THE SUPREME COURT: Names Aren’t Necessary

The broad shoulder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has provided the Negroes’ biggest push in the legal drive for integration in the South. In retaliation, Southern state and local officials have tried to push the N.A.A.C.P. into publishing the names of its members and contributors. At the height of Arkansas’ racial turmoil in 1957, Little Rock and North Little Rock sought legal leverage by amending their business license ordinances to list the N.A.A.C.P. as a business, demanded that Negro leaders file membership lists for the public record. To protect their followers from bullying, the Negro leaders refused, were fined $25 each.

Last week the Supreme Court unanimously upheld their refusal. The licensing statutes, ruled the court, are as unconstitutional as the Alabama membership-list-law requirement struck down in 1958. Freedom of association, said Justice Potter Stewart for the court, is protected “not only against heavy-handed frontal attack, but also from being stifled by more subtle governmental interference.”