
lived on a U.S. . .
Most Americans have no idea such towns or counties exist, or they think
such things happened mainly in the Deep South. Ironically, the
traditional South has almost no sundown towns. Mississippi, for
instance, has no more than 6, mostly mere hamlets, while Illinois has no
fewer than 456. . .
Sundown towns are no minor matter. To this day, African Americans who
know about sundown towns concoct various rules to predict and avoid
them.
In Florida, for instance, any town or city with "Palm" in its name was
thought to be especially likely to keep out African Americans. In
Indiana, it was any jurisdiction with a color in its name, such as
Brownsburg, Brownstown, Brown County, Greenfield, Greenwood, or
Vermillion County-and indeed, all were sundown locales. . .
The sundown town movement in the United States did not begin to slow
until 1968, however, even cresting in about 1970, and we cannot yet
consign sundown towns to the past. . .
ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0743294483/progressiverevieA/
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