Background
Five African American college students went to a department store in Columbia, South Carolina, and sat down at its lunch counter and waited for service. The department store allowed persons of all races to use all facilities except for the lunch counter, which served whites only. The store manager has arranged for police to be present for any sit-in demonstrators, and then, consistent with the restaurant's policy of refusing service to blacks, the restaurant manager requested the persons to leave. When they refused, they were arrested for breach of peace and criminal trespass. At trial the defendants their arrest, prosecution, and conviction by the state for requesting service at a restaurant that refused service to African Americans would violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court convicted the students, and the Supreme Court of South Carolina affirmed in an unreported decision.
Read more about this topic: Barr V. City Of Columbia
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)