Edwards v. South Carolina Opinion of the Court

    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 86.— October T erm, 1962.

James Edwards, Jr. et al., 
Petitioners, 

v.
South Carolina.

On Writ of Certiorari to the 
Supreme Court of South 
Carolina.

[February 25, 1963.]

M r . Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the 
Court.

The petitioners, 187 in number, were convicted in a 
magistrate’s court in Columbia, South Carolina, of the 
common-law crime of breach of the peace. Their con­
victions were ultimately affirmed by the South Carolina
Supreme Court, ---- - S. C. -----, 123 S. E. 2d 247. We
granted certiorari, 369 IT. S. 870, to consider the claim 
that these convictions cannot be squared with the Four­
teenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

There was no substantial conflict in the trial evidence.1 
Late in the morning of March 2, 1961, the petitioners, 
high school and college students of the Negro race, met 
at the Zion Baptist Church in Columbia. From there, 
at about noon, they walked in separate groups of about 
15 to the South Carolina State House grounds, an area 
of two city blocks open to the general public. Their pur­
pose was “to submit a protest to the citizens of South 
Carolina, along with the Legislative Bodies of South Caro­
lina, our feelings and our dissatisfaction with the present 
condition of discriminatory actions against Negroes, in 
general, and to let them know that we were dissatisfied 
and that we would like for the laws which prohibited 
Negro privileges in this State to be removed.”

1 The petitioners were tried in groups, at four separate trials. It 
was stipulated that the appeals be treated as one case.



2 EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA.

Already on the State House grounds when the peti­
tioners arrived were 30 or more law enforcement officers, 
who had advance knowledge that the petitioners were 
coming.2 Each group of petitioners entered the grounds 
through a driveway and parking area known in the record 
as the “horseshoe.” As they entered, they were told by 
the law enforcement officials that “ they had a right, as a 
citizen, to go through the State House grounds, as any 
other citizen has, as long as they were peaceful.” Dur­
ing the next half hour or 45 minutes, the petitioners, in 
the same small groups, walked single file or two abreast 
in an orderly way3 through the grounds, each group 
carrying placards bearing such messages as “ I am proud 
to be a Negro,” and “Down with segregation.”

2 The Police Chief of Columbia testified that about 15 of his men 
were present, and that there were, in addition, “ some State Highway 
Patrolmen; there were some South Carolina Law Enforcement officers 
present and I believe, I ’m not positive, I believe there were about 
three Deputy Sheriffs.”

3 The Police Chief of Columbia testified as follows:
“ Q. Did you, Chief, walk around the State House Building with 

any of these persons?
‘ A. I did not. I stayed at the horseshoe. I placed men over the 

grounds.
“ Q. Did any of your men make a report that any of these persons 

were disorderly in walking around the State House Grounds?
“A. They did not.
“ Q. Under normal circumstances your men would report to you 

when you are at the scene?
“A. They should.
“ Q. Is it reasonable to assume then that there was no disorderly 

conduct on the part of these persons, since you received no report 
from your officers?

“A. I would take that for granted, yes.”
The City Manager testified:
“ Q. Were the Negro college students or other students well de­

meaned? Were they well dressed and were they orderly?
“A. Yes, they were.”



EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA. 3

During this time a crowd of some 200 to 300 onlookers 
had collected in the horseshoe area and on the adjacent 
sidewalks. There was no evidence to suggest that these 
onlookers were anything but curious, and no evidence at 
all of any threatening remarks, hostile gestures, or offen­
sive language on the part of any member of the crowd. 
The City Manager testified that he recognized some of 
the onlookers, whom he did not identify, as “possible 
trouble makers,” but his subsequent testimony made clear 
that nobody among the crowd actually caused or threat­
ened any trouble.4 There was no obstruction of pedes­
trian or vehicular traffic within the State House grounds.5 
No vehicle was prevented from entering or leaving the

4 “ Q. Who were those persons ?
“A. I can’t tell you who they were. I can tell you they were 

present in the group. They were recognized as possible trouble 
makers.

“ Q. Did you and your police chief do anything about placing 
those people under arrest?

“A. No, we had no occasion to place them under arrest.
“ Q. Now, sir, you have stated that there were possible trouble 

makers and your whole testimony has been that, as City Manager, 
as supervisor of the City Police, your object is to preserve the peace 
and law and order?

“A. That’s right.
“ Q- Yet you took no official action against people who were present 

and possibly might have done some harm to these people ?
“A. We took no official action because there was none to be taken. 

They were not creating a disturbance, those particular people were 
not at that time doing anything to make trouble but they could have 
been.”

5 The Police Chief of Columbia testified:
“ Q. Each group of students walked along in column of twos?
“A. Sometimes two and I did see some in single-file.
“ Q. There was ample room for other persons going in the same 

direction or the opposite direction to pass on the same sidewalk?
“A. I wouldn’t say they were blocking the sidewalk; now, that was 

through the State House grounds.”



4 EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA.

horseshoe area. Although vehicular traffic at a nearby 
street intersection was slowed down somewhat, an officer 
was dispatched to keep traffic moving. There were a 
number of bystanders on the public sidewalks adjacent to 
the State House grounds, but they all moved on when 
asked to do so, and there was no impediment of pedestrian 
traffic.0 Police protection at the scene was at all times 
sufficient to meet any foreseeable possibility of disorder.6 7

In the situation and under the circumstances thus 
described, the police authorities advised the petitioners 
that they would be arrested if they did not disperse within 
15 minutes.8 Instead of dispersing, the petitioners en­
gaged in what the City Manager described as “boisterous,”

6 The Police Chief of Columbia testified:
“ A. At times they blocked the sidewalk and we asked them to 

move over and they did.
“ Q. They obeyed your commands on that?
“A. Yes.
“ Q. So that nobody complained that he wanted to use the sidewalk 

and he could not do it?
“ A. I didn’t have any complaints on that.”
7 The City Manager testified:
“ Q. You had ample time, didn’t you, to get ample police protection, 

if you thought such was needed on the State House grounds, didn’t 
you?

“ A. Yes, we did.
“ Q. So, if there were not ample police protection there, it was the 

fault of those persons in charge of the Police Department, wasn’t it?
“ A. There was ample police protection there.”
8 The City Manager testified: .
“ Q. Mr. McNayr, what action did you take?
“A. I instructed Dave Carter to tell each of these groups, to call 

them up and tell each of the groups and the group leaders that they 
must disperse, they must disperse in the manner which I have already 
described, that I would give them fifteen minutes from the time of 
my conversation with him to have them dispersed and, if they were 
not dispersed, I would direct my Chief of Police to place them under 
arrest.”



EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA. o

“ loud,” and “ flamboyant” conduct, which, as his later 
testimony made clear, consisted of listening to a “religious 
harangue” by one of their leaders, and loudly singing “The 
Star Spangled Banner” and other patriotic and religious 
songs, while stamping their feet and clapping their hands. 
After 15 minutes had passed, the police arrested the 
petitioners and marched them off to jail.9

Upon this evidence the state trial court convicted the 
petitioners of breach of the peace, and imposed sentences 
ranging from a $10 fine or five days in jail, to a $100 fine 
or 30 days in jail. In affirming the judgments, the 
Supreme Court of South Carolina said that under the law 
of that State the offense of breach of the peace “ is not 
susceptible of exact definition,” but that the “general 
definition of the offense” is as follows;

“ In general terms, a breach of the peace is a viola­
tion of public order, a disturbance of the public tran­
quility, by any act or conduct inciting to vio­
lence . . . , it includes any violation of any law 
enacted to preserve peace and good order. It may 
consist of an act of violence or an act likely to pro­
duce violence. It is not necessary that the peace 
be actually broken to lay the foundation for a prose­
cution for this offense. If what is done is unjusti­
fiable and unlawful, tending with sufficient directness

9 The City Manager testified;
“ Q. You have already testified, Mr. McNayr, I believe, that you 

did order these students dispersed within fifteen minutes?
“A. Yes.
“ Q. Did they disperse in accordance with your order ?
“A. They did not.
“ Q. What then occurred?
“ A. I then asked Chief of Police Campbell to direct his men to 

line up the students and march them or place them under arrest 
and march them to the City Jail and the County Jail.

“ Q. They were placed under arrest?
“ A. They were placed under arrest.”



6 EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA.

to break the peace, no more is required. Nor is 
actual personal violence an essential element in the 
offense. . . .

“ By ‘peace,’ as used in the law in this connection, 
is meant the tranquility enjoyed by citizens of a 
municipality or community where good order reigns 
among its members, which is the natural right of all
persons in political society.” ---- S. C. — , 123 S. E.
2d, at 249.

The petitioners contend that there was a complete 
absence of any evidence of the commission of this offense, 
and that they were thus denied one of the most basic ele­
ments of due process of law. Thompson v. Louisville, 
362 U. S. 199; see Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 157; 
Taylor v. Louisiana, 370 U. S. 154. Whatever the merits 
of this contention, we need not pass upon it in the present 
case. The state courts have held that the petitioners’ 
conduct constituted breach of the peace under state law, 
and we may accept their decision as binding upon us to 
that extent. But it nevertheless remains our duty in a 
case such as this to make an independent examination of 
the whole record. Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S. 199, 
205 n. 5 ; Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 335; Fiske 
v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380, 385-386. And it is clear to us 
that in arresting, convicting, and punishing the peti­
tioners under the circumstances disclosed by this record, 
South Carolina infringed the petitioners’ constitutionally 
protected rights of free speech, free assembly, and free­
dom to petition for redress of their grievances.

It has long been established that these First Amend­
ment freedoms are protected by the Fourteenth Amend­
ment from invasion by the States. Gitlow v. New York, 
268 U. S. 652; Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357; 
Stromberg v. California, 283 IT. S. 359; DeJonge v. 
Oregon, 299 U. S. 353; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 
296. The circumstances in this case reflect an exercise



EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA. 7

of these basic constitutional rights in their most pristine 
and classic form. The petitioners felt aggrieved by laws 
of South Carolina which allegedly “ prohibited Negro 
privileges in this State.” They peaceably assembled at 
the site of the State Government10 and there peaceably 
expressed their grievances “to the citizens of South Caro­
lina, along with the Legislative Bodies of South Carolina.” 
Not until they were told by police officials that they must 
disperse on pain of arrest did they do more. Even then, 
they but sang patriotic and religious songs after one of 
their leaders had delivered a “religious harangue.” There 
was no violence or threat of violence on their part, or on 
the part of any member of the crowd watching them. 
Police protection was “ample.”

This, therefore, was a far cry from the situation in 
Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 315, where two policemen 
were faced with a crowd which was “pushing, shoving, 
and milling around,” id., at 317, where at least one mem­
ber of the crowd “threatened violence if the police did not 
act,” id., at 317, where “the crowd was pressing closer 
around petitioner and the officer,” id., at 318, and where 
“the speaker passes the bounds of argument or persuasion 
and undertakes incitement to riot.” Id., at 321. And 
the record is barren of any evidence of “ fighting wrords.” 
See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568.

We do not review in this case criminal convictions 
resulting from the even-handed application of a precise 
and narrowly drawn regulatory statute evincing a legisla­
tive judgment that certain specific conduct be limited or 
proscribed. If, for example, the petitioners had been 
convicted upon evidence that they had violated a law

10 It was stipulated at trial “ that the State House grounds are 
occupied by the Executive Branch of the South Carolina government, 
the Legislative Branch and the Judicial Branch, and that, during the 
period covered in the warrant in this matter, to wit: March the 2nd, 
the Legislature of South Carolina was in session.”



8 EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA.

regulating traffic, or had disobeyed a law reasonably limit­
ing the periods during which the State House grounds 
were open to the public, this would be a different case.11 
See Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 307-308; 
Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 157, 202 (concurring opin­
ion). These petitioners were convicted of an offense so 
generalized as to be, in the words of the South Carolina 
Supreme Court, “not susceptible of exact definition.” 
And they were convicted upon evidence which showed no 
more than that the opinions which they were peaceably 
expressing were sufficiently opposed to the views of the 
majority of the community to attract a crowd and neces­
sitate police protection.

The Fourteenth Amendment does not permit a State to 
make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views. 
“ [A] function of free speech under our system of govern­
ment is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its 
high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, 
creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even

11 Section 1-417 of the 1952 Code of Laws of South Carolina (Cum. 
Supp. 1960) provides as follows:

“ It shall be unlawful for any person:
“ (1) Except State officers and employees and persons having 

lawful business in the buildings, to use any of the driveways, alleys 
or parking spaces upon any of the property of the State, bounded by 
Assembly, Gervais, Bull and Pendleton Streets in Columbia upon any 
regular weekday, Saturdays and holidays excepted, between the hours 
of 8:30 a. m., and 5:30 p. m., whenever the buildings are open for 
business; or

“ (2) To park any vehicle except in spaces and manner marked and 
designated by the State Budget and Control Board, in cooperation 
with the Highway Department, or to block or impede traffic through 
the alleys and driveways.”
The petitioners were not charged with violating this statute, and 
the record contains no evidence whatever that any police official had 
this statute in mind when ordering the petitioners to disperse on pain 
or arrest, or indeed that a charge under this statute could have been 
sustained by what occurred.



EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA. 9

stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and 
challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconcep­
tions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses 
for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of 
speech, . . . is . . . protected against censorship or pun­
ishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and 
present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far 
above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest. . . . 
There is no room under our Constitution for a more re­
strictive view. For the alternative would lead to stand­
ardization of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or 
dominant political or community groups.” Terminiello 
v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 4-5. As in the Terminiello case, 
the courts of South Carolina have defined a criminal 
offense so as to permit conviction of the petitioners if their 
speech “stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or 
brought about a condition of unrest. A conviction resting 
on any of those grounds may not stand.” Id., at 5.

As Chief Justice Hughes wrote in Stromberg v. Cali­
fornia, “The maintenance of the opportunity for free 
political discussion to the end that government may be 
responsive to the will of the people and that changes may 
be obtained by lawful means, an opportunity essential to 
the security of the Republic, is a fundamental principle of 
our constitutional system. A statute which upon its face, 
and as authoritatively construed, is so vague and indefi­
nite as to permit the punishment of the fair use of this 
opportunity is repugnant to the guaranty of liberty con­
tained in the Fourteenth Amendment. . . .” 283 U. S. 
359, 369.

For these reasons we conclude that these criminal 
convictions cannot stand.

Reversed.



SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

M r. Justice Clark, dissenting.
The convictions of the petitioners, Negro high school 

and college students, for breach of the peace under South 
Carolina law are accepted by the Court “as binding upon 
us to that extent” but are held violative of “petitioners’ 
constitutionally protected rights of free speech, free 
assembly, and freedom to petition for redress of griev­
ances.” Petitioners, of course, had a right to peaceable 
assembly, to espouse their cause and to petition, but in 
my view the manner in which they exercised those rights 
was by no means the passive demonstration which this 
Court relates; rather, as the City Manager of Columbia 
testified, “a dangerous situation was building up” which 
South Carolina’s courts expressly found had created “an 
actual interference with traffic and an imminently threat­
ened disturbance of the peace of the community.” 1 Since 
the Court does not attack the state courts’ findings and 
accepts the convictions as “binding” to the extent that 
the petitioners’ conduct constituted a breach of the peace, 
it is difficult for me to understand its understatement of 
the facts and reversal of the convictions.

1 Unreported order of the Richland County Court, July 10, 1961, 
on appeal from the Magistrate’s Court of Columbia, South Carolina.
The Supreme Court’s affirmance of that order, ----- S. C. -----, 123
S. E. 2d 247, is now before us on writ of certiorari.

No. 86.—October T erm, 1962.

James Edwards, Jr. et al. 
Petitioners, 

v.
South Carolina.

On Writ of Certiorari to the 
Supreme Court of South 
Carolina.

[February 25, 1963.]



2 EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA.

The priceless character of First Amendment freedoms 
cannot be gainsaid, but it does not follow that they are 
absolutes immune from necessary state action reasonably 
designed for the protection of society. See Cantwell v. 
Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 304 (1940); Schneider v. 
State, 308 U. S. 147, 160 (1939). For that reason it is 
our duty to consider the context in which the arrests here 
were made. Certainly the city officials would be consti­
tutionally prohibited from refusing petitioners access to 
the State House grounds merely because they disagreed 
with their views. See Niemotlco v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 
268 (1951). But here South Carolina’s courts have found: 
“There is no indication whatever in this case that the 
acts of the police officers were taken as a subterfuge or 
excuse for the suppression of appellants’ views and 
opinions.” 2 It is undisputed that the city officials 
specifically granted petitioners permission to assemble, 
imposing only the requirement that they be “peaceful.” 
Petitioners then gathered on the State House grounds, 
during a General Assembly session, in a large number of 
almost 200, marching and carrying placards with slogans 
such as “Down with segregation” and “You may jail our 
bodies but not our souls.” Some of them were singing.

The activity continued for approximately 45 minutes, 
during the busy noon-hour period, while a crowd of some 
300 persons congregated in front of the State House and 
around the area directly in front of its entrance, known 
as the “horseshoe,” wffiich was used for vehicular as well 
as pedestrian ingress and egress. During this time there 
were no efforts made by the city officials to hinder the 
petitioners in their rights of free speech and assembly; 
rather, the police directed their efforts to the traffic prob­
lems resulting from petitioners’ activities. It was only 
after the large crowd had gathered, among wffiich the City

2 Ibid.



EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA. 3

Manager and Chief of Police recognized potential trouble­
makers, and which together with the students had become 
massed on and around the “horseshoe” so closely that 
vehicular and pedestrian traffic was materially impeded,3 
that any action against the petitioners was taken. Then 
the City Manager, in what both the state intermediate 
and Supreme Court found to be the utmost good faith, 
decided that danger to peace and safety was imminent. 
Even at this juncture no orders were issued by the City 
Manager for the police to break up the crowd, now about 
500 persons, and no arrests were made. Instead, he ap­
proached the recognized leader of the petitioners and 
requested him to tell the various groups of petitioners to 
disperse within 15 minutes, failing which they would be 
arrested. Even though the City Manager might have 
been honestly mistaken as to the imminence of danger 
this was certainly a reasonable request by the city’s

3 The City Manager testified as follows:
“ Q. Now, with relation, Mr. McNayr, to the sidewalks around the 

horseshoe and the lane for vehicular traffic, how was the crowd dis­
tributed, with regard to those sidewalks and roadways?

“ A. Well, the conditions varied from time to time, but at numerous 
times they were blocked almost completely with probably as many 
as thirty or forty persons, both on the sidewalks and in the street 
area. . . .

“ Q. Did you observe the pedestrian traffic on the walkway?
“A. Yes, I did.
“ Q. What, was the condition there?
“ A. The condition there was that it was extremely difficult for a 

pedestrian wanting to get through, to get through. Many of them 
took to the street area, even to get through the street area or the 
sidewalk.”

The Chief of Police testified as follows:
“ Q. Was the street blocked?
“A. We had to place a traffic man at the intersection of Gervais and 

Main to handle traffic and pedestrians.
“ Q. Was a vehicular traffic lane blocked?
“A. It was, that was in the horseshoe.”



4 EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA,

top executive officer in an effort to avoid a public 
brawl. But the response of petitioners and their leader 
was defiance rather than cooperation. The leader imme­
diately moved from group to group among the students, 
delivering a “harangue” -which, according to testimony in 
the record, “aroused [them] to a fever pitch causing this 
boisterousness, this singing and stomping.”

For the next 15 minutes the petitioners sang “I shall 
not be moved” and various religious songs, stamped their 
feet, clapped their hands, and conducted what the South 
Carolina Supreme Court found to be “a noisy demonstra­
tion in defiance of [the dispersal] orders.” -----S. C. — -,
123 S. E. 2d 247, 250. Ultimately, the petitioners were 
arrested, as they apparently planned from the begin­
ning, and convicted on evidence the sufficiency of which 
the Court does not challenge. The question thus seems 
to me whether a State is constitutionally prohibited from 
enforcing laws to prevent breach of the peace in a situa­
tion where city officials in good faith believe, and the 
record shows, that disorder and violence are imminent, 
merely because the activities constituting that breach con­
tain claimed elements of constitutionally protected speech 
and assembly. To me the answer under our cases is 
clearly in the negative.

Beginning, as did the South Carolina courts, with the 
premise that the petitioners were entitled to assemble 
and voice their dissatisfaction with segregation, the en­
largement of constitutional protection for the conduct 
here is as fallacious as would be the conclusion that free 
speech necessarily includes the right to broadcast from 
a sound truck in the public streets. Kovacs v. Cooper, 
336 U. S. 77 (1949). This Court said in Thornhill v. 
Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 105 (1940), that “ the power 
and the duty of the state to take adequate steps to pre­
serve the peace and to protect the privacy, the lives, 
and the property of its residents cannot be doubted.”



EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA. 5
Significantly, in holding that the petitioner’s picketing was 
constitutionally protected in that case the Court took 
pains to differentiate it from “picketing en masse or other­
wise conducted which might occasion . . . imminent and 
aggravated danger . . . Ibid. Here the petitioners 
were permitted without hindrance to exercise their rights 
of free speech and assembly. Their arrests occurred only 
after a situation arose in which the law-enforcement offi­
cials on the scene considered that a dangerous disturbance 
was imminent.4 The County Court found that “ the evi­
dence is clear that the officers were motivated solely by a 
proper concern for the preservation of order and the pro­
tection of the general welfare in the face of an actual 
interference with traffic and an imminently threatened 
disturbance of the peace of the community.” 5 In affirm­
ing, the South Carolina Supreme Court said the action 
of the police was “reasonable and motivated solely by a 
proper concern for the preservation of order and preven­
tion of further interference with traffic upon the public

4 The City Manager testified as follows:
“ Q- DD you hear any singing, chanting or anything of that nature 

from the student group?
“A. Yes.
“ Q. Describe that as best you can.
“A. With the harangues, which I have just described, witnessed 

frankly by everyone present and in this area, the students began 
answering back with shouts. They became boisterous. They stomped 
their feet. They sang in loud voices to the point where, again, in 
my judgment, a dangerous situation was really building up.”

The Police Chief testified as follows:
“ Q. Chief, you were questioned on cross examination at length 

about the appearance and orderliness of the student group. Were 
they orderly at all times?

“A. Not at the last.
“ Q. Would you describe the activities at the last?
“A. As I have stated, they were singing and, also, when they were 

getting certain instructions, they were very loud and boisterous.”
5 Supra, note 1.



6 EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA.

streets and sidewalks.” -----S. C. ------ , 123 S. E. 2d, at
249-250.

In Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 308, this Court 
recognized that “when clear and present danger of riot, 
disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, 
or other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order, 
appears, the power of the State to prevent or punish is 
obvious.” And in Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 315 
(1951) , we upheld a conviction for breach of the peace in a 
situation no more dangerous than that found here. There 
the demonstration was conducted by only one person and 
the crowd was limited to approximately 80, as compared 
with the present lineup of some 200 demonstrators and 
300 onlookers. There the petitioner was “endeavoring to 
arouse the Negro people against the whites, urging that 
they rise up in arms and fight for equal rights.” Id., at 
317. Only one person—in a city having an entirely differ­
ent historical background—wras exhorting adults. Here 
200 youthful Negro demonstrators were being aroused to 
a “ fever pitch” before a crowd of some 300 people who 
undoubtedly were hostile. Perhaps their speech was not 
so animated but in this setting their actions, their placards 
reading “You may jail our bodies but not our souls” and 
their chanting of “ I shall not be moved,” accompanied by 
stamping feet and clapping hands, created a much greater 
danger of riot and disorder. It is my belief that anyone 
conversant with the almost spontaneous combustion in 
some Southern communities in such a situation will agree 
that the City Manager’s action may well have averted a 
major catastrophe.

The gravity of the danger here surely needs no further 
explication. The imminence of that danger has been 
emphasized at every stage of this proceeding, from the 
complaints charging that the demonstrations “tended di­
rectly to immediate violence” to the State Supreme Court’s



EDWARDS v. SOUTH CAROLINA. 7

affirmance on the authority of Feiner, su-pra. This rec­
ord, then, shows no steps backward from a standard of 
“clear and present danger.” But to say that the police 
may not intervene until the riot has occurred is like keep­
ing out the doctor until the patient dies. I cannot sub­
scribe to such a doctrine. In the words of my Brother 
Frankfurter:

“This Court has often emphasized that in the 
exercise of our authority over state court decisions 
the Due Process Clause must not be construed in an 
abstract and doctrinaire way by disregarding local 
conditions. . . .  It is pertinent, therefore, to note 
that all members of the New York Court accepted 
the finding that Feiner was stopped not because the 
listeners or police officers disagreed with his views but 
because these officers were honestly concerned with 
preventing a breach of the peace. . . .

“As was said in Hague v. C. I. 0., supra, uncon­
trolled official suppression of the speaker ‘cannot be 
made, a substitute for the duty to maintain order.’ 
307 U. S., at 516. Where conduct is within the 
allowable limits of free speech, the police are peace 
officers for the speaker as well as for his hearers. 
But the power effectively to preserve order cannot be 
displaced by giving a speaker complete immunity. 
Here, there were two police officers present for 20 
minutes. They interfered only when they appre­
hended imminence of violence. It is not a constitu­
tional principle that, in acting to preserve order, the 
police must proceed against the crowd, whatever its 
size and temper, and not against the [demonstra­
tors].” 340 U. S., at 288-289 (concurring opinion 
in Feiner v. Neiv York and other cases decided that 
day).

I would affirm the convictions.