First Civil Right

More than any other people on earth, Americans are free to say and write what they think. The reason for this extraordinary freedom is not a superior culture of tolerance, but just 14 words in our most fundamental legal document: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Anthony Lewis tells us how these rights were created, revealing a story of hard choices, heroic (and some less heroic) judges, and fascinating and eccentric defendants who forced the legal system to come face-to-face with one of America's great founding ideas.

On February 22, 1855, the Elizabeth Jennings v. Third Avenue Rail Road case was settled: The jury stunned the courtroom with a $250 verdict in Lizzie’s favor. Future president Chester A. Arthur was Jennings’ attorney, and their lives would be forever intertwined. This is the story of what happened that day. It’s also the story of Jennings and Arthur’s families, the struggle for equality, and race relations. It’s the history of America at its most despicable and exhilarating. Yet few historians know of Elizabeth Jennings or her impact on desegregating public transit.

As a proud son of a civil rights leader, Steven L. Reed grew up hearing stories about how his father integrated Montgomery lunch counters and took advice directly from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy. However, it wasn’t until Reed was in the fourth grade and received a death threat against his father that he began to understand more fully the importance of the lessons his father was trying to impart. At this pivotal moment, his father explained, “My job is to prepare you to be a cross-bearer and not just a crown-wearer.

This concise but comprehensive book lays out specific answers to myriad topical questions about free speech law, and also general explanations of how and why the law distinguishes between protected and punishable speech. The book focuses on modern First Amendment law, explaining the historic factors that propelled its evolution in a more speech-protective direction—in particular, the Civil Rights Movement. It highlights the many cases, involving multiple issues, in which robust speech-protective principles aided advocates of racial justice and other human rights causes.

In an era where interactions between law enforcement and civilians are under intense scrutiny, this essential guide provides practical advice tailored to Black men and women for navigating police stops safely. Written by retired Army veteran and 25-year law enforcement officer Fredrick Martin, this audiobook draws on real-world experience to bridge the gap between understanding law enforcement protocols and ensuring personal safety.

The wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King was a civil rights leader in her own right, playing a prominent role in the African American struggle for racial equality in the 1960s. Here's a gripping portrait of a smart, remarkable woman. Growing up in Alabama, Coretta Scott King graduated valedictorian from her high school before becoming one of the first African-American students at Antioch College in Ohio. It was there that she became politically active, joining the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Legal luminary Burt Neuborne argues that the structure of the First Amendment as well as of the entire Bill of Rights was more intentional than most people realize, beginning with the internal freedom of conscience and working outward to freedom of expression and finally freedom of public association. This design, Neuborne argues, was not to protect discrete individual rights - such as the rights of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

Most people have heard about Rosa Parks’s brave actions that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. But there were other Black women who challenged segregation in transportation. Three years earlier, Sarah Keys Evans—a veteran—refused to give up her seat on a bus traveling through the South.

A powerful, intimate memoir of Eritrean British journalist Hannah Azieb-Pool, who returns to Eritrea at the age of 30 to meet her family for the first time. In her 20s, Hannah Azieb-Pool is given a letter that unravels everything she knows about her life. She knew she was adopted from an orphanage in Eritrea and that as her adoptive family brought her to the UK, they believed she did not have any surviving relatives. When she discovers the truth in a letter from her brother - that her birth father is alive and her Eritrean family are desperate to meet her.

Since 1998, Free Press Media has been the #1 fans of freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Are you also a major fan of the First Amendment and freedom of expression? If so, Free Press Media: The First Amendment's #1 Fans is for you. Free Press Media: The First Amendment's #1 Fans presents our unique vision of freedom of expression, details our past efforts of championing freedom of expression, and calls us to advance freedom of expression to altogether new levels