[1] Social activists, including comedian Dick Gregory, protested against school segregation in Chicago, Illinois.

Twelve years earlier, in Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional.

The protesters marched from Chicago's city hall to the mayor's residence in the white neighborhood of Bridgeport.

[2] The protesters did not disperse and were consequently arrested, and subsequently convicted by a jury, of violating Chicago's disorderly conduct ordinance.

The US Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, overturned the conviction for several reasons: Justice Hugo Black, in a concurring opinion, argued that arresting demonstrators as a consequence of unruly behavior of bystanders would amount to a "heckler's veto.