## Facts

- Members of a Black Muslim group formed Progressive Land Developers, Inc. to buy rural Alabama land and operate farms supplying food to Black Muslims in cities.
- After two large land purchases, local residents and organizations organized opposition, including public meetings, petitions, boycotts, and legal actions intended to stop the project and force plaintiffs out.
- Plaintiffs alleged a coordinated pattern of intimidation by private actors and state and local officials.
- Some plaintiffs were arrested under Alabama statutes that required members of specified ideological or religious groups to register with the Department of Public Safety, including a provision requiring “communists, Nazis, and Muslims” to register within 24 hours and provide information demanded by the Department; the law did not define “Muslim.”
- Plaintiffs alleged officials and private parties used the criminal statutes, state-court trespass suits, and actions tied to a legislative “peace” commission as tools to suppress protected religious, associational, and property-related activity.
- Plaintiffs filed a federal class action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under multiple civil-rights statutes and constitutional amendments; a TRO initially halted certain prosecutions.

## Issues

1. Whether Alabama’s registration and “unlawful organization” criminal provisions were unconstitutional on their face or as applied under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
2. Whether the legislative resolution and related state investigative activities violated constitutional protections by contributing to intimidation of protected speech, association, and religious exercise.
3. Whether the arrests, prosecutions, and related civil actions amounted to unconstitutional harassment interfering with federal statutory rights to contract and property and with First Amendment freedoms.

## Decision

- The three-judge district court granted declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of the challenged registration and related provisions as applied to plaintiffs and, in relevant respects, on their face.
- The court held the “communists, Nazis, and Muslims” registration requirement imposed discriminatory burdens on protected association and religious exercise and chilled First Amendment activity.
- The court concluded the undefined “Muslim” classification and the broad disclosure demands created unconstitutional vagueness and invited arbitrary, discriminatory enforcement.
- The court enjoined state officials from using the unconstitutional provisions to prosecute or otherwise harass plaintiffs.
- The court determined that state investigative activity could not be used to pressure or suppress lawful religious association and property ownership.

## Legal Principles

- The First Amendment, applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits state action that targets or chills protected speech, association, or free exercise of religion.
- Laws regulating expressive or associational activity are invalid when vague enough to confer uncontrolled enforcement discretion, especially when directed at religious affiliation.
- Statutory schemes that single out disfavored ideological or religious groups for registration and compelled disclosure are constitutionally suspect and may be enjoined when they deter protected activity.
- State enforcement and investigative mechanisms may not be used as instruments of intimidation against unpopular religious or racial minorities engaging in lawful activity.
- Federal civil-rights statutes protecting equal property and contract rights support injunctive relief when official conduct and coordinated private action interfere with those rights on discriminatory grounds.

## Conclusion

The court barred Alabama from enforcing targeted registration and related “unlawful organization” provisions against the plaintiffs, holding that the laws’ discriminatory classifications and vagueness, together with their use in a broader intimidation campaign, violated First and Fourteenth Amendment protections and interfered with federally protected property and contract rights.


Wallace v. Brewer, 315 F. Supp. 431 (M.D. Ala. 1970)