U.S. Supreme Court Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S.
26 (1954) Berman v. Parker No. 22 Argued October 19,
1954 Decided November 22,
1954 348 U.S.
26 APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES
DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA Syllabus The District of Columbia Redevelopment Act of 1945 is
constitutional, as applied to the taking of appellants' building
and land (used solely for commercial purposes) under the power of
eminent domain, pursuant to a comprehensive plan prepared by an
administrative agency for the redevelopment of a large area of the
District of Columbia so as to eliminate and prevent slum and
substandard housing conditions -- even though such property may
later be sold or leased to other private interests subject to
conditions designed to accomplish these purposes. Pp. 348 U. S.
28 -36.

															(a) The power of Congress over the District of Columbia includes
all the legislative powers which a state may exercise over its
affairs. Pp. 348 U. S.
31 -32.

															(b) Subject to specific constitutional limitations, the
legislature, not the judiciary, is the main guardian of the public
needs to be served by social legislation enacted in the exercise of
the police power, and this principle admits of no exception merely
because the power of eminent domain is involved. P. 348 U.S. 32 .

															(c) This Court does not sit to determine whether or not a
particular housing project is desirable. P. 348 U. S.
33 .

															(d) If Congress decides that the Nation's Capital shall be
beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth
Amendment that stands in the way. P. 348 U. S.
33 .

															(e) Once the object is within the authority of Congress, the
right to realize it through the exercise of eminent domain is
clear. P. 348 U. S.
33 .

															(f) Once the public purpose has been established, the means of
executing the project are for Congress and Congress alone to
determine. P. 348 U. S.
33 .

															(g) This Court cannot say that public ownership is the sole
method of promoting the public purposes of a community
redevelopment project, and it is not beyond the power of Congress
to utilize an agency of private enterprise for this purpose, or to
authorize the taking of private property and its resale or lease to
the same or other private parties as part of such a project. P. 348 U. S.
34 . Page 348 U. S. 27 (h) It is not beyond the power of Congress or its authorized
agencies to attack the problem of the blighted parts of the
community on an area, rather than on a structure-by-structure
basis. Redevelopment of an entire area under a balanced integrated
plan so as to include not only new homes, but also schools,
churches, parks, streets, and shopping centers is plainly relevant
to the maintenance of the desired housing standards, and therefore
within congressional power. Pp. 348 U. S.
34 -35.

															(i) The standards contained in the Act are sufficiently definite
to sustain the delegation of authority to administrative agencies
to execute the plan to eliminate not only slums, but also the
blighted areas that tend to produce slums. P. 348 U. S.
35 .

															(j) Once the public purpose is established, the amount and
character of the land to be taken for the project and the need for
a particular tract to complete the integrated plan rests in the
discretion of the legislature. Pp. 348 U. S.
35 -36.

															(k) If the Redevelopment Agency considers it necessary in
carrying out a redevelopment project to take full title to the
land, as distinguished from the objectionable buildings located
thereon, it may do so. P. 348 U. S.
36 .

															(l) The rights of these property owners are satisfied when they
receive the just compensation which the Fifth Amendment exacts as
the price of the taking. P. 348 U. S.
36 . 117 F.
Supp. 705 , modified and affirmed. Page 348 U. S. 28 MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

															This is an appeal (28 U.S.C. § 1253) from the judgment of a
three-judge District Court which dismissed a complaint seeking to
enjoin the condemnation of appellants' property under the District
of Columbia Redevelopment Act of 1945, 60 Stat. 790, D.C.Code,
1951, §§ 5-701-5-719. The challenge was to the constitutionality of
the Act, particularly as applied to the taking of appellants'
property. The District Court sustained the constitutionality of the
Act. 117 F.
Supp. 705 .

															By § 2 of the Act, Congress made a "legislative determination"
that,

															"owing to technological and sociological changes, obsolete
lay-out, and other factors, conditions existing in the District of
Columbia with respect to substandard housing and blighted areas,
including the use of buildings in alleys as dwellings for human
habitation, are injurious to the public health, safety, morals, and
welfare, and it is hereby declared to be the policy of the United
States to protect and promote the welfare of the inhabitants of the
seat of the Government by eliminating all such injurious conditions
by employing all means necessary and appropriate for the purpose. * "

															Section 2 goes on to declare that acquisition of property is
necessary to eliminate these housing conditions. Page 348 U. S. 29 Congress further finds in § 2 that these ends cannot be attained
"by the ordinary operations of private enterprise alone without
public participation"; that "the sound replanning and redevelopment
of an obsolescent or obsolescing portion" of the District

															"cannot be accomplished unless it be done in the light of
comprehensive and coordinated planning of the whole of the
territory of the District of Columbia and its environs,"

															and that

															"the acquisition and the assembly of real property and the
leasing or sale thereof for redevelopment pursuant to a project
area redevelopment plan . . . is hereby declared to be a public
use."

															Section 4 creates the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land
Agency (hereinafter called the Agency), composed of five members,
which is granted power by § 5(a) to acquire and assemble, by
eminent domain and otherwise, real property for

															"the redevelopment of blighted territory in the District of
Columbia and the prevention, reduction, or elimination of blighting
factors or causes of blight."

															Section 6(a) of the Act directs the National Capital Planning
Commission (hereinafter called the Planning Commission) to make and
develop "a comprehensive or general plan" of the District,
including "a land use plan" which designates land for use for

															"housing, business, industry, recreation, education, public
buildings, public reservations, and other general categories of
public and private uses of the land."

															Section 6(b) authorizes the Planning Commission to adopt
redevelopment plans for specific project areas. These plans are
subject to the approval of the District Commissioners after a
public hearing, and they prescribe the various public and private
land uses for the respective areas, the "standards of population
density and building intensity," and "the amount or character or
class of any low-rent housing." Page 348 U. S. 30 § 6(b).

															Once the Planning Commission adopts a plan and that plan is
approved by the Commissioners, the Planning Commission certifies it
to the Agency. § 6(d). At that point, the Agency is authorized to
acquire and assemble the real property in the area. Id. After the real estate has been assembled, the Agency is
authorized to transfer to public agencies the land to be devoted to
such public purposes as streets, utilities, recreational
facilities, and schools, § 7(a), and to lease or sell the remainder
as an entirety or in parts to a redevelopment company, individual,
or partnership. § 7(b), (f). The leases or sales must provide that
the lessees or purchasers will carry out the redevelopment plan,
and that "no use shall be made of any land or real property
included in the lease or sale nor any building or structure erected
thereon" which does not conform to the plan, §§ 7(d), 11.
Preference is to be given to private enterprise over public
agencies in executing the redevelopment plan. § 7(g).

															The first project undertaken under the Act relates to Project
Area B in Southwest Washington, D.C. In 1950, the Planning
Commission prepared and published a comprehensive plan for the
District. Surveys revealed that, in Area B, 64.3% of the dwellings
were beyond repair, 18.4% needed major repairs, only 17.3% were
satisfactory; 57.8% of the dwellings had outside toilets, 60.3% had
no baths, 29.3% lacked electricity, 82.2% had no wash basins or
laundry tubs, 83.8% lacked central heating. In the judgment of the
District's Director of Health, it was necessary to redevelop Area B
in the interests of public health. The population of Area B
amounted to 5,012 persons, of whom 97.5% were Negroes.

															The plan for Area B specifies the boundaries and allocates the
use of the land for various purposes. It makes detailed provisions
for types of dwelling units, and provides that at least one-third
of them are to be low-rent Page 348 U. S. 31 housing with a maximum rental of $17 per room per month.

															After a public hearing, the Commissioners approved the plan and
the Planning Commission certified it to the Agency for execution.
The Agency undertook the preliminary steps for redevelopment of the
area when this suit was brought.

															Appellants own property in Area B at 712 Fourth Street, S.W. It
is not used as a dwelling or place of habitation. A department
store is located on it. Appellants object to the appropriation of
this property for the purposes of the project. They claim that
their property may not be taken constitutionally for this project.
It is commercial, not residential property; it is not slum housing;
it will be put into the project under the management of a private,
not a public, agency, and redeveloped for private, not public, use.
That is the argument, and the contention is that appellants'
private property is being taken contrary to two mandates of the
Fifth Amendment -- (1) "No person shall . . . be deprived of . . .
property, without due process of law"; (2) "nor shall private
property be taken for public use, without just compensation." To
take for the purpose of ridding the area of slums is one thing; it
is quite another, the argument goes, to take a man's property
merely to develop a better balanced, more attractive community. The
District Court, while agreeing in general with that argument, saved
the Act by construing it to mean that the Agency could condemn
property only for the reasonable necessities of slum clearance and
prevention, its concept of "slum" being the existence of conditions
"injurious to the public health, safety, morals and welfare." 117 F.
Supp. 705 , 724-725.

															The power of Congress over the District of Columbia includes all
the legislative powers which a state may exercise over its affairs. See District of Columbia v.
Thompson Page 348 U. S. 32 Co., 346 U. S. 100 , 346 U. S. 108 .
We deal, in other words, with what traditionally has been known as
the police power. An attempt to define its reach or trace its outer
limits is fruitless, for each case must turn on its own facts. The
definition is essentially the product of legislative determinations
addressed to the purposes of government, purposes neither
abstractly nor historically capable of complete definition. Subject
to specific constitutional limitations, when the legislature has
spoken, the public interest has been declared in terms well nigh
conclusive. In such cases, the legislature, not the judiciary, is
the main guardian of the public needs to be served by social
legislation, whether it be Congress legislating concerning the
District of Columbia ( see Block v. Hirsh, 256 U.
S. 135 ) or the States legislating concerning local
affairs. See Olsen v. Nebraska, 313 U.
S. 236 ; Lincoln Union v. Northwestern Co., 335 U. S. 525 ; California State Association v. Maloney, 341 U.
S. 105 . This principle admits of no exception merely
because the power of eminent domain is involved. The role of the
judiciary in determining whether that power is being exercised for
a public purpose is an extremely narrow one. See Old Dominion
Co. v. United States, 269 U. S. 55 , 269 U. S. 66 ; United States ex rel. TVA v. Welch, 327 U.
S. 546 , 327 U. S.
552 .

															Public safety, public health, morality, peace and quiet, law and
order -- these are some of the more conspicuous examples of the
traditional application of the police power to municipal affairs.
Yet they merely illustrate the scope of the power, and do not
delimit it. See Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U.
S. 104 , 219 U. S. 111 .
Miserable and disreputable housing conditions may do more than
spread disease and crime and immorality. They may also suffocate
the spirit by reducing the people who live there to the status of
cattle. They may indeed make living an almost insufferable burden.
They may also be an ugly sore, a blight on the community which robs
it of charm, Page 348 U. S. 33 which makes it a place from which men turn. The misery of
housing may despoil a community as an open sewer may ruin a
river.

															We do not sit to determine whether a particular housing project
is or is not desirable. The concept of the public welfare is broad
and inclusive. See Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. Missouri, 342 U. S. 421 , 342 U. S. 424 .
The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical,
aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the
legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as
well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well
as carefully patrolled. In the present case, the Congress and its
authorized agencies have made determinations that take into account
a wide variety of values. It is not for us to reappraise them. If
those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the Nation's
Capital should be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing
in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.

															Once the object is within the authority of Congress, the right
to realize it through the exercise of eminent domain is clear. For
the power of eminent domain is merely the means to the end. See
Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 153 U.
S. 525 , 153 U. S.
529 -530; United States v. Gettysburg Electric R.
Co., 160 U. S. 668 , 160 U. S. 679 .
Once the object is within the authority of Congress, the means by
which it will be attained is also for Congress to determine. Here,
one of the means chosen is the use of private enterprise for
redevelopment of the area. Appellants argue that this makes the
project a taking from one businessman for the benefit of another
businessman. But the means of executing the project are for
Congress, and Congress alone, to determine once the public purpose
has been established. See Luxton v. North River Bridge Co.,
supra; cf. Highland v. Russell Car Co., 279 U.
S. 253 . The public end may be as well or better served
through an Page 348 U. S. 34 agency of private enterprise than through a department of
government -- or so the Congress might conclude. We cannot say that
public ownership is the sole method of promoting the public
purposes of community redevelopment projects. What we have said
also disposes of any contention concerning the fact that certain
property owners in the area may be permitted to repurchase their
properties for redevelopment in harmony with the over-all plan.
That, too, is a legitimate means which Congress and its agencies
may adopt, if they choose.

															In the present case, Congress and its authorized agencies attack
the problem of the blighted parts of the community on an area,
rather than on a structure-by-structure, basis. That, too, is
opposed by appellants. They maintain that, since their building
does not imperil health or safety nor contribute to the making of a
slum or a blighted area, it cannot be swept into a redevelopment
plan by the mere dictum of the Planning Commission or the
Commissioners. The particular uses to be made of the land in the
project were determined with regard to the needs of the particular
community. The experts concluded that, if the community were to be
healthy, if it were not to revert again to a blighted or slum area,
as though possessed of a congenital disease, the area must be
planned as a whole. It was not enough, they believed, to remove
existing buildings that were insanitary or unsightly. It was
important to redesign the whole area so as to eliminate the
conditions that cause slums -- the overcrowding of dwellings, the
lack of parks, the lack of adequate streets and alleys, the absence
of recreational areas, the lack of light and air, the presence of
outmoded street patterns. It was believed that the piecemeal
approach, the removal of individual structures that were offensive,
would be only a palliative. The entire area needed redesigning so
that a balanced, integrated plan could be developed for the region,
including not only new homes, Page 348 U. S. 35 but also schools, churches, parks, streets, and shopping
centers. In this way, it was hoped that the cycle of decay of the
area could be controlled, and the birth of future slums prevented. Cf. Gohld Realty Co. v. Hartford, 141 Conn. 135, 141-144,
104 A.2d 365, 368-370; Hunter v. Redevelopment Authority, 195 Va. 326, 338-339, 78 S.E.2d 893, 900-901. Such diversification
in future use is plainly relevant to the maintenance of the desired
housing standards, and therefore within congressional power.

															The District Court below suggested that, if such a broad scope
were intended for the statute, the standards contained in the Act
would not be sufficiently definite to sustain the delegation of
authority. 117 F.
Supp. 705 , 721. We do not agree. We think the standards
prescribed were adequate for executing the plan to eliminate not
only slums as narrowly defined by the District Court, but also the
blighted areas that tend to produce slums. Property may, of course,
be taken for this redevelopment which, standing by itself, is
innocuous and unoffending. But we have said enough to indicate that
it is the need of the area as a whole which Congress and its
agencies are evaluating. If owner after owner were permitted to
resist these redevelopment programs on the ground that his
particular property was not being used against the public interest,
integrated plans for redevelopment would suffer greatly. The
argument pressed on us is, indeed, a plea to substitute the
landowner's standard of the public need for the standard prescribed
by Congress. But as we have already stated, community redevelopment
programs need not, by force of the Constitution, be on a piecemeal
basis -- lot by lot, building by building.

															It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary
line, nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project
area. Once the question of the public purpose has been decided, the
amount and character of land to be taken for the project and the
need for a particular Page 348 U. S. 36 tract to complete the integrated plan rests in the discretion of
the legislative branch. See Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U. S. 282 , 147 U. S. 298 ; United States ex rel. TVA v. Welch, supra, 327 U. S. 554 ; United States v. Carmack, 329 U.
S. 230 , 329 U. S.
247 .

															The District Court indicated grave doubts concerning the
Agency's right to take full title to the land as distinguished from
the objectionable buildings located on it. 117 F.
Supp. 705 , 715-719. We do not share those doubts. If the Agency
considers it necessary in carrying out the redevelopment project to
take full title to the real property involved, it may do so. It is
not for the courts to determine whether it is necessary for
successful consummation of the project that unsafe, unsightly, or
insanitary buildings alone be taken or whether title to the land be
included, any more than it is the function of the courts to sort
and choose among the various parcels selected for condemnation.

															The rights of these property owners are satisfied when they
receive that just compensation which the Fifth Amendment exacts as
the price of the taking.

															The judgment of the District Court, as modified by this opinion,
is Affirmed. * The Act does not define either "slums" or "blighted areas."
Section 3(r), however, states:

															"'Substandard housing conditions' means the conditions obtaining
in connection with the existence of any dwelling, or dwellings, or
housing accommodations for human beings, which because of lack of
sanitary facilities, ventilation, or light, or because of
dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty interior arrangement, or any
combination of these factors, is in the opinion of the
Commissioners detrimental to the safety, health, morals, or welfare
of the inhabitants of the District of Columbia."

Summary: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act of 1945, which allowed for the taking of private property through eminent domain for urban renewal projects. The Court ruled that Congress has the power to determine the public purpose and means of executing redevelopment projects, including the use of private enterprise and the taking of land, not just unsafe buildings. The Court affirmed that the Act's standards were sufficient to guide the redevelopment agency and that the public purpose of eliminating slum and substandard housing conditions justified the taking of private property.


U.S. Supreme Court Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948) Shelley v. Kraemer Argued January 15-16,
1948 Decided May 3, 1948 334 U.S.
1 ast|>* 334 U.S.
1 CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
MISSOURI Syllabus Private agreements to exclude persons of designated race or
color from the use or occupancy of real estate for residential
purposes do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment; but it is
violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment for state courts to enforce them. Corrigan v.
Buckley, 271 U. S. 323 ,
distinguished. Pp. 334 U. S.
8 -23.

															(a) Such private agreements, standing alone, do not violate any
rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 334 U. S.
12 -13.

															(b) The actions of state courts and judicial officers in their
official capacities are actions of the states within the meaning of
the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 334 U. S.
14 -18.

															(c) In granting judicial enforcement of such private agreements
in these cases, the states acted to deny petitioners the equal
protection of the laws, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 334 U. S.
18 -23.

															(d) The fact that state courts stand ready to enforce
restrictive covenants excluding white persons from the ownership or
occupancy of property covered by them does not prevent the
enforcement of covenants excluding colored persons from
constituting a denial of equal protection of the laws, since the
rights created by § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment are guaranteed to
the individual. Pp. 334 U. S.
21 -22. Page 334 U. S. 2 (e) Denial of access to the courts to enforce such restrictive
covenants does not deny equal protection of the laws to the parties
to such agreements. P. 334 U. S. 22 .

															355 Mo. 814, 198 S.W.2d 679, and 316 Mich. 614, 25 N.W.2d 638,
reversed.

															No. 72. The Supreme Court of Missouri reversed a judgment of a
state trial court denying enforcement of a private agreement
restricting the use or occupancy of certain real estate to persons
of the Caucasian race. 355 Mo. 814,198 S.W.2d 679. This Court
granted certiorari. 331 U.S. 803. Reversed, p. 334 U. S. 23 .

															No. 87. The Supreme Court of Michigan affirmed a judgment of a
state trial court enjoining violation of a private agreement
restricting the use or occupancy of certain real estate to persons
of the Caucasian race. 316 Mich. 614, 25 N.W.2d 638. This Court
granted certiorari. 331 U.S. 804. Reversed, p. 334 U. S. 23 . Page 334 U. S. 4 MR. CHIEF JUSTICE VINSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

															These cases present for our consideration questions relating to
the validity of court enforcement of private agreements, generally
described as restrictive covenants, which have as their purpose the
exclusion of persons of designated race or color from the ownership
or occupancy of real property. Basic constitutional issues of
obvious importance have been raised.

															The first of these cases comes to this Court on certiorari to
the Supreme Court of Missouri. On February 16, 1911, thirty out of
a total of thirty-nine owners of property fronting both sides of
Labadie Avenue between Taylor Avenue and Cora Avenue in the city of
St. Louis, signed an agreement, which was subsequently recorded,
providing in part:

															". . . the said property is hereby restricted to the use and
occupancy for the term of Fifty (50) years from this date, so that
it shall be a condition all the time and whether recited and
referred to as [ sic ] not in subsequent conveyances and
shall attach to the land as a condition precedent to the sale of
the same, that hereafter no part of said property or any Page 334 U. S. 5 portion thereof shall be, for said term of Fifty-years, occupied
by any person not of the Caucasian race, it being intended hereby
to restrict the use of said property for said period of time
against the occupancy as owners or tenants of any portion of said
property for resident or other purpose by people of the Negro or
Mongolian Race."

															The entire district described in the agreement included
fifty-seven parcels of land. The thirty owners who signed the
agreement held title to forty-seven parcels, including the
particular parcel involved in this case. At the time the agreement
was signed, five of the parcels in the district were owned by
Negroes. One of those had been occupied by Negro families since
1882, nearly thirty years before the restrictive agreement was
executed. The trial court found that owners of seven out of nine
homes on the south side of Labadie Avenue, within the restricted
district and "in the immediate vicinity" of the premises in
question, had failed to sign the restrictive agreement in 1911. At
the time this action was brought, four of the premises were
occupied by Negroes, and had been so occupied for periods ranging
from twenty-three to sixty-three years. A fifth parcel had been
occupied by Negroes until a year before this suit was
instituted.

															On August 11, 1945, pursuant to a contract of sale, petitioners
Shelley, who are Negroes, for valuable consideration received from
one Fitzgerald a warranty deed to the parcel in question. [ Footnote 1 ] The trial court found that
petitioners had no actual knowledge of the restrictive agreement at
the time of the purchase. Page 334 U. S. 6 On October 9, 1945, respondents, as owners of other property
subject to the terms of the restrictive covenant, brought suit in
the Circuit Court of the city of St. Louis praying that petitioners
Shelley be restrained from taking possession of the property and
that judgment be entered divesting title out of petitioners Shelley
and revesting title in the immediate grantor or in such other
person as the court should direct. The trial court denied the
requested relief on the ground that the restrictive agreement, upon
which respondents based their action, had never become final and
complete because it was the intention of the parties to that
agreement that it was not to become effective until signed by all
property owners in the district, and signatures of all the owners
had never been obtained.

															The Supreme Court of Missouri, sitting en banc, reversed and
directed the trial court to grant the relief for which respondents
had prayed. That court held the agreement effective and concluded
that enforcement of its provisions violated no rights guaranteed to
petitioners by the Federal Constitution. [ Footnote 2 ] At the time the court rendered its
decision, petitioners were occupying the property in question.

															The second of the cases under consideration comes to this Court
from the Supreme Court of Michigan. The circumstances presented do
not differ materially from the Missouri case. In June, 1934, one
Ferguson and his wife, who then owned the property located in the
city of Detroit which is involved in this case, executed a contract
providing in part:

															"This property shall not be used or occupied by any person or
persons except those of the Caucasian race. " Page 334 U. S. 7 "It is further agreed that this restriction shall not be
effective unless at least eighty percent of the property fronting
on both sides of the street in the block where our land is located
is subjected to this or a similar restriction."

															The agreement provided that the restrictions were to remain in
effect until January 1, 1960. The contract was subsequently
recorded, and similar agreements were executed with respect to
eighty percent of the lots in the block in which the property in
question is situated.

															By deed dated November 30, 1944, petitioners, who were found by
the trial court to be Negroes, acquired title to the property, and
thereupon entered into its occupancy. On January 30, 1945,
respondents, as owners of property subject to the terms of the
restrictive agreement, brought suit against petitioners in the
Circuit Court of Wayne County. After a hearing, the court entered a
decree directing petitioners to move from the property within
ninety days. Petitioners were further enjoined and restrained from
using or occupying the premises in the future. On appeal, the
Supreme Court of Michigan affirmed, deciding adversely to
petitioners' contentions that they had been denied rights protected
by the Fourteenth Amendment. [ Footnote 3 ]

															Petitioners have placed primary reliance on their contentions,
first raised in the state courts, that judicial enforcement of the
restrictive agreements in these cases has violated rights
guaranteed to petitioners by the Fourteenth Amendment of the
Federal Constitution and Acts of Congress passed pursuant to that
Amendment. [ Footnote 4 ]
Specifically, Page 334 U. S. 8 petitioners urge that they have been denied the equal protection
of the laws, deprived of property without due process of law, and
have been denied privileges and immunities of citizens of the
United States. We pass to a consideration of those issues. I Whether the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
inhibits judicial enforcement by state courts of restrictive
covenants based on race or color is a question which this Court has
not heretofore been called upon to consider. Only two cases have
been decided by this Court which in any way have involved the
enforcement of such agreements. The first of these was the case of Corrigan v. Buckley, 271 U. S. 323 (1926). There, suit was brought in the courts of the District of
Columbia to enjoin a threatened violation of certain restrictive
covenants relating to lands situated in the city of Washington.
Relief was granted, and the case was brought here on appeal. It is
apparent that that case, which had originated in the federal courts
and involved the enforcement of covenants on land located in the
District of Columbia, could present no issues under the Fourteenth
Amendment, for that Amendment, by its terms, applies only to the
States. Nor was the question of the validity of court enforcement
of the restrictive covenants under the Fifth Amendment properly
before the Court, as the opinion of this Court specifically
recognizes. [ Footnote 5 ] The
only constitutional issue which the appellants had raised in the
lower courts, and hence the only constitutional issue Page 334 U. S. 9 before this Court on appeal, was the validity of the covenant
agreements as such. This Court concluded that, since the
inhibitions of the constitutional provisions invoked apply only to
governmental action, as contrasted to action of private
individuals, there was no showing that the covenants, which were
simply agreements between private property owners, were invalid.
Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed for want of a substantial
question. Nothing in the opinion of this Court, therefore, may
properly be regarded as an adjudication on the merits of the
constitutional issues presented by these cases, which raise the
question of the validity not of the private agreements as such, but
of the judicial enforcement of those agreements.

															The second of the cases involving racial restrictive covenants
was Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S. 32 (1940). In that case, petitioners, white property owners, were
enjoined by the state courts from violating the terms of a
restrictive agreement. The state Supreme Court had held petitioners
bound by an earlier judicial determination, in litigation in which
petitioners were not parties, upholding the validity of the
restrictive agreement, although, in fact, the agreement had not
been signed by the number of owners necessary to make it effective
under state law. This Court reversed the judgment of the state
Supreme Court upon the ground that petitioners had been denied due
process of law in being held estopped to challenge the validity of
the agreement on the theory, accepted by the state court, that the
earlier litigation, in which petitioners did not participate, was
in the nature of a class suit. In arriving at its result, this
Court did not reach the issues presented by the cases now under
consideration.

															It is well, at the outset, to scrutinize the terms of the
restrictive agreements involved in these cases. In the Missouri
case, the covenant declares that no part of the Page 334 U. S. 10 affected property shall be

															"occupied by any person not of the Caucasian race, it being
intended hereby to restrict the use of said property . . . against
the occupancy as owners or tenants of any portion of said property
for resident or other purpose by people of the Negro or Mongolian
Race."

															Not only does the restriction seek to proscribe use and
occupancy of the affected properties by members of the excluded
class, but, as construed by the Missouri courts, the agreement
requires that title of any person who uses his property in
violation of the restriction shall be divested. The restriction of
the covenant in the Michigan case seeks to bar occupancy by persons
of the excluded class. It provides that "This property shall not be
used or occupied by any person or persons except those of the
Caucasian race."

															It should be observed that these covenants do not seek to
proscribe any particular use of the affected properties. Use of the
properties for residential occupancy, as such, is not forbidden.
The restrictions of these agreements, rather, are directed toward a
designated class of persons and seek to determine who may and who
may not own or make use of the properties for residential purposes.
The excluded class is defined wholly in terms of race or color;
"simply that, and nothing more." [ Footnote 6 ]

															It cannot be doubted that among the civil rights intended to be
protected from discriminatory state action by the Fourteenth
Amendment are the rights to acquire, enjoy, own and dispose of
property. Equality in the enjoyment of property rights was regarded
by the framers of that Amendment as an essential pre-condition to
the realization of other basic civil rights and liberties which the
Amendment was intended to guarantee. [ Footnote 7 ] Thus, Page 334 U. S. 11 § 1978 of the Revised Statutes, derived from § 1 of the Civil
Rights Act of 1866, which was enacted by Congress while the
Fourteenth Amendment was also under consideration, [ Footnote 8 ] provides:

															"All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in
every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof
to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and
personal property. [ Footnote
9 ]"

															This Court has given specific recognition to the same principle. Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60 (1917).

															It is likewise clear that restrictions on the right of occupancy
of the sort sought to be created by the private agreements in these
cases could not be squared with the requirements of the Fourteenth
Amendment if imposed by state statute or local ordinance. We do not
understand respondents to urge the contrary. In the case of Buchanan v. Warley, supra, a unanimous Court declared
unconstitutional the provisions of a city ordinance which denied to
colored persons the right to occupy houses in blocks in which the
greater number of houses were occupied by white persons, and
imposed similar restrictions on white persons with respect to
blocks in which the greater number of houses were occupied by
colored persons. During the course of the opinion in that case,
this Court stated:

															"The Fourteenth Amendment and these statutes enacted in
furtherance of its purpose operate to qualify and entitle a colored
man to acquire Page 334 U. S. 12 property without state legislation discriminating against him
solely because of color. [ Footnote 10 ]"

															In Harmon v. Tyler, 273 U. S. 68 (1927), a unanimous court, on the authority of Buchanan v.
Warley, supra, declared invalid an ordinance which forbade any
Negro to establish a home on any property in a white community or
any white person to establish a home in a Negro community,

															"except on the written consent of a majority of the persons of
the opposite race inhabiting such community or portion of the City
to be affected."

															The precise question before this Court in both the Buchanan and Harmon cases involved the rights of
white sellers to dispose of their properties free from restrictions
as to potential purchasers based on considerations of race or
color. But that such legislation is also offensive to the rights of
those desiring to acquire and occupy property and barred on grounds
of race or color is clear not only from the language of the opinion
in Buchanan v. Warley, supra, but from this Court's
disposition of the case of Richmond v. Deans, 281 U.
S. 704 (1930). There, a Negro, barred from the occupancy
of certain property by the terms of an ordinance similar to that,
in the Buchanan case, sought injunctive relief in the
federal courts to enjoin the enforcement of the ordinance on the
grounds that its provisions violated the terms of the Fourteenth
Amendment. Such relief was granted, and this Court affirmed,
finding the citation of Buchanan v. Warley, supra, and Harmon v. Tyler, supra, sufficient to support its
judgment. [ Footnote 11 ]

															But the present cases, unlike those just discussed, do not
involve action by state legislatures or city councils. Page 334 U. S. 13 Here, the particular patterns of discrimination and the areas in
which the restrictions are to operate are determined, in the first
instance, by the terms of agreements among private individuals.
Participation of the State consists in the enforcement of the
restrictions so defined. The crucial issue with which we are here
confronted is whether this distinction removes these cases from the
operation of the prohibitory provisions of the Fourteenth
Amendment.

															Since the decision of this Court in the Civil Rights
Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883),
the principle has become firmly embedded in our constitutional law
that the action inhibited by the first section of the Fourteenth
Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of
the States. That Amendment erects no shield against merely private
conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful. [ Footnote 12 ]

															We conclude, therefore, that the restrictive agreements,
standing alone, cannot be regarded as violative of any rights
guaranteed to petitioners by the Fourteenth Amendment. So long as
the purposes of those agreements are effectuated by voluntary
adherence to their terms, it would appear clear that there has been
no action by the State, and the provisions of the Amendment have
not been violated. Cf. Corrigan v. Buckley, supra. But here there was more. These are cases in which the purposes
of the agreements were secured only by judicial enforcement by
state courts of the restrictive Page 334 U. S. 14 terms of the agreements. The respondents urge that judicial
enforcement of private agreements does not amount to state action,
or, in any event, the participation of the State is so attenuated
in character as not to amount to state action within the meaning of
the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, it is suggested, even if the
States in these cases may be deemed to have acted in the
constitutional sense, their action did not deprive petitioners of
rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. We move to a
consideration of these matters. II That the action of state courts and judicial officers in their
official capacities is to be regarded as action of the State within
the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment is a proposition which has
long been established by decisions of this Court. That principle
was given expression in the earliest cases involving the
construction of the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, in Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 313 , 100 U. S. 318 (1880), this Court stated:

															"It is doubtless true that a State may act through different
agencies, either by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial
authorities, and the prohibitions of the amendment extend to all
action of the State denying equal protection of the laws, whether
it be action by one of these agencies or by another."

															In Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339 , 100 U. S. 347 (1880), the Court observed: "A State acts by its legislative, its
executive, or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other
way." In the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S.
3 , 109 U. S. 11 , 17
(1883), this Court pointed out that the Amendment makes void "State
action of every kind" which is inconsistent with the guaranties
therein contained, and extends to manifestations of "State
authority in the shape of laws, customs, or judicial or executive
proceedings." Language to like effect is employed Page 334 U. S. 15 no less than eighteen times during the course of that opinion.
[ Footnote 13 ]

															Similar expressions, giving specific recognition to the fact
that judicial action is to be regarded as action of the State for
the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, are to be found in
numerous cases which have been more recently decided. In Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78 , 211 U. S. 90 -91
(1908), the Court said: "The judicial act of the highest court of
the State, in authoritatively construing and enforcing its laws, is
the act of the State." In Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Savings
Co. v. Hill, 281 U. S. 673 , 281 U. S. 680 (1930), the Court, through Mr. Justice Brandeis, stated:

															"The federal guaranty of due process extends to state action
through its judicial as well as through its legislative, executive
or administrative branch of government."

															Further examples of such declarations in the opinions of this
Court are not lacking. [ Footnote
14 ]

															One of the earliest applications of the prohibitions contained
in the Fourteenth Amendment to action of state Page 334 U. S. 16 judicial officials occurred in cases in which Negroes had been
excluded from jury service in criminal prosecutions by reason of
their race or color. These cases demonstrate, also, the early
recognition by this Court that state action in violation of the
Amendment's provisions is equally repugnant to the constitutional
commands whether directed by state statute or taken by a judicial
official in the absence of statute. Thus, in Strauder v. West
Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880), this Court declared invalid a state statute restricting
jury service to white persons as amounting to a denial of the equal
protection of the laws to the colored defendant in that case. In
the same volume of the reports, the Court in Ex parte Virginia,
supra, held that a similar discrimination imposed by the
action of a state judge denied rights protected by the Amendment,
despite the fact that the language of the state statute relating to
jury service contained no such restrictions.

															The action of state courts in imposing penalties or depriving
parties of other substantive rights without providing adequate
notice and opportunity to defend has, of course, long been regarded
as a denial of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment. Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Savings Co. v. Hill,
supra. Cf. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S.
714 (1878). [ Footnote
15 ]

															In numerous eases, this Court has reversed criminal convictions
in state courts for failure of those courts to provide the
essential ingredients of a fair hearing. Thus, it has been held
that convictions obtained in state courts under the domination of a
mob are void. Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S.
86 (1923). And see Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309 (1915). Convictions obtained by Page 334 U. S. 17 coerced confessions, [ Footnote 16 ] by the use of perjured testimony known by
the prosecution to be such, [ Footnote 17 ] or without the effective assistance of
counsel, [ Footnote 18 ] have
also been held to be exertions of state authority in conflict with
the fundamental rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

															But the examples of state judicial action which have been held
by this Court to violate the Amendment's commands are not
restricted to situations in which the judicial proceedings were
found in some manner to be procedurally unfair. It has been
recognized that the action of state courts in enforcing a
substantive common law rule formulated by those courts, may result
in the denial of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment,
even though the judicial proceedings in such cases may have been in
complete accord with the most rigorous conceptions of procedural
due process. [ Footnote 19 ]
Thus, in American Federation of Labor v. Swing, 312 U. S. 321 (1941), enforcement by state courts of the common law policy of the
State, which resulted in the restraining of peaceful picketing, was
held to be state action of the sort prohibited by the Amendment's
guaranties of freedom of discussion. [ Footnote 20 ] In Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 Page 334 U. S. 18 (1940), a conviction in a state court of the common law crime of
breach of the peace was, under the circumstances of the case, found
to be a violation of the Amendment's commands relating to freedom
of religion. In Bridges v. California, 314 U.
S. 252 (1941), enforcement of the state's common law
rule relating to contempts by publication was held to be state
action inconsistent with the prohibitions of the Fourteenth
Amendment. [ Footnote 21 ] And cf. Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226 (1897).

															The short of the matter is that, from the time of the adoption
of the Fourteenth Amendment until the present, it has been the
consistent ruling of this Court that the action of the States to
which the Amendment has reference includes action of state courts
and state judicial officials. Although, in construing the terms of
the Fourteenth Amendment, differences have from time to time been
expressed as to whether particular types of state action may be
said to offend the Amendment's prohibitory provisions, it has never
been suggested that state court action is immunized from the
operation of those provisions simply because the act is that of the
judicial branch of the state government. III Against this background of judicial construction, extending over
a period of some three-quarters of a century, we are called upon to
consider whether enforcement by state courts of the restrictive
agreements in these cases may be deemed to be the acts of those
States, and, if so, whether that action has denied these
petitioners the equal protection of the laws which the Amendment
was intended to insure. Page 334 U. S. 19 We have no doubt that there has been state action in these cases
in the full and complete sense of the phrase. The undisputed facts
disclose that petitioners were willing purchasers of properties
upon which they desired to establish homes. The owners of the
properties were willing sellers, and contracts of sale were
accordingly consummated. It is clear that, but for the active
intervention of the state courts, supported by the full panoply of
state power, petitioners would have been free to occupy the
properties in question without restraint.

															These are not cases, as has been suggested, in which the States
have merely abstained from action, leaving private individuals free
to impose such discriminations as they see fit. Rather, these are
cases in which the States have made available to such individuals
the full coercive power of government to deny to petitioners, on
the grounds of race or color, the enjoyment of property rights in
premises which petitioners are willing and financially able to
acquire and which the grantors are willing to sell. The difference
between judicial enforcement and nonenforcement of the restrictive
covenants is the difference to petitioners between being denied
rights of property available to other members of the community and
being accorded full enjoyment of those rights on an equal
footing.

															The enforcement of the restrictive agreements by the state
courts in these cases was directed pursuant to the common law
policy of the States as formulated by those courts in earlier
decisions. [ Footnote 22 ] In
the Missouri case, enforcement of the covenant was directed in the
first instance by the highest court of the State after the trial
court had determined the agreement to be invalid for Page 334 U. S. 20 want of the requisite number of signatures. In the Michigan
case, the order of enforcement by the trial court was affirmed by
the highest state court. [ Footnote 23 ] The judicial action in each case bears the
clear and unmistakable imprimatur of the State. We have noted that
previous decisions of this Court have established the proposition
that judicial action is not immunized from the operation of the
Fourteenth Amendment simply because it is taken pursuant to the
state's common law policy. [ Footnote 24 ] Nor is the Amendment ineffective simply
because the particular pattern of discrimination, which the State
has enforced, was defined initially by the terms of a private
agreement. State action, as that phrase is understood for the
purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, refers to exertions of state
power in all forms. And when the effect of that action is to deny
rights subject to the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is
the obligation of this Court to enforce the constitutional
commands.

															We hold that, in granting judicial enforcement of the
restrictive agreements in these cases, the States have denied
petitioners the equal protection of the laws, and that, therefore,
the action of the state courts cannot stand. We have noted that
freedom from discrimination by the States in the enjoyment of
property rights was among the basic objectives sought to be
effectuated by the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment. That such
discrimination has occurred in these cases is clear. Because of the
race or color of these petitioners, they have been denied rights of
ownership or occupancy enjoyed as a matter of course by other
citizens of different race or Page 334 U. S. 21 color. [ Footnote 25 ] The
Fourteenth Amendment declares

															"that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal
before the laws of the States, and, in regard to the colored race,
for whose protection the amendment was primarily designed, that no
discrimination shall be made against them by law because of their
color. [ Footnote 26 ]" Strauder v. West Virginia, supra, at 100 U. S. 307 .
Only recently, this Court had occasion to declare that a state law
which denied equal enjoyment of property rights to a designated
class of citizens of specified race and ancestry was not a
legitimate exercise of the state's police power, but violated the
guaranty of the equal protection of the laws. Oyama v.
California, 332 U. S. 633 (1948). Nor may the discriminations imposed by the state courts in
these cases be justified as proper exertions of state police power.
[ Footnote 27 ] Cf.
Buchanan v. Warley, supra. Respondents urge, however, that, since the state courts stand
ready to enforce restrictive covenants excluding white persons from
the ownership or occupancy of property covered by such agreements,
enforcement of covenants excluding colored persons may not be
deemed a denial of equal protection of the laws to the colored
persons who are thereby affected. [ Footnote 28 ] This contention does Page 334 U. S. 22 not bear scrutiny. The parties have directed our attention to no
case in which a court, state or federal, has been called upon to
enforce a covenant excluding members of the white majority from
ownership or occupancy of real property on grounds of race or
color. But there are more fundamental considerations. The rights
created by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment are, by
its terms, guaranteed to the individual. The rights established are
personal rights. [ Footnote
29 ] It is, therefore, no answer to these petitioners to say
that the courts may also be induced to deny white persons rights of
ownership and occupancy on grounds of race or color. Equal
protection of the laws is not achieved through indiscriminate
imposition of inequalities.

															Nor do we find merit in the suggestion that property owners who
are parties to these agreements are denied equal protection of the
laws if denied access to the courts to enforce the terms of
restrictive covenants and to assert property rights which the state
courts have held to be created by such agreements. The Constitution
confers upon no individual the right to demand action by the State
which results in the denial of equal protection of the laws to
other individuals. And it would appear beyond question that the
power of the State to create and enforce property interests must be
exercised within the boundaries defined by the Fourteenth
Amendment. Cf. Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.
S. 501 (1946).

															The problem of defining the scope of the restrictions which the
Federal Constitution imposes upon exertions of power by the States
has given rise to many of the most persistent and fundamental
issues which this Court has been called upon to consider. That
problem was foremost in the minds of the framers of the
Constitution, Page 334 U. S. 23 and, since that early day, has arisen in a multitude of forms.
The task of determining whether the action of a State offends
constitutional provisions is one which may not be undertaken
lightly. Where, however, it is clear that the action of the State
violates the terms of the fundamental charter, it is the obligation
of this Court so to declare.

															The historical context in which the Fourteenth Amendment became
a part of the Constitution should not be forgotten. Whatever else
the framers sought to achieve, it is clear that the matter of
primary concern was the establishment of equality in the enjoyment
of basic civil and political rights and the preservation of those
rights from discriminatory action on the part of the States based
on considerations of race or color. Seventy-five years ago, this
Court announced that the provisions of the Amendment are to be
construed with this fundamental purpose in mind. [ Footnote 30 ] Upon full consideration, we
have concluded that, in these cases, the States have acted to deny
petitioners the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the
Fourteenth Amendment. Having so decided, we find it unnecessary to
consider whether petitioners have also been deprived of property
without due process of law or denied privileges and immunities of
citizens of the United States.

															For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Supreme Court of
Missouri and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan must be
reversed. Reversed. MR. JUSTICE REED, MR. JUSTICE JACKSON, and MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE
took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.

															* Together with No. 87, McGhee et al. v. Sipes et al., on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Michigan.

															[ Footnote 1 ]

															The trial court found that title to the property which
petitioners Shelley sought to purchase was held by one Bishop, a
real estate dealer, who placed the property in the name of
Josephine Fitzgerald. Bishop, who acted as agent for petitioners in
the purchase, concealed the fact of his ownership.

															[ Footnote 2 ] Kraemer v. Shelley, 355 Mo. 814, 198 S.W.2d 679
(1946).

															[ Footnote 3 ] Sipes v. McGhee, 316 Mich. 614, 25 N.W.2d 638
(1947).

															[ Footnote 4 ]

															The first section of the Fourteenth Amendment provides:

															"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws."

															[ Footnote 5 ] Corrigan v. Buckley, 271 U. S. 323 , 271 U. S.
330 -331 (1926).

															[ Footnote 6 ] Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60 , 245 U. S. 73 (1917).

															[ Footnote 7 ] Slaughter-House
Cases , 16 Wall. 36, 83 U. S. 70 , 83 U. S. 81 (1873). See Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth
Amendment.

															[ Footnote 8 ]

															In Oyama v. California, 332 U.
S. 633 , 640 (1948), the section of the Civil Rights Act
herein considered is described as the federal statute, "enacted
before the Fourteenth Amendment but vindicated by it." The Civil
Rights Act of 1866 was reenacted in § 18 of the Act of May 31,
1870, subsequent to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. 16
Stat. 144.

															[ Footnote 9 ]

															14 Stat. 27, 8 U.S.C. § 42.

															[ Footnote 10 ] Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60 , 245 U. S. 79 (1917).

															[ Footnote 11 ]

															Courts of Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas,
and Virginia have also declared similar statutes invalid as being
in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment. Glover v.
Atlanta, 148 Ga. 285, 96 S.E. 562 (1918); Jackson v.
State, 132 Md. 311, 103 A. 910 (1918); Clinard v.
Winston-Salem, 217 N.C. 119, 6 S.E.2d 867 (1940); Allen v.
Oklahoma City, 175 Okla. 421 , 52 P.2d 1054 (1936); Liberty Annex Corp. v. Dallas, 289 S.W. 1067
(Tex.Civ.App. 1927); Irvine v. Clifton Forge, 124 Va. 781,
97 S.E. 310 (1918).

															[ Footnote 12 ] And see United States v. Harris, 106 U.
S. 629 (1883); United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 (1876).

															[ Footnote 13 ]

															Among the phrases appearing in the opinion are the following:
"the operation of State laws, and the action of State officers
executive or judicial"; "State laws and State proceedings"; "State
law . . . or some State action through its officers or agents";
"State laws and acts done under State authority"; "State laws, or
State action of some kind"; "such laws as the States may adopt or
enforce"; "such acts and proceedings as the States may commit or
take"; "State legislation or action"; "State law or State
authority."

															[ Footnote 14 ] Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370 , 103 U. S. 397 (1881); Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34 , 154 U. S. 45 (1894); Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226 , 166 U. S.
233 -235 (1897); Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U.
S. 409 , 167 U. S.
417 -418 (1897); Carter v. Texas, 177 U.
S. 442 , 177 U. S. 447 (1900); Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316 , 200 U. S. 319 (1906); Raymond v. Chicago Union Traction Co., 207 U. S. 20 , 207 U. S. 35 -36
(1907); Home Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. Los Angeles, 227 U. S. 278 , 227 U. S.
286 -287 (1913); Prudential Insurance Co. v.
Cheek, 259 U. S. 530 , 259 U. S. 548 (1922); American Railway Express Co. v. Kentucky, 273 U. S. 269 , 273 U. S. 274 (1927); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.
S. 103 , 294 U. S.
112 -113 (1935); Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S.
32 , 311 U. S. 41 (1940).

															[ Footnote 15 ] And see Standard Oil Co. v. Missouri, 224 U.
S. 270 , 224 U. S.
281 -282 (1912); Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S.
32 (1940).

															[ Footnote 16 ] Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278 (1936); Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.
S. 227 (1940); Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143 (1944); Lee v. Mississippi, 332 U.
S. 742 (1948).

															[ Footnote 17 ] See Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.
S. 103 (1935); Pyle v. Kansas, 317 U.
S. 213 (1942).

															[ Footnote 18 ] Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932); Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.
S. 471 (1945); Tomkins v. Missouri, 323 U. S. 485 (1945); De Meerleer v. Michigan, 329 U.
S. 663 (1947).

															[ Footnote 19 ]

															In applying the rule of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), it is clear that the common law rules enunciated by state
courts in judicial opinions are to be regarded as a part of the law
of the State.

															[ Footnote 20 ] And see Bakery Drivers Local v. Wohl, 315 U.
S. 769 (1942); Cafeteria Employees Union v.
Angelos, 320 U. S. 293 (1943).

															[ Footnote 21 ] And see Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U.
S. 331 (1946); Craig v. Harney, 331 U.
S. 367 (1947).

															[ Footnote 22 ] See Swain v. Maxwell, 355 Mo. 448, 196 S.W.2d. 80
(1916); Koehler v. Rowland, 275 Mo. 573, 205 S.W. 217
(1918). See also Parmalee v. Morris, 218 Mich. 625, 188
N.W. 330 (1922). Cf. Porter v. Barrett, 233 Mich. 373, 206
N.W. 532 (1925).

															[ Footnote 23 ] Cf. Home Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. Los Angeles, 227 U. S. 2 (1913); Raymond v. Chicago Union Traction Co., 207 U. S. 20 (1907).

															[ Footnote 24 ] Bridges v. California, 314 U.
S. 252 (1941); American Federation of Labor v.
Swing, 312 U. S. 321 (1941).

															[ Footnote 25 ] See Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.
S. 356 (1886); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880); Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33 (1915).

															[ Footnote 26 ]

															Restrictive agreements of the sort involved in these cases have
been used to exclude other than Negroes from the ownership or
occupancy of real property. We are informed that such agreements
have been directed against Indians, Jews, Chinese, Japanese,
Mexicans, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos, among
others.

															[ Footnote 27 ] See Bridges v. California, 314 U.
S. 252 , 314 U. S. 261 (1941); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.
S. 296 , 310 U. S.
307 -308 (1940).

															[ Footnote 28 ]

															It should be observed that the restrictions relating to
residential occupancy contained in ordinances involved in the Buchanan, Harmon and Deans cases, cited supra, and declared by this Court to be inconsistent with
the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment, applied equally to
white persons and Negroes.

															[ Footnote 29 ] McCabe v. Atchison, Topeka Santa Fe R. Co., 235 U. S. 151 , 235 U. S.
161 -162 (1914); Missouri ex rel. Gaines v.
Canada, 305 U. S. 337 (1938); Oyama v. California, 332 U.
S. 633 (1948).

															[ Footnote 30 ] Slaughter-House
Cases , 16 Wall. 36, 83 U. S. 81 (1873); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.
S. 303 (1880). See Flack, The Adoption of the
Fourteenth Amendment.

Summary:
In Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that while private agreements to exclude people of a specific race or color from using or occupying real estate for residential purposes do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, it is a violation of the equal protection clause for state courts to enforce these agreements. The Court distinguished this case from Corrigan v. Buckley, where the agreement was between private parties and did not involve state action.

The Court held that the actions of state courts and judicial officers are considered state actions and by granting judicial enforcement of these private agreements, the states denied the petitioners equal protection of the laws, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court also addressed the argument that enforcing covenants excluding white people from property ownership or occupancy would prevent the enforcement of covenants excluding people of color, and reaffirmed that the rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment are individual rights.

Finally, the Court noted that denying access to courts to enforce restrictive covenants does not deny equal protection of the laws to the parties involved in such agreements.


U.S. Supreme Court Marsh v. Alabama, 326
U.S. 501 (1946) Marsh v. Alabama No. 114 Argued December 6,
1945 Decided January 7,
1946 326
U.S. 501 APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF
ALABAMA Syllabus 1. A state can not, consistently with the freedom of religion
and the press guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments,
impose criminal punishment on a person for distributing religious
literature on the sidewalk of a company-owned town contrary to
regulations of the town's management, where the town and its
shopping district are freely accessible to and freely used by the
public in general, even though the punishment is attempted under a
state statute making it a crime for anyone to enter or remain on
the premises of another after having been warned not to do so. Pp. 326 U. S. 502 , 326 U. S.
505 . Page 326 U. S. 502 2. Whether a corporation or a municipality owns or possesses a
town, the public in either case has an identical interest in the
functioning of the community in such manner that the channels of
communication remain free. P. 326 U. S.
507 .

															3. People living in company-owned towns are free citizens of
their State and country, just as residents of municipalities, and
there is no more reason for depriving them of the liberties
guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments than there is for
curtailing these freedoms with respect to any other citizen. P. 326 U. S.
508 .

															21 So. 2d 558, reversed.

															APPEAL from the affirmance of a conviction for violation of a
state statute challenged as invalid under the Federal Constitution.
The State Supreme Court denied certiorari, 246 Ala. 539, 21 So. 2d
564.

															MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

															In this case, we are asked to decide whether a State,
consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, can impose
criminal punishment on a person who undertakes to distribute
religious literature on the premises of a company-owned town
contrary to the wishes of the town's management. The town, a suburb
of Mobile, Alabama, known as Chickasaw, is owned by the Gulf
Shipbuilding Corporation. Except for that, it has all the
characteristics of any other American town. The property consists
of residential buildings, streets, a system of sewers, a sewage
disposal plant, and a "business block" on which business places are
situated. A deputy of the Mobile County Sheriff, paid by the
company, serves as the town's policeman. Merchants and service
establishments have rented the stores and business places on the
business block, and Page 326 U. S. 503 the United States uses one of the places as a post office, from
which six carriers deliver mail to the people of Chickasaw and the
adjacent area. The town and the surrounding neighborhood, which
cannot be distinguished from the Gulf property by anyone not
familiar with the property lines, are thickly settled, and,
according to all indications, the residents use the business block
as their regular shopping center. To do so, they now, as they have
for many years, make use of a company-owned paved street and
sidewalk located alongside the store fronts in order to enter and
leave the stores and the post office. Intersecting company-owned
roads at each end of the business block lead into a four-lane
public highway which runs parallel to the business block at a
distance of thirty feet. There is nothing to stop highway traffic
from coming onto the business block, and, upon arrival, a traveler
may make free use of the facilities available there. In short, the
town and its shopping district are accessible to and freely used by
the public in general, and there is nothing to distinguish them
from any other town and shopping center except the fact that the
title to the property belongs to a private corporation.

															Appellant, a Jehovah's Witness, came onto the sidewalk we have
just described, stood near the post office, and undertook to
distribute religious literature. In the stores the corporation had
posted a notice which read as follows:

															"This Is Private Property, and Without Written Permission, No
Street, or House Vendor, Agent or Solicitation of Any Kind Will Be
Permitted."

															Appellant was warned that she could not distribute the
literature without a permit, and told that no permit would be
issued to her. She protested that the company rule could not be
constitutionally applied so as to prohibit her from distributing
religious writings. When she was asked to leave the sidewalk and
Chickasaw, she declined. The deputy sheriff arrested her, and she
was charged in the state court with violating Title Page 326 U. S. 504 14, § 426 of the 1940 Alabama Code, which makes it a crime to
enter or remain on the premises of another after having been warned
not to do so. Appellant contended that to construe the state
statute as applicable to her activities would abridge her right to
freedom of press and religion contrary to the First and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Constitution. This contention was rejected, and
she was convicted. The Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed the
conviction, holding that the statute, as applied, was
constitutional because the title to the sidewalk was in the
corporation and because the public use of the sidewalk had not been
such as to give rise to a presumption under Alabama law of its
irrevocable dedication to the public. 21 So. 2d 558. The State
Supreme Court denied certiorari, 246 Ala. 539, 21 So. 2d 564, and
the case is here on appeal under § 237(a) of the Judicial Code, 28
U.S.C. § 344(a).

															Had the title to Chickasaw belonged not to a private, but to a
municipal, corporation, and had appellant been arrested for
violating a municipal ordinance, rather than a ruling by those
appointed by the corporation to manage a company town, it would
have been clear that appellant's conviction must be reversed. Under
our decision in Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.
S. 444 , and others which have followed that case,
[ Footnote 1 ] neither a State
nor a municipality can completely bar the distribution of
literature containing religious or political ideas on its streets,
sidewalks and public places or make the right to distribute
dependent on a flat license tax or permit to be issued by an
official who could deny it at will. We have also held that an
ordinance completely prohibiting the dissemination of ideas on the
city streets cannot be justified on the ground that the Page 326 U. S. 505 municipality holds legal title to them. Jamison v.
Texas, 318 U. S. 413 . And
we have recognized that the preservation of a free society is so
far dependent upon the right of each individual citizen to receive
such literature as he himself might desire that a municipality
could not, without jeopardizing that vital individual freedom,
prohibit door to door distribution of literature. Martin v.
Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 , 319 U. S. 146 , 319 U. S. 147 .
From these decisions, it is clear that, had the people of Chickasaw
owned all the homes, and all the stores, and all the streets, and
all the sidewalks, all those owners together could not have set up
a municipal government with sufficient power to pass an ordinance
completely barring the distribution of religious literature. Our
question then narrows down to this: can those people who live in or
come to Chickasaw be denied freedom of press and religion simply
because a single company has legal title to all the town? For it is
the State's contention that the mere fact that all the property
interests in the town are held by a single company is enough to
give that company power, enforceable by a state statute, to abridge
these freedoms.

															We do not agree that the corporation's property interests settle
the question. [ Footnote 2 ] The
State urges, in effect, that Page 326 U. S. 506 the corporation's right to control the inhabitants of Chickasaw
is coextensive with the right of a homeowner to regulate the
conduct of his guests. We cannot accept that contention. Ownership
does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his
advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general,
the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and
constitutional rights of those who use it. Cf. Republic
Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U.
S. 793 , 324 U. S. 798 , 324 U. S. 802 ,
n. 8. Thus, the owners of privately held bridges, ferries,
turnpikes and railroads may not operate them as freely as a farmer
does his farm. Since these facilities are built and operated
primarily to benefit the public, and since their operation is
essentially a public function, it is subject to state regulation.
[ Footnote 3 ] And, though the
issue is not directly analogous to the one before us, we do want to
point out by way of illustration that such regulation may not
result in an operation of these facilities, even by privately owned
companies, which unconstitutionally interferes with and
discriminates against interstate commerce. Port Richmond Ferry
v. Hudson County, supra, 234 U.S. at 234 U. S. 326 ,
and cases cited, pp. 234 U. S.
328 -329; cf. South Carolina Highway Dept. v.
Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S. 177 . Had
the corporation here owned the segment of the four-lane highway
which runs parallel to the "business block" and operated the same
under a state franchise, doubtless no one would have seriously
contended that the corporation's property interest in the highway
gave it power to obstruct through traffic or to discriminate
against interstate commerce. See Page 326 U. S. 507 County Commissioners v. Chandler, 96 U. S.
205 , 96 U. S. 208 ; Donovan v. Pennsylvania Co., supra, 199 U.S. at 199 U. S. 294 ; Covington Drawbridge Co. v.
Shepherd , 21 How. 112, 62 U. S. 125 .
And even had there been no express franchise, but mere acquiescence
by the State in the corporation's use of its property as a segment
of the four-lane highway, operation of all the highway, including
the segment owned by the corporation, would still have been
performance of a public function, and discrimination would
certainly have been illegal. [ Footnote 4 ]

															We do not think it makes any significant constitutional
difference as to the relationship between the rights of the owner
and those of the public that here the State, instead of permitting
the corporation to operate a highway, permitted it to use its
property as a town, operate a "business block" in the town, and a
street and sidewalk on that business block. Cf. Barney v.
Keokuk, 94 U. S. 324 , 94 U. S. 340 .
Whether a corporation or a municipality owns or possesses the town,
the public in either case has an identical interest in the
functioning of the community in such manner that the channels of
communication remain free. As we Page 326 U. S. 508 have heretofore stated, the town of Chickasaw does not function
differently from any other town. The "business block" serves as the
community shopping center, and is freely accessible and open to the
people in the area and those passing through. The managers
appointed by the corporation cannot curtail the liberty of press
and religion of these people consistently with the purposes of the
Constitutional guarantees, and a state statute, as the one here
involved, which enforces such action by criminally punishing those
who attempt to distribute religious literature clearly violates the
First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

															Many people in the United States live in company-owned towns.
[ Footnote 5 ] These people, just
as residents of municipalities, are free citizens of their State
and country. Just as all other citizens, they must make decisions
which affect the welfare of community and nation. To act as good
citizens, they must be informed. In order to enable them to be
properly informed, their information must be uncensored. There is
no more reason for depriving these people of the liberties
guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Page 326 U. S. 509 Amendments than there is for curtailing these freedoms with
respect to any other citizen. [ Footnote 6 ]

															When we balance the Constitutional rights of owners of property
against those of the people to enjoy freedom of press and religion,
as we must here, we remain mindful of the fact that the latter
occupy a preferred position. [ Footnote 7 ] As we have stated before, the right to
exercise the liberties safeguarded by the First Amendment "lies at
the foundation of free government by free men," and we must in all
cases "weigh the circumstances and . . . appraise the . . . reasons
. . . in support of the regulation . . . of the rights." Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 , 308 U. S. 161 .
In our view, the circumstance that the property rights to the
premises where the deprivation of liberty, here involved, took
place were held by others than the public is not sufficient to
justify the State's permitting a corporation to govern a community
of citizens so as to restrict their fundamental liberties and the
enforcement of such restraint by the application of a state
statute. Insofar as the State has attempted to impose criminal
punishment on appellant for undertaking to distribute religious
literature in a company town, its action cannot stand. The case is
reversed, Page 326 U. S. 510 and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent
with this opinion. Reversed and remanded. MR. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.

															[ Footnote 1 ] Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 ; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 ; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 ;
dissent of Chief Justice Stone in Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 584 , 316 U. S. 600 ,
adopted as the opinion of the Court, 319 U. S. 319 U.S.
103; Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418 ; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105 ; Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573 .

															[ Footnote 2 ]

															We do not question the state court's determination of the issue
of "dedication." That determination means that the corporation
could, if it so desired, entirely close the sidewalk and the town
to the public, and is decisive of all questions of state law which
depend on the owner's being estopped to reclaim possession of, and
the public's holding the title to, or having received an
irrevocable easement in, the premises. Demopolis v. Webb, 87 Ala. 659, 6 So. 408; Hamilton v. Town of Warrior, 215
Ala. 670, 112 So. 136; Town of Leeds v. Sharp, 218 Ala.
403, 405, 118 So. 572; Forney v. Calhoun County, 84 Ala.
215, 4 So. 153; Cloverdale Homes v. Cloverdale, 182 Ala.
419, 62 So. 712. The "dedication" of a road to the public may also
be decisive of whether, under Alabama law, obstructing the road
constitutes a crime, Beverly v. State, 28 Ala.App. 451,
185 So. 768, and whether certain action on or near the road amounts
to a tort. Thrasher v. Burr, 202 Ala. 307, 80 So. 372. But
determination of the issue of "dedication" does not decide the
question under the Federal Constitution here involved.

															[ Footnote 3 ] Clark's Ferry Bridge Co. v. Public Service Commission, 291 U. S. 227 ; American Toll Bridge Co. v. Railroad Commission, 307 U. S. 486 ; Mills v. St. Clair
County , 8 How. 569, 581; Port Richmond Ferry v.
Hudson County, 234 U. S. 317 , 234 U. S. 327 , 234 U. S.
331 -332; Covington & L. Turnpike Road Co. v.
Sandford, 164 U. S. 578 ; Norfolk & S. Turnpike Co. v. Virginia, 225 U.
S. 264 ; Donovan v. Pennsylvania Co., 199 U. S. 279 , and
cases cited on pp. 199 U. S.
293 -295.

															[ Footnote 4 ]

															And certainly the corporation can no more deprive people of
freedom of press and religion than it can discriminate against
commerce. In his dissenting opinion in Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 584 , 316 U. S. 600 ,
which later was adopted as the opinion of the Court, 319 U. S. 319 U.S.
103, 319 U. S. 104 ,
Mr. Chief Justice Stone made the following pertinent statement:

															"Freedom of press and religion, explicitly guaranteed by the
Constitution, must at least be entitled to the same freedom from
burdensome taxation which it has been thought that the more general
phraseology of the commerce clause has extended to interstate
commerce. Whatever doubts may be entertained as to this Courts
function to relieve, unaided by Congressional legislation, from
burdensome taxation under the commerce clause, see Gwin, White
& Prince v. Henneford, 305 U. S. 434 , 305 U. S.
441 , 305 U. S. 446 -55; McCarroll v. Dixie Lines, 309 U. S.
176 , 309 U. S. 184 -85, it cannot
be thought that that function is wanting under the explicit
guaranties of freedom of speech, press and religion."

															316 U.S. at 316 U. S.
610 -11.

															[ Footnote 5 ]

															In the bituminous coal industry alone, approximately one-half of
the miners in the United States lived in company-owned houses in
the period from 1922-23. The percentage varied from 9 percent in
Illinois and Indiana and 64 percent in Kentucky, to almost 80
percent in West Virginia. U.S. Coal Commission, Report, 1925, Part
III, pp. 1467, 1469 summarized in Morris, The Plight of the Coal
Miner, Philadelphia 1934, Ch. VI, p. 86. The most recent statistics
we found available are in Magnusson, Housing by Employers in the
United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 263 (Misc.
Ser.) p. 11. See also United States Department of Labor,
Wage and Hour Division, Data on Pay Roll Deductions, Union
Manufacturing Company, Union Point, Georgia, June, 1941; Rhyne,
Some Southern Cotton Mill Workers and Their Villages, Chapel Hill,
1930 (Study completed under the direction of the Institute for
Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina);
Comment, Urban Redevelopment, 54 Yale L.J. 116.

															[ Footnote 6 ]

															As to the suppression of civil liberties in company towns and
the need of those who live there for Constitutional protection, see the summary of facts aired before the Senate Committee
on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of
Labor, Hearings pursuant to S.Res. 266, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., 1937,
summarized in Bowden, Freedom for Wage Earners, Annals of The
American Academy of Political and Social Science, Nov.1938, p. 185;
Z. Chafee, The Inquiring Mind (New York, 1928), pp. 173-174;
Pamphlet published in 1923 by the Bituminous Operators' Special
Committee under the title The Company Town; U.S. Coal Commission,
Report, supra, Part III, p. 1331.

															[ Footnote 7 ] Jones v. Opelika, supra, 316 U.S. at 316 U. S. 608 ; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, supra, 319 U.S. at 319 U. S. 115 ; Follett v. McCormick, supra, 321 U.S. at 321 U. S.
577 .

															MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, concurring.

															So long as the views which prevailed in Jones v.
Opelika, 319 U. S. 103 , in
connection with 316 U. S. 316 U.S.
584, 316 U. S. 600 ; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105 ; Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 ,
express the law of the Constitution, I am unable to find legal
significance in the fact that a town in which the Constitutional
freedoms of religion and speech are invoked happens to be
company-owned. These decisions accorded the purveyors of ideas,
religious or otherwise, "a preferred position," Murdock v.
Pennsylvania, supra, at 319 U. S. 115 ,
even to the extent of relieving them from an unhampering and
nondiscriminatory duty of bearing their share of the cost of
maintaining the peace and the other amenities of a civilized
society. Constitutional privileges having such a reach ought not to
depend upon a State court's notion of the extent of "dedication" of
private property to public purposes. Local determinations of such
technical matters govern controversies affecting property. But when
decisions by State courts involving local matters are so interwoven
with the decision of the question of Constitutional rights that one
necessarily involves the other, State determination of local
questions cannot control the Federal Constitutional right.

															A company-owned town gives rise to a network of property
relations. As to these, the judicial organ of a State has the final
say. But a company-owned town is a town. In its community aspects,
it does not differ from other towns. These community aspects are
decisive in Page 326 U. S. 511 adjusting the relations now before us, and more particularly in
adjudicating the clash of freedoms which the Bill of Rights was
designed to resolve the freedom of the community to regulate its
life and the freedom of the individual to exercise his religion and
to disseminate his ideas. Title to property, as defined by State
law, controls property relations; it cannot control issues of civil
liberties which arise precisely because a company town is a town,
as well as a congeries of property relations. And similarly, the
technical distinctions on which a finding of "trespass" so often
depends are too tenuous to control decision regarding the scope of
the vital liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

															Accordingly, as I have already indicated, so long as the scope
of the guarantees of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, by absorption of the First, remains that which the Court
gave to it in the series of cases in the October Term, 1942, the
circumstances of the present case seem to me clearly to fall within
it. And so I agree with the opinion of the Court, except that
portion of it which relies on arguments drawn from the restrictions
which the Commerce Clause imposes on State regulation of commerce.
It does not seem to me to further Constitutional analysis to seek
help for the solution of the delicate problems arising under the
First Amendment from the very different order of problems which the
Commerce Clause presents. The latter involves an accommodation
between National and State powers operating in the same field.
Where the First Amendment applies, it is a denial of all
governmental power in our Federal system.

															MR. JUSTICE REED, dissenting.

															Former decisions of this Court have interpreted generously the
Constitutional rights of people in this land to Page 326 U. S. 512 exercise freedom of religion, of speech and of the press.
[ Footnote 2/1 ] It has never been
held, and is not now by this opinion of the Court, that these
rights are absolute and unlimited, either in respect to the manner
or the place of their exercise. [ Footnote 2/2 ] What the present decision establishes as a
principle is that one may remain on private property against the
will of the owner and contrary to the law of the state so long as
the only objection to his presence is that he is exercising an
asserted right to spread there his religious views. See Marrone
v. Washington Jockey Club, 227 U. S. 633 .
This is the first case to extend by law the privilege of religious
exercises beyond public places or to private places without the
assent of the owner. Compare Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 .

															As the rule now announced permits this intrusion, without
possibility of protection of the property by law, and apparently is
equally applicable to the freedom of speech and the press, it seems
appropriate to express a dissent to this, to us, novel
Constitutional doctrine. Of course, such principle may subsequently
be restricted by this Court to the precise facts of this case --
that is to private property in a company town where the owner, for
his own advantage, has permitted a restricted public use by his
licensees and invitees. Such distinctions are of degree. and
require new arbitrary lines, judicially drawn, instead of those
hitherto established by legislation and precedent. While the
power Page 326 U. S. 513 of this Court, as the interpreter of the Constitution, to
determine what use of real property by the owner makes that
property subject, at will, to the reasonable practice of religious
exercises by strangers, cannot be doubted, we find nothing in the
principles of the First Amendment, adopted now into the Fourteenth,
which justifies their application to the facts of this case.
[ Footnote 2/3 ]

															Both Federal and Alabama law permit, so far as we are aware,
company towns. By that, we mean an area occupied by numerous
houses, connected by passways, fenced or not, as the owners may
choose. These communities may be essential to furnish proper and
convenient living conditions for employees on isolated operations
in lumbering, mining, production of high explosives and large-scale
farming. The restrictions imposed by the owners upon the occupants
are sometimes galling to the employees, and may appear unreasonable
to outsiders. Unless they fall under the prohibition of some legal
rule, however, they are a matter for adjustment between owner and
licensee, or by appropriate legislation. Compare Western Turf
Assn. v. Greenberg, 204 U. S. 359 .

															Alabama has a statute generally applicable to all privately
owned premises. It is Title 14, § 426, Alabama Code 1940, which, so
far as pertinent, reads as follows:

															"Trespass after warning. -- Any person who, without legal cause
or good excuse, enters into the dwelling house or on the premises
of another, after having been warned, within six months preceding,
not to do so; or any person, who, having entered into the dwelling
house or on the premises of another without having been warned
within six months not to do so, and fails or refuses, without
legal Page 326 U. S. 514 cause or good excuse, to leave immediately on being ordered or
requested to do so by the person in possession, his agent or
representative, shall, on conviction, be fined not more than one
hundred dollars, and may also be imprisoned in the county jail, or
sentenced to hard labor for the county, for not more than three
months."

															Appellant was distributing religious pamphlets on a privately
owned passway or sidewalk thirty feet removed from a public highway
of the State of Alabama, and remained on these private premises
after an authorized order to get off. We do not understand from the
record that there was objection to appellant's use of the nearby
public highway, and, under our decisions, she could rightfully have
continued her activities a few feet from the spot she insisted upon
using. An owner of property may very well have been willing for the
public to use the private passway for business purposes and yet
have been unwilling to furnish space for street trades or a
location for the practice of religious exhortations by itinerants.
The passway here in question was not put to any different use than
other private passways that lead to privately owned areas,
amusement places, resort hotels or other businesses. There had been
no dedication of the sidewalk to the public use, express or
implied. Alabama so decided, and we understand that this Court
accepts that conclusion. Alabama, also, decided that appellant
violated by her activities the above-quoted state statute.

															The Court calls attention to the fact that the owners of public
utilities, bridges, ferries, turnpikes and railroads are subject to
state regulation of rates, and are forbidden to discriminate
against interstate commerce. This is quite true, but we doubt if
the Court means to imply that the property of these utilities may
be utilized, against the companies' wishes, for religious exercises
of the kind in question. Page 326 U. S. 515 A state does have the moral duty of furnishing the opportunity
for information, education and religious enlightenment to its
inhabitants, including those who live in company towns, but it has
not heretofore been adjudged that it must commandeer, without
compensation, the private property of other citizens to carry out
that obligation. Heretofore, this Court has sustained the right of
employees, under an appropriate statute, protecting full freedom of
employee organization, to solicit union membership in nonworking
time on the property of an employer and against his express
prohibition. This is because the prohibition is an impediment to
the right of organization which is protected by a statute which
governs a relation between employers and employees if and when the
latter are admitted to the employers' premises as licensees. It was
recognized in the opinion that the freedom of solicitation was the
result of a regulatory statute, and was not a Constitutional right. Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U.
S. 793 , 324 U. S. 803 . In the area which is covered by the guarantees of the First
Amendment, this Court has been careful to point out that the owner
of property may protect himself against the intrusion of strangers.
Although, in Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.
S. 141 , an ordinance forbidding the summonsing of the
occupants of a dwelling to receive handbills was held invalid
because in conflict with the freedom of speech and press, this
Court pointed out at page 319 U. S. 147 that, after warning, the property owner would be protected from
annoyance. [ Footnote 2/4 ] Page 326 U. S. 516 The very Alabama statute which is now held powerless to protect
the property of the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, after notice,
from this trespass was there cited, note 10, to show that it would
protect the householder, after notice. The right to communicate
ideas was expressed by us in Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413 , 318 U. S. 416 ,
as follows:

															"But one who is rightfully on a street which the state has left
open to the public carries with him there, as elsewhere, the
Constitutional right to express his views in an orderly
fashion."

															Our Constitution guarantees to every man the right to express
his views in an orderly fashion. An essential element of "orderly"
is that the man shall also have a right to use the place he chooses
for his exposition. The rights of the owner, which the Constitution
protects as well as the right of free speech, are not outweighed by
the interests of the trespasser, even though he trespasses in
behalf of religion or free speech. We cannot say that Jehovah's
Witnesses can claim the privilege of a license, which has never
been granted, to hold their meetings in other private places merely
because the owner has admitted the public to them for other limited
purposes. Even though we have reached the point where this Court is
required to force private owners to open their property for the
practice there of religious activities or propaganda
distasteful Page 326 U. S. 517 to the owner because of the public interest in freedom of speech
and religion, there is no need for the application of such a
doctrine here. Appellant, as we have said, was free to engage in
such practices on the public highways, without becoming a
trespasser on the company's property.

															The CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BURTON join in this
dissent.

															[ Footnote 2/1 ] Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444 ; Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 ; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 ; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 ;
dissent of Chief Justice Stone in Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 584 , 316 U. S. 600 ,
adopted as the opinion of the Court, 319 U. S. 319 U.S.
103; Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413 ; Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418 ; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105 ; Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 ; Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573 .

															[ Footnote 2/2 ] Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S.
47 ; Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.
S. 652 ; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.
S. 697 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.
S. 296 ; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 ; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 .

															[ Footnote 2/3 ]

															"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances."

															First Amendment to the Constitution.

															[ Footnote 2/4 ]

															"The dangers of distribution can so easily be controlled by
traditional legal methods, leaving to each householder the full
right to decide whether he will receive strangers as visitors, that
stringent prohibition can serve no purpose but that forbidden by
the Constitution, the naked restriction of the dissemination of
ideas."

															"Traditionally, the American law punishes persons who enter onto
the property of another after having been warned by the owner to
keep off. General trespass after warning statutes exist in at least
twenty states, while similar statutes of narrower scope are on the
books of at least twelve states more. We know of no state which, as
does the Struthers ordinance, in effect, makes a person a criminal
trespasser if he enters the property of another for an innocent
purpose without an explicit command from the owners to stay away.
The National Institute of Municipal Law Officers has proposed a
form of regulation to its member cities which would make it an
offense for any person to ring the bell of a householder who has
appropriately indicated that he is unwilling to be disturbed. This
or any similar regulation leaves the decision as to whether
distributers of literature may lawfully call at a home where it
belongs -- with the homeowner himself." Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 , 319 U. S.
147 -148.

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled that a state cannot punish someone for distributing religious literature on the sidewalk of a company-owned town, as it violates the freedom of religion and press guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court found that the town, Chickasaw, had all the characteristics of a regular town and was freely accessible to the public, so people living there had the same rights as residents of municipalities. The Court emphasized that the public has an interest in keeping the channels of communication free and that residents of company-owned towns are free citizens entitled to the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.