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.

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Most of the violence happened when residents, who had pelted the Nazi marchers with bottles and rocks, took their anger out on police, said chief news photographer for CNN affiliate WTVG Brian Jagodzinski.

Video around 2:25 p.m. showed crowds using bats to bring down a wooden fence, as looters broke into a small grocery store.

Around 3 p.m., crowds of young men pelted the outside of a two-story residence with rocks, smashed out the windows with wooden crates, ran inside and threw out the furniture and lamps from the upper level windows to the sidewalk below.

"The crowd was very...extremely agitated at the police... for doing this [making arrests in] the community when they should be doing this to the Nazis," Jagodzinski said.

Jagodzinski said his news van and a police car had windows smashed and doors bent back.