Breaking the White Circle: How the Press and Courts Quieted a Chicago Hate Group, 1949–1952

abstract

Joseph Beauharnais’s story illustrates the dilemma created in cases of hate speech. The government and courts of Illinois decided that in Beauharnais’s case, it should not be protected. In a legal proceeding that has been cited more than three hundred times, just more than half of the US Supreme Court justices agreed with this verdict. After reviewing the societal and legal environments in which this story occurred, this article examines Beauharnais’s White Circle League literature, the means Chicago’s press and other organizations used to counter it, the legal ramifications of Beauharnais’s rhetoric, and the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling. The authors supplemented resources from a substantial FBI file with additional government documents, newspaper articles, and court cases. This research reveals that many in Illinois—and some Supreme Court justices—considered the racist nature of Beauharnais’s expression intolerable. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the role of Chicago’s alternative press in shutting down the White Circle League.

Notes

1 Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 58–59.

2 Sylvia Alexander, “Founder Admits ‘Violence’ Aim of Chicago Klan Group,” The Worker, December 4, 1949; “Pied Piper Toots Off-Key Tune Here: ‘Racial Purity’ Advocate Has a Date with Judge,” Chicago Daily News, February 13, 1950. All articles cited from the Worker are clippings in the FBI file (105–291) at https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

3 White Circle League recruitment flier (handwritten copy), undated, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-13, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/. By the end of January 1950, the group reportedly had 87,000 members nationwide, including 27,000 in Chicago, though meetings never drew more than a few hundred; see John F. Glenville, FBI report, January 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-26, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

4 White Circle League recruitment flier (handwritten copy), undated, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-13, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/; Joseph Beauharnais, “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White” (pamphlet), in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-46, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/; “Pied Piper Toots Off-Key Tune Here.”

5 “Boys Clubs Agree to Ban White Circle Meetings,” The Worker, January 22, 1950; “White Circle Stages Hate Rally,” The Worker, June 18, 1950; “Bulletin,” The Worker, June 18, 1950.

6 For discussion of the FBI monitoring Communist publications, see Edward Alwood, “Watching the Watchdogs: FBI Spying on Journalists in the 1940s,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 84, no. 1 (2007): 137–150. John F. Glenville names the Worker as a primary source in FBI report, April 4, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-40, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/. The FBI file contains several clips from the newspaper.

7 “White Circle Stages Hate Rally.”

8 Memo from Commanding Officer – Industrial Detail to Commissioner of Police (Chicago), January 25, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-28, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/; FBI report, February 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-39, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/; “Racist Chief Gets Top Penalty,” The Worker, May 14, 1950; L. Alex Wilson, “Chicago Has Its Circles: 2 of Them, But They’re Far Apart As Sun and Moon,” Chicago Defender, February 4, 1950; John F. Glenville, FBI report, August 2, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-56, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

9 The White Circle League FBI file (105–291) is accessible in two separate PDFs totaling more than 800 pages at https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

10 The authors searched for references to Beauharnais and the White Circle League for the period under study in the Chicago Defender (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) and Chicago Tribune (Newspapers.com).

11 Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino, “Historical Lessons: What’s Past May be Prologue,” in Hate Crimes, vol. 1: Understanding and Defining Hate Crime, edited by Barbara Perry and Brian Levin (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009), 23.

12 Ibid., 29–30.

13 Betty A. Dobratz and Stephanie L. Shanks-Meile, The White Separatist Movement in the United States: White Power, White Pride (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 35–42; Mark S. Hamm, “From the Klan to Skinheads: A Critical History of American Hate Groups,” in Hate Crimes, 95–97.

14 Dobratz and Shanks-Meile, The White Separatist Movement, 42, 57–58; Hamm, “From the Klan to Skinheads,” 97.

15 Dobratz and Shanks-Meile, The White Separatist Movement, 58.

16 Paul L. Street, Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: A Living Black Chicago History (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 80.

17 Alan B. Anderson and George W. Pickering, Confronting the Color Line: The Broken Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986), 48–49; Street, Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis, 83–85.

18 Anderson and Pickering, Confronting the Color Line, 46–47.

19 Robert G. Spiney, City of Big Shoulders: A History of Chicago (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000), 203; Street, Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis, 86. For a detailed discussion of restrictive covenants, see Wendy Plotkin, “Deeds of Mistrust: Race, Housing and Restrictive Covenants in Chicago, 1900–1953” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Chicago, 1999).

20 Cooley, “Moving On Out: Black Pioneering in Chicago, 1915–1950,” Journal of Urban History 36, no. 4 (2010): 485–486; Street, Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis, 86.

21 Spiney, City of Big Shoulders, 204. Kelly’s Commission on Human Relations stated that the Black Belt contained 70,000–100,000 more people than space allowed; see Cooley, “Moving On Out,” 488.

22 Spiney, City of Big Shoulders, 204, 206.

23 “Chicago Newspapers,” Chicagology, last accessed September 24, 2021, https://chicagology.com/newspapers/.

24 Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 51–52, 60.

25 Jon Bekken, “The Chicago Newspaper Scene: An Ecological Perspective,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 74, no. 3 (1997): 490–499.

26 For a complete history of the Defender, see Ethan Michaeli, The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America, from the Age of the Pullman Porters to the Age of Obama (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016).

27 Mary E. Stovall, “The Chicago Defender in the Progressive Era,” Illinois Historical Journal 83, no. 3 (1990): 159–172; T. Ella Strother, “The Black Image in the Chicago ‘Defender,’ 1905–1975,” Journalism History 4, no. 4 (1977–78): 137–141, 156; Brian Thornton, “The ‘Dangerous’ Chicago Defender: A Study of the Newspaper’s Editorials and Letters to the Editor in 1968,” Journalism History 40, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 40–41.

28 Thornton, “The ‘Dangerous’ Chicago Defender,” 41.

29 John F. Glenville, FBI report, January 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-26, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/. The Daily Worker was founded in Chicago but moved to New York in 1927; “Guide to the Daily Worker and Daily World Photographs Collection,” Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive, New York University, last accessed September 24, 2021, http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/photos_223/bioghist.html.

30 “Guide to the Daily Worker and Daily World Photographs Collection.” For discussions of the Communist Party’s civil rights stance and activities, see Drew Cottle, “The Colour-Line and the Third Period: A Comparative Analysis of American and Australian Communism and the Question of Race, 1928–1934,” American Communist History 10, no. 2 (2011): 119–131; Timothy Johnson, “‘Death for Negro Lynching!’ The Communist Party, USA’s Position on the African American Question,” American Communist History 7, no. 2 (2008): 243–254; Marlene Park, “Lynching and Antilynching: Art and Politics in the 1930s,” Prospects 18 (October 1993): 311–365; Clarence Taylor, “Introduction to the Special Issue: ‘The Civil Rights Movement in New York City,’” Afro-Americans in New York Life & History 31, no. 2 (2007): 7–13; Clarence Taylor, “Race, Class, and Police Brutality in New York City: The Role of the Communist Party in the Early Cold War Years,” Journal of African American History 98, no. 2 (2013): 205–228.

31 Though written long after the White Circle League lost its charter, Beauharnais still identified himself in the letter’s signature as leader of the League. Joseph Beauharnais to Chicago City Council, March 27, 1962, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-1a3, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

32 See Henry D. Fetter, “From ‘Stooge’ to ‘Czar’: Judge Landis, The Daily Worker, and the Integration of Baseball,” American Communist History 6, no. 1 (2007): 29–63; Henry D. Fetter, “The Party Line and the Color Line: The American Communist Party, the ‘Daily Worker,’ and Jackie Robinson,” Journal of Sport History 28, no. 3 (2001): 375–402; Irwin Sibler, Press Box Red: The Story of Lester Rodney, the Communist Who Helped Break the Color Line in American Sports (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003); John R. Tisdale, “Native Son: Rob Hall and the ‘Daily Worker’ Coverage of the Emmett Till Murder Trial,” Journal of Mississippi History 68, no. 2 (2006): 113–129.

33 Allen Denniston, “Chicago Daily Tribune and Daily Worker: Partners in Conformity” (Master’s Thesis, Boston University, 1951), 8–9. Denniston sought to compare widely-circulated newspapers on opposite ends of the political spectrum, settling on Chicago’s far-right Tribune and New York’s far-left Worker.

34 Ibid., 62–63.

35 Randi Storch, Red Chicago: American Communism at Its Grassroots, 1928–35 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 66.

36 Carl Hirsch, “To the Publisher,” Berwyn Life, July 20, 1951.

37 “Use Project to Further Propaganda,” Suburbanite Economist (Chicago), November 23, 1955.

38 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Who’s Who of National Leaders, Communist Party, U.S.A.,” April 1963, p. 102.

39 See Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 722–723 (1931); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88 (1940); Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949).

40 Known officially as the Alien Registration Act, the Smith Act also required aliens who intended to remain in the United States for thirty days or longer to register, be fingerprinted, and describe under oath what they planned to do in the United States as well as any criminal record they had; Alien Registration Act, ch. 439, 54 Stat 670 (1940).

41 Erik Bruce, “Dangerous World, Dangerous Liberties: Aspects of the Smith Act Prosecutions,” American Communist History 13, no. 1 (April 2014): 25–38; Michal R. Belknap, Cold War Political Justice: The Smith Act, the Communist Party, and American Civil Liberties (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1977).

42 Michal R. Belknap, “Dennis v. United States: Great Case or Cold War Relic?” Journal of Supreme Court History 18, no. 1 (1993): 41–58; Susan Siggelakis, “Advocacy on Trial,” American Journal of Legal History 36, no. 4 (1992): 499–516.

43 Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951).

44 Robert McCloskey, The American Supreme Court (Chicago: University of Chicago, Press 2010), 132.

45 Ibid., 121.

46 Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 251 (1952).

47 See New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969); New York Times v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971); Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).

48 David Luban, “Justice Holmes and the Metaphysics of Judicial Restraint,” Duke Law Journal 44, no. 3 (1994): 451–452.

49 Beauharnais v. Illinois, 262.

50 Ibid., 253.

51 See Oliver Wendell Holmes to Felix Frankfurter, March 10, 1920, and Felix Frankfurter to Oliver Wendell Holmes, May 1918, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Digital Suite, Harvard Law Library, http://library.law.harvard.edu/suites/owh/. After Justice Holmes’s famous dissent in Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919), Frankfurter wrote to Holmes, telling him “your paragraphs will live as long as the Areopagitica,” a reference to John Milton’s 1644 argument for free expression.

52 Oliver Wendell Holmes to Harold Laski, March 4, 1920, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Digital Suite, Harvard Law Library, http://library.law.harvard.edu/suites/owh/.

53 James Bradley Thayer, The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1893), 22.

54 Justice Frankfurter used the term “judicial humility” in his dissent in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 667 (1943); Alexander Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986).

55 Ibid., 16. Bickel argued New York Times’s case before the Supreme Court in New York Times v. United States, also known as the “Pentagon Papers” case, in 1971.

56 New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). See Herbert Wechsler, “Toward Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law,” Harvard Law Review 73, no. 1 (1959): 16–17. Wechsler draws substantially from Judge Learned Hand, who also was a student of Thayer’s, and Frankfurter’s legal and academic scholarship in constructing his “neutral principles” concept.

57 Memo from Commanding Officer—Industrial Detail to Commissioner of Police (Chicago), October 21, 1949, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-2, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

58 Joseph Beauharnais to Louis A. Johnson, June 24, 1949, Desegregation of the Armed Forces file, document 93-B, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Street, Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis, 99.

62 Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 52.

63 Ibid., 52–53.

64 For a detailed discussion of the riots, see Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 53–59.

65 Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 58.

66 Alexander, “Founder Admits ‘Violence’ Aim of Chicago Klan Group”; Carl Hirsch, “Uncover Klan Groups Behind Mob Violence,” The Worker, November 27, 1949.

67 Memo from Commanding Officer—Industrial Detail to Commissioner of Police (Chicago), October 21, 1949, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 105-291-2; FBI memo, November 14, 1949, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-4, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

68 White Circle League recruitment flier (handwritten copy), in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-13, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

69 “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White” (pamphlet), Federal Bureau of Investigation, 105-291-46. NOTE: An FBI memo indicates the leaflet was seized in St. Louis; see Memo from SAC, St. Louis to SAC, Chicago, April 17, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-44, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

70 White Circle League recruitment flier (handwritten copy), undated, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-13, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/; “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White.”

71 “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White.”

72 Ibid.

73 White Circle League membership application, quoted in John F. Glenville, FBI report, January 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-26, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

74 “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White” (emphasis in original); White Circle League membership application, quoted in John F. Glenville, FBI report, January 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-26, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

75 “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White”; White Circle League membership application, quoted in John F. Glenville, FBI report, January 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-26, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

76 “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White”; White Circle League membership application, quoted in John F. Glenville, FBI report, January 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-26, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/ (emphasis in original).

77 Joseph Beauharnais, “What Hidden Hand Is Behind All This?” (pamphlet), quoted in John F. Glenville, FBI report, January 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-26, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/; see also “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White.”

78 Questionnaire reproduced in Carl Hirsch, “City Klan Group Has Big Backers,” unknown date, clipped in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-18, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

79 “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White.”

80 “What Hidden Hand Is Behind All This?”

81 “White Circle Tightens Belt for Action! 1,000 Volunteers Needed” (flier), quoted in John F. Glenville, FBI report, April 4, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-40, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

82 “Violence Covenants!,” The Worker, January 8, 1950.

83 Memo from Commanding Officer—Industrial Detail to Commissioner of Police (Chicago), December 19, 1949, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-9, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/; Hirsch, “City Klan Group Has Big Backers.”

84 Memo from Commanding Officer—Industrial Detail to Commissioner of Police (Chicago), December 19, 1949.

85 Beauharnais v. Illinois, 252; Carl Hirsch, “Un-Hooded Klan Brings Racism Out on Streets!,” The Worker, January 15, 1950.

86 “White Circle in Action!” The Worker, January 15, 1950.

87 Hirsch, “Un-Hooded Klan Brings Racism Out on Streets!”

88 FBI report, February 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-39, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

89 “Founder Admits ‘Violence’ Aim of Chicago Klan Group”; “City Klan Group Has Big Backers.”

90 “Uncover Klan Groups Behind Mob Violence”; see also The Worker, November 27, 1949, and “Founder Admits ‘Violence’ Aim of Chicago Klan Group.”

91 “Founder Admits ‘Violence’ Aim of Chicago Klan Group”; “City Klan Group Has Big Backers”; “Violence Covenants”; “White Circle Stages Hate Rally.”

92 “Founder Admits ‘Violence’ Aim of Chicago Klan Group.”

93 George Sexton, “I Attended Secret Meeting of Chicago Ku Klux Klan Outfit,” Worker, December 27, 1949.

94 “Uncover Klan Groups Behind Mob Violence”; “Violence Covenants.”

95 Carl Hirsch, “Prendergast, Are You Waiting for Bloodshed,” Worker, January 15, 1950; “White Circle in Action!”

96 Sexton, “I Attended Secret Meeting of Chicago Ku Klux Klan Outfit”; Hirsh, “City Klan Group Has Big Backers.”

97 “Violence Covenants.”

98 Patrick Washburn, “J. Edgar Hoover and the Black Press in World War II,” Journalism History 13, no. 1 (1986): 27–28. Washburn notes that the FBI reported alleged Communist ties of Defender staffers. However, editorials demonstrated the paper to be decidedly anti-Communist; see, for example, “Communism and Fascism,” Chicago Defender, August 30, 1947.

99 “Is the Negro Press ‘Inflammatory’?” Chicago Defender, May 5, 1945.

100 Albert Barnett, “Tolerance Fights Bigotry As the New Year Dawns,” Chicago Defender, January 7, 1950.

101 “To Smash White Gang Take Steps,” Chicago Defender, January 21, 1950; “Hate Leader Charges Bias,” Chicago Defender, February 18, 1950; “Find White Circle Group Boss Guilty,” Chicago Defender, May 13, 1950.

102 A few years after Beauharnais’s case closed, Wilson was beaten by a mob while covering school integration in Little Rock. Miriam DeCosta-Willis, Notable Black Memphians (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press), 349–351.

103 Wilson, “Chicago Has Its Circles.”

104 L. Alex Wilson, “Race Hate Blocks 7,300 Housing Units in Chicago,” Chicago Defender, March 11, 1950; L. Alex Wilson, “Chicago’s Hate Ache Remedy,” Chicago Defender, April 29, 1950.

105 G.S. White, “What the People Say: Warns Against Circle,” Chicago Defender, March 11, 1950.

106 “Chicago’s Hate Ache Remedy.”

107 “Is the Negro Press ‘Inflammatory’?”

108 Beauharnais apparently attached a copy of his letter to the Defender to a letter he sent to Judge Oscar Caplan, the first judge assigned in his Illinois court trial. The letters were quoted in “White Supremacy Leader in Court,” Chicago Daily News, February 14, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-40, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

109 Sexton, “I Attended Secret Meeting of Chicago Ku Klux Klan Outfit.”

110 “White Circle Stages Hate Rally.”

111 Memo from Commanding Officer—Industrial Detail to Commissioner of Police (Chicago), December 19, 1949, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-9, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

112 Dawn Rae Flood, “Stormy Protests on Sex Crimes: Local Debates about Race and Rape in Postwar Chicagoland,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 102, no. 3/4 (2009): 435, 441.

113 “A Newspaper Congratulates Itself,” LIFE Magazine, June 23, 1947, p. 25.

114 Alice M. O’Reilly, “Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, His Tribune, and Mayor William Hale” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1963), p. 5.

115 “You Can Help Keep White Neighborhoods White” (emphasis in original).

116 “White Circle Stages Hate Rally.”

117 Ibid.; “Bulletin,” The Worker, June 18, 1950; Memos from SA (name redacted) to SAC G. R. McSwain, October 11 and 16, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-62 and 105-291-63, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

118 “Boys Clubs Agree to Ban White Circle Meetings.”

119 FBI report, February 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-39, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

120 Edward L. Conners to Adlai Stevenson, January 23, 1950, and Winfred L. Chappell to Adlai Stevenson, January 21, 1950, both quoted in FBI report, February 24, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-39, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

121 John F. Glenville, FBI report, June 12, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-50, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

122 Beauharnais v. Illinois, 251.

123 Ibid.

124 James A. Scott, “Criminal Sanctions for Group Libel: Feasability and Constitutionality,” Duke Bar Journal 1, no. 2 (1951): 218.

125 Ibid., 220.

126 Fox Film Corp v. Collins, 236 Ill. App. 281 (Ill. App. Ct. 1925); Bevins v. Prindable, 39 F. Supp. 708 (E.D. Ill. 1941); Parmelee v. Hearst, 93 N.E.2d 512 (Ill. App. Ct. 1950).

127 “Pied Piper Toots Off-Key Tune Here.”

128 Ibid.; “White Supremacy Leader in Court”; “White Circle League Sued as Sower of Hate,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 15, 1950.

129 Gary Alan Fine and Terence McDonnell, “Erasing the Brown Scare: Referential Afterlife and the Power of Memory Templates,” Social Problems 54, no. 2 (2007): 170; “Racist Chief Gets Top Penalty—$200 Fine!,” The Worker, May 14, 1950.

130 “Racist Chief Gets Top Penalty.”

131 John F. Glenville, FBI report, August 2, 1950, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 105-291-56; “Racist Cult Loses Its Charter,” Chicago Daily News, June 30, 1950, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-98, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

132 “Outlaw White Circle League,” The Worker, July 9, 1950.

133 Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 105 (1940) and Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949), cited in People v. Beauharnais, 408 Ill. 512, 516 (1951).

134 Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 722–723 (1931).

135 Beauharnais, 408 Ill. at 517–18, quoting Ill Rev. Stat. 1949, chap. 38, par. 404.

136 See Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925), and Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942).

137 Gitlow, 268 U.S. at 672.

138 Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 573.

139 Beauharnais, 408 Ill. at 517, quoting Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919).

140 Beauharnais, 408 Ill. at 518.

141 Beauharnais, 408 Ill. at 512 (discussed under “subsequent history” section at the top of the case).

142 Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 253 (1952).

143 Ibid., 264, citing Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 105 (1940) and Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949); People v. Beauharnais, 408 Ill. 512, 516 (1951).

144 Beauharnais, 343 U.S. at 255–256.

145 Ibid., 263.

146 Ibid., 267 (Black, J., dissenting). Justice Black was a member of the Ku Klux Klan from 1923 until 1925. He received a “grand passport” award from the Klan in 1926 during his campaign for Senator in Alabama; see Daniel M. Berman, “Hugo L. Black: The Early Years,” Catholic University Law Review 8 (1959): 104, and Jeffrey Rosen, The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2007), 137–140.

147 Beauharnais, 343 U.S. at 274 (Black, J., dissenting).

148 Ibid., 287 (Douglas, J., dissenting).

149 Melvin I. Urofsky, ed., The Douglas Letters: Selections from the Private Papers of Justice William O. Douglas (Chevy Chase, MD: Adler & Adler, 1987), 120.

150 Beauharnais, 343 U.S. at 299 (Jackson, J., dissenting).

151 Ibid., 305 (Jackson, J., dissenting).

152 John P. Frank, “The United States Supreme Court 1951–52,” University of Chicago Law Review, 20, 1 (1952): 26. Frank advised Thurgood Marshall as he prepared to argue Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. He also helped represent Ernesto Miranda in Miranda v. Arizona in 1966, which is the case the created the “Miranda” rights.

153 Ibid., 28.

154 “Paul A. Freund May Succeed Frankfurter in September,” The Crimson, April 12, 1939, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1939/4/12/paul-a-freund-may-succeed-frankfurter/.

155 Paul Freund, “The Supreme Court 1951 Term,” Harvard Law Review 66, 1 (1952): 96–97.

156 Henry M. Kittleson and J. Allen Smith, “Free Speech (1949–1952): Slogans v. States’ Rights,” University of Florida Law Review 5 (1952): 227.

157 Ibid., 234–236.

158 Joseph Tanenhaus, “Group Libel and Free Speech,” Phylon 13, no. 3 (1952): 216–219.

159 Harry Kalven, “The New York Times Case: A Note on the Central Meaning of the First Amendment,” Supreme Court Review 1964 (1964): 201–202.

160 Andrew Cohen, “Today is the 50th Anniversary of the (Re-)Birth of the First Amendment,” The Atlantic, March 9, 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/today-is-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-re-birth-of-the-first-amendment/284311/; Lulu Garia-Navarro, “Revisiting ‘New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,’” NPR, February 24, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/02/24/697481372/revisiting-new-york-times-co-v-sullivan.

161 New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964).

162 Daniel B. Moskowitz, “Drawing a Line on Libel,” American History 54, no. 1 (2019): 22–23.

163 Doug Cumming, “Building Resentment: How the Alabama Press Prepared the Ground for New York Times v. Sullivan,” American Journalism 22, no. 3 (2005): 8; Aimee Edmondson, “In Sullivan’s Shadow: The Use and Abuse of Libel Law Arising from the Civil Rights Movement, 1960–89,” Journalism History 37, no. 1 (2011): 27–28.

164 Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 at 276, quoting Beauharnais, 343 U.S. 250 at 268.

165 Ibid., 268.

166 Ibid., 293 (Black, J., concurring).

167 Curtis Publishing v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 143-144 (1967).

168 Gertz v. Welch, 418 U.S. 323, 385–386 (1974) (White, J., dissenting).

169 Hepps v. Philadelphia Newspapers, 475 U.S. 767 (1986); Milkovich v. Lorain Journal, 497 U.S. 1 (1990).

170 The case is not mentioned in Virginia v. Black, 583 U.S. 343 (2003); Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011); or Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744 (2017).

171 R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992).

172 Ibid., 383.

173 Snyder, 562 U.S. at 443.

174 Matal, 137 S. Ct. at 1744. Simon Tam, the band’s Asian-American leader, contended he sought to reclaim the slur. The Court gave Tam access to the “Slants” trademark.

175 McKee v. Cosby, 139 S. Ct. 675, 678 (2019); Adam Liptak, “Precedent, Meet Clarence Thomas. You May Not Get Along,” New York Times, March 4, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-precedent.html; Andrew Chung, “Justice Thomas assails landmark U.S. libel ruling that protects media,” Reuters, February 19, 2019, https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-cosby/justice-thomas-assails-landmark-u-s-libel-ruling-that-protects-media-idUKKCN1Q81T0.

176 McKee, 139 S. Ct. 675 at 682.

177 Ibid.

178 “Klan Outfit Plans New Terror Campaign,” The Worker, January 14, 1951.

179 “Calls Leader of White Circle an Enemy of U.S.,” Chicago Tribune, April 20, 1951.

180 “News Reel,” The Worker, November 25, 1951; The Worker, November 4, 1951.

181 “Civil Liberties,” Chicago Tribune, October 14, 1951.

182 “Group Libel,” Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1952.

183 “Wanted! 50 Million White People to Uphold the White Man’s Rights in America” (pamphlet), quoted in FBI report, September 24, 1952, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-98, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

184 FBI report, September 24, 1952, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-98, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

185 FBI memo, January 7, 1953, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-100, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

186 The final document in the file contains statements Beauharnais made at a National State Rights Party meeting in May 1964, which were more volatile than any he had made on behalf of the White Circle League: “The Negro is subhuman and has no soul. The Negro has no conception of virtue or morality. The prime purpose of the Negro is to destroy the white race”; FBI report, June 11, 1968, in Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Circle League of America, 105-291-242, https://archive.org/details/WhiteCircleLeagueOfAmerica/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erika J. Pribanic-Smith

Erika J. Pribanic-Smith, An associate professor of journalism at University of Texas at Arlington, Pribanic-Smith specializes in research on nineteenth-century political journalism and twentieth-century dissident journalism. Her work has appeared in American Journalism, American Periodicals, Journalism History, Media History Monographs, and Kansas History.

Jared Schroeder

Jared Schroeder is an associate professor of journalism at Southern Methodist University, specializing in communication law, particularly as it applies to freedom of expression and emerging technologies. He is the author of The Press Clause and Digital Technology's Fourth Wave (Routledge, 2018) and articles in First Amendment Law Review, Communication Law & Policy, The Review of Higher Education, First Amendment Studies.

Erika J. Pribanic-Smith and Jared Schroeder are co-authors of Emma Goldman’s No-Conscription League and the First Amendment (Routledge, 2019).