When the Nazis Came to Skokie
Freedom for Speech We Hate
Philippa Strum
184 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
Landmark Law Cases and American Society
Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-0940-6, $25.00
Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-0941-3, $12.95
HONORABLE MENTION: AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION'S 2000 SILVER
GAVEL AWARD
Recognizing outstanding efforts to foster public understanding
of the law
 In the Chicago suburb of Skokie,
one out of every six Jewish citizens in the late 1970s was a
survivor--or was directly related to a survivor--of the Holocaust.
These victims of terror had resettled in America expecting to
lead peaceful lives free from persecution. But their safe haven
was shattered when a neo-Nazi group announced its intention to
parade there in 1977. Philippa Strum's dramatic retelling of
the events in Skokie (and in the courts) shows why the case ignited
such enormous controversy and challenged our understanding of
and commitment to First Amendment values.
The debate was clear-cut: American Nazis claimed the right
of free speech while their Jewish "targets" claimed
the right to live without intimidation. The town, arguing that
the march would assault the sensibilities of its citizens and
spark violence, managed to win a court injunction against the
marchers. In response, the American Civil Liberties Union took
the case and successfully defended the Nazis' right to free speech.
Skokie had all the elements of a difficult case: a clash of
absolutes, prior restraint of speech, and heated public sentiment.
In recreating it, Strum presents a detailed account and analysis
of the legal proceedings as well as finely delineated portraits
of the protagonists: Frank Collin, National Socialist Party of
America leader and the son of a Jewish Holocaust survivor; Skokie
community leader Sol Goldstein, a Holocaust survivor who planned
a counterdemonstration against the Nazis; Skokie mayor Albert
Smith, who wanted only to protect his townspeople; and ACLU attorney
David Goldberger, caught in the ironic position of being a Jew
defending the rights of Nazis against fellow Jews. While the
ACLU did win the case, it was a costly victory--30,000 of its
members left the organization. And in the end, ironically, the
Nazis never did march in Skokie.
Forcefully argued, Strum's book shows that freedom of speech
must be defended even when the beneficiaries of that defense
are far from admirable individuals. It raises both constitutional
and moral issues critical to our understanding of free speech
and carries important lessons for current controversies over
hate speech on college campuses, inviting readers to think more
carefully about what the First Amendment really means.
"A meticulous and graceful narrative of one of the most
gripping free speech conflicts of modern times."--Rodney
A. Smolla, author of Free Speech in an Open Society
"Strum succeeds brilliantly in telling the two stories
of Skokie-the constitutional struggle over free speech and the
human agony and conflict that permeated it. In clear, rigorous,
and vivid prose, she recreates the legal and political culture
when the case arose in the 1970s and then shows how more recent
intellectual theories bear on what happened. A simply wonderful
book."--Norman Dorsen, Stokes Professor, NYU, and
president, ACLU, 1976–1991
"Strum paints a remarkably complete picture of the entire
Skokie controversy and helps put the debate over the First Amendment
protection for 'hate speech' into meaningful perspective."--David
Goldberger, Ohio State University College of Law professor
and former ACLU attorney for Frank Collin and the National Socialist
Party of America
"A book that students will read eagerly and that teachers
will find a pleasure to use."--Melvin I. Urofsky,
author of Affirmative Action on Trial: Sex Discrimination
in Johnson v. Santa Clara
PHILIPPA STRUM, professor of political science at the
City University of New York–Brooklyn College and The Graduate
Center, is author of numerous books, including Brandeis:
Beyond Progressivism, Brandeis on Democracy,
Louis D. Brandeis: Justice for the People, The Supreme Court
and "Political Questions," and Presidential
Power and American Democracy.
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