It held that a state government cannot employ "breach of the peace" statutes against protesters engaging in peaceable demonstrations that may potentially incite violence.

The case arose after the picketing of a segregated restaurant on December 14, 1961, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, led to the arrest of 23 student protesters from Southern University, a black college.

Cox then gave a speech exhorting the protesters that upon departure from the courthouse, to proceed into downtown to sit at the segregated lunch counters, This caused "muttering" and "grumbling" in the gathering white crowd across the street.

[1] Cox was later acquitted of criminal conspiracy but convicted of the other three offenses and sentenced to a total of one year and nine months jail time and fined $5,700.

(Steel 1968) Largely for this reason, Southern African Americans much preferred arguing in front of federal courts, where they felt they had a greater chance of being judged fairly and according to the law.

(Vines 1965: 10) This caused much tension and strife within the respective Southern state or community and forced the Supreme Court to rule in response to the controversial issues of race and discrimination.

By late 1964, when the Supreme Court heard arguments in Cox v. Louisiana, demonstrations and protests marked a change in American society.

A film of the protest was a key piece of evidence, countering the State's claim that the singing from the jail turned the peaceful assembly into a riotous one; the judges watched it with rapt attention.