At the height of the Second Red Scare, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Communist Party USA leader under the Smith Act, deciding that membership in the party amounted to advocating the violent overthrow of the government. Just six years later, the Supreme Court reversed course. In this lesson, students contextualize two Supreme Court decisions and reason about why the Supreme Court changed its mind.
Arrest photograph of Eugene Dennis, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States. From the Wikimedia Commons.