[1][2] African-American students from Southern University sat at a whites-only segregated lunch bar at Sitman's Drugstore in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

[3] The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People defended the student demonstrators, and the Kennedy administration's Justice Department filed a legal brief on their behalf.

In his written opinion, Justice John Marshall Harlan likened sit-in demonstrations to verbal expression as a form of free speech.

Yet if all constitutional questions are to be put aside and the problem treated merely in terms of disturbing the peace, I would have difficulty in reversing these judgments.

Eventually, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce."